Thanksgiving Part Deux: Pain-in-the-A** Pumpkin Pie

And now, for the second pie I baked this Thanksgiving. A brilliant recipe for one of the most beloved of Thanksgiving desserts. But man, oh, man is this a complex pie to make. Which is why I dub this recipe, Pain-in-the-A** Pumpkin Pie. Is it worth it? Hale yes, this is one scrumdiddlyumptious pumpkin pie.

In spite of its nickname, I really did enjoy making this pie. It's a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, the most profound and informative cooking magazine in the world. Truly assiduous research and testing—all for the love of comfort foods, cookies, pies and desserts—along with editor and publisher Christopher Kimball's stirring monthly editorials that are like hymns to nature as well as great storytelling, make this publication an all-encompassing guidebook to cooking and to eating as a defining way of life.

But what really attracted me to this recipe were specific items on the ingredient list that seemed to pop off the page. For the filling: fresh ginger, maple syrup, candied yams. For the crust: cold vodka. I was intrigued to say the least. I was also feeling bored with Libby's pumpkin pie recipe which is also very good but this year I wanted something with a little more Thanksgiving muscle—and boy did I get it! The Cook's recipe is painstakingly designed to be rich in pumpkin flavor and silky and custardy in texture. It doesn't happen magically though. With this recipe, you really have to earn it.

After you finish making the dough, refrigerating the dough (for 45 min), and finally, rolling out the dough and placing and molding it into a pie plate, you have to stick it back in the fridge—plate and all—for another 15 minutes. After that, it needs to be pre-baked before the filling goes in. But, even the pre-baking isn't that simple. The dough-lined pie dish must be covered with foil and weighed down with weights, or as the recipe suggests, pennies. For me, the best part of this whole process was seeing my father's sheer bewilderment when he walked into the kitchen and found me arranging a pile of change onto a foil-covered pie dish, which I then proceeded to place in the oven.

The filling was even more complicated. There are two separate batches of ingredients to be combined, one of which—the yams, pumpkin and spices—is cooked over the stove for about 20 minutes. Once the cooked yam and pumpkin puree is combined with the heavy cream mixture, look out, the genius of this recipe becomes deliciously palpable. But the hard work isn't over yet. The mixture must be strained through a fine mesh strainer. I was so ready to skip this last step, but, obviously, it's crucial to the smooth, silky texture. Once that's finished, it gets poured into the crust and back in the oven it goes. Around 45 minutes later, cue the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, an amazing pumpkin pie is made! You just have to let it cool for 2 to 3 hours before eating it. Unless you're like me, and not good at waiting for pies to cool, then just serve it hot.

Thanksgiving Part I: Apple Pie—at Last!

Homemade desserts at the Thanksgiving table have a way of lighting up the room with their presence. Pies, especially, are like the candelabras of the soul. And with that said, I've finally found an apple pie recipe that I can wax rhapsodic about. It's a recipe I found in the Thanksgiving issue of Food & Wine, co-edited by Michael Symon and featuring an article with REM. Boy, I'd love to eat caramelized brussels sprouts in a beautiful rustic outdoor setting with Michael Stipe and Co. For a future issue, Food & Wine should do a Tea Time with Morrissey.

Back to Thanksgiving 2011. Here, without further ado, is a photo of the finished pie:

It's a little charred around the edges, I admit. I'm going to have to look into how to prevent that from happening. It can probably be prevented by covering the pie with aluminum foil until the last 15 minutes or so of baking. Oh well, maybe next time. What I loved about this pie is that the filling actually filled the pie! So, individual slices looked great on the plate. Also, the black edges didn't affect the flavor. To my great relief and extreme delight, it tasted like real apple pie, nothing more, nothing less.

I should also mention that I used different apples than what is recommended—the recipe calls for Pink Lady, Golden Delicious, Cortland or Jonathan but I used Granny Smith apples because they looked so bright green and pretty that I couldn't resist buying them. Each one looked just like this:

Consequently, the pie tasted a little tart the first day and necessitated ice cream—as does life in general. On the following day, the pie tasted much sweeter and didn't need ice cream at all. In other words, the ice cream only made it better.