Forget the Turkey, Let's Get to the Pie!

I was 14 when I realized one of my missions in life. It was the eighth grade, and for some reason I cannot explain, I began developing out of my awkward shy stage and accumulating social skills with one rather unusual conversation starter. I would go up to members of my class, my church group, or really anyone and say;

"So, what's your favourite kind of pie?"

The overwhelming majority was apple, which I thought left a lot to be desired in terms of originality.

It wasn't until grade 11, that my next notable encounter occurred. In an attempt to to get the students of Bowness High School more prepared for the greater world and capable of human speech in front of a crowd, the social department decided to host a speech contest for all the Social 20 classes that semester. My teacher, Mr. Campbell explained it as follows:

• A speech could be given about any topic, so long as it was a persuasive speech.
• We would all perform said speeches for the class before three finalists would be chosen to go to the school-wide match.
• The winner would be given a pie.

A PIE?! I looked up from the French Revolution project I had been working on while listening to Mr. Campbell's announcements. The winner would get a pie? Now I was motivated. Thankfully, before I could spread the good news of this misunderstanding, Mr. Campbell corrected me. "No, Elena, you will not get a pie. You will get a plaque."

Dearie me, how boring. A pie would have been much better motivation. But the idea stuck with me, so much so that when I was writing my speech and brainstorming all the topics I could speak on to make myself sound intelligent, I felt it was instead my duty to speak on why pie was the greatest dessert, and would have made a much better motivator for this contest.

I gave my speech, and was sent to the school finals. My friend Kellee was so moved by my speech she brought a pie to celebrate my birthday a few days later. She put candles in it and everything.

That speech set my role in stone. I was known for the duration of my high school life as "The Pie Girl," and after I had professed my love for the dessert in public like that, my family immediately concluded that I must want to make pies for them forever. Guess what I do every Thanksgiving now?

This year, when my parents announced that they were running away for Thanksgiving and leaving their children turkeyless and alone, I was distraught. I'd been having visions of cherries with a lattice top for weeks, I was going to make my own lemon curd, how could they do this to me?!

Janine and I originally made plans for our own thanksgiving, where she would find a smaller bird to stuff and I would blow the wad on pies. But without a working dishwasher, this plan was quickly discarded in the face of an invite to another family's Sunday dinner.

I still needed to make my pies, so on Saturday evening, Adi came over and we made pies. My Thanksgiving is considered adequate.

We didn't have a pie extravaganza, we made two; a lemon meringue, and the apple pictured above. Most of all it was a rewarding experience because Adi has never made pie before. We had a riot and our pies weren't even that bad.

Still, I feel the need for a blowout. Thank goodness we are celebrating American Thanksgiving, so I can try my planned lattice top.