This Thanksgiving note came in from the American side of the family early Thursday, as the US holiday was getting underway (photos may follow, if she can bear to send them). Names changed to protect the first-time-for-pie granny:

“I’m baking 2 pumpkin pies to take to Mark’s & Susan’s tomorrow night. Terry [daughter] couldn’t believe that I’ve never baked a pie in my life. I was going to buy these, but she convinced me that pumpkin pie is the easiest thing in the world to make, so I bought the stuff to make them. However, since I’m baking two, I have them staggered on two different oven racks, and thought it was a good idea to switch them halfway through.

“I managed to move the first one just fine, but when I got to the second one (full of very runny pumpkin filling), I dropped it onto the oven door and the entire filling and part of the crust ran all over the interior of the door.  So that involved a big cleanup. First I scraped most of it back into the pie (minus some crust); luckily the door was very clean! Then I decided it would be best to clean up the remainder, rather than let it bake onto the door and into all the cracks. So I spent quite a lot of time removing that (from a very hot door), then started baking again.

Who knows how this will all turn out?! No wonder I’ve always bought pies in the past.”