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Rochester Local

Please Don’t Make Me Eat Pumpkin Pie!

It’s Thanksgiving and you’ve just finished a lovely meal with family and friends. You’ve helped yourself to an extra serving of mashed potatoes and have occasionally pretended to be interested in whatever sporting event is on the TV in the background. Your belly is full; your heart is full.  You try to hold on to this feeling of contentment but sure enough your bubble is popped when it’s time for dessert and the single only option is… pumpkin pie.

For 95% percent of you, this is a joyous proclamation and a wonderful end to the meal. You love pumpkin pie. Pumpkin is your thing. Carry on, pumpkin lovers, and feel free to stop reading right now. This is your time and I’m not going to take those warm fuzzy feelings from you.

For the other 5% of us however, and especially those of us who live for sugar, this is a difficult moment. Surely there has to be another dessert option in this house, you reason as you start anxiously scanning the cupboards. A half-opened bag of chocolate chips? A sleeve of graham crackers somewhere?

Because to you, pumpkin pie is an imposter. Its texture is strange and its color is suspect.  No one is fooling you; that pie is made of a squash, which is a vegetable. (Or is it? A Google search informs me that squashes are fruits because they have seeds. Which means that green beans are fruits? And rhubarb is a vegetable? Is Pluto still a planet? I have so many questions).

Now, that pie could have been made with anything in it. Pecans are acceptable.  Chocolate comes to mind.  Apples are still plentiful this time of year.  Chocolate continues to be a solid choice. Literally any other thing. Yet here you are having to pretend that you enjoy eating a squash pie which has been baked to the consistency of baby food. Hiding your true self as your loved ones lick their plates in blissful ignorance. How complicated the holidays can become.

So to the 5%, here is what we do: we plan for this moment and we anticipate this moment and when Aunt June is about to present The Pie we say, oh no I’m good, and reach into our bags and pull out the tiny portable pot of crème brulee we’ve been saving for this very moment. And when someone says, wow, crème brulee, what a great idea, you say I KNOW RIGHT CAN WE START A NEW TRADITION. I’m sure the pilgrims carried tiny crème brulee torches over on the Mayflower so it’ll be an easy story to work around. Just don’t make us eat that veggie pie.

This post was originally published in 2017.

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