If you’re celebrating tomorrow, I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday! We’ll be driving this year, to spend time with family in Idaho—I’m excited to see them (and the snow).
And I’m looking forward to slowing down to be mindful of all I have to be thankful for. The community that comes to read and discuss here is among those things. Thank you for reading—some of you for years, now!
I’ll be signing off for a bit, but back next week with holiday gift guides and more.
“About three years ago, I looked back on my own childhood, and I thought, what are some of the things that impressed me as a kid? What did my parents do that really shaped me? And I remembered: they had dinner parties. They’d invite their friends; there were lots of interesting conversations. As a kid, I wasn’t necessarily participating, but I was absorbing what was being talked about.
So I decided to do that for my daughter. I started with one dinner a month, and I invited people I admire, people who’ve done interesting things. A few months later, I asked her, ‘do you like having these parties?’ I wish you could have seen the look on her face. She said, ‘Mom, I love them.’”
Are you a fan of pumpkin pie? I am. When it’s good—creamy, not gelatinous, and balanced, not bland—it’s wonderful. But it can also be disappointingly boring, served with a crust that’s not worth the calories. If you haven’t found a favorite yet, I would urge you to keep looking. It seems like so many people have stories of “that one” that made them a convert.
For me, it was simply the practice of making one at home for the first time that convinced me. Even Martha says that canned pumpkin is as good as the real thing, so I assure you it had nothing to do with slow-roasting a pumpkin. But when you make the filling yourself, you get a chance to play with the spice ratio. I realized that, for me, I like to double nearly every spice on the Libby’s-can recipe (except for ginger). It’s also your chance to make sure your cinnamon, nutmeg, and so on, still have flavor—they do expire!
Still, the pumpkin pie I find myself thinking about time after time is the one Mary Rubin bakes at City Bakery in New York. It was served with a graham-cracker crust rather than a traditional pie crust, which just made so much sense to me!
So I was intrigued when Bella told me that her pumpkin pie, “that one,” is also served on a graham crust. In this case, it’s a pumpkin mousse pie—with heavy cream whipped into the filling.
If you’re still looking for the one, perhaps this is it? Find the full recipe on Ful-filled.
What desserts are tradition for you at the holidays?
P.S. Some other ideas for sweet things to make this Thanksgiving: The easiest, most decadent pumpkin-pie alternative; Honey Graham Hassleback apples; and a suggestion to consider pulling out your waffle maker to make the best buttermilk waffles (an iron doesn’t take up any space in the oven or the on the stove and you can top a waffle with cinnamon ice cream and candied pecans, or whatever you like) for dessert.
[Photos courtesy of Bella at Ful-filled, who contributed recipes this past month. If you have a delicious seasonal recipe to share (with mouth-watering photos), I’d love to hear from you! Email me or tag me on an Instagram @AshleyMuirBruhn]
