great pumpkin

There are lots of reasons I love autumn, and one of them is pumpkin flavored things. Pie, beer, soup...yummy! In small doses and only once a year, of course. As Thanksgiving draws near it will most certainly be pie season.

I had a roommate who made a pumpkin pie one year and she wanted to use real pumpkin. She said she didn't want to use any of that canned junk. She emptied the pumpkin out, cut it, roasted it, scraped it, made a puree, etc. The pie was delicious! Only, all pumpkin pie is. See, the thing about the canned junk? It only has one ingredient: pumpkin. No salt, water, preservatives, artificial anything. In the end her pie tasted like one made from a can. I didn't tell her any of this.

I suppose that while the pie tasted the same as any other, it was special. It sticks out in my mind as a unique memory. I remember watching her do it and excited she was about it. And she probably saved a post-Halloween pumpkin from QFC's compost dumpster. Gay as it sounds, the secret ingredient in that pie was love.

So if you want to make a pie filling from scratch and tell people how you slaved over it for bonus points, it's pretty easy and tastes good. Or you could use a can and lie to people about it.