Pumpkin Custard

apple crisp, pumpkin pies, and pumpkin custard

I don't know how it started. Maybe once upon a time I made twice the amount of pie filling that I needed and because I didn't want to waste it, I had to do something with it. Hence, the tradition of pumpkin custard the night before Thanksgiving. The daughters and I are sitting on the couch with the Laker game on TV, each of us double-teaming with an additional device in our laps. C is reading about how to carve a turkey, M is playing some kind of game. We're eating pumpkin custard and talking about Giving Tuesday--which I have to admit I don't really know much about. Sometimes I get so lost in the day to day of life here in Pillville that I completely miss something that everyone else seems to have a working knowledge of.

Our dinner tomorrow will be our smallest Thanksgiving gathering ever. We'll all sit at one table, and mostly there will be one conversation going on, I'm guessing. That seems nice. I like small gatherings, as a rule. No pressure to mingle or figure out how to exit one conversation for another.
So, yeah, small seems good. My energy feels a little low. I forgot to put the brown sugar in the pumpkin pie filling and had to take them out of oven. C carefully stirred in the sugar and I think the pies are fine.

I had two mini-parties for my birthday. I liked that a lot too. The first one involved champagne and chocolate cake, the second a homemade cheese log and wine.

Whether your gathering is large or small, I hope the food and the company at your table are delightful.

We Gathered

And, of course, there was food, friends, and family.

And now that we live in Margaritaville, we inaugurated a new tradition of a Thanksgiving eve sunset trip to the beach before the longstanding practice of a super-easy dinner (pizza this year) followed by pumpkin custard.

But with the cranberry sauce already gone, my head is still digesting the conversation. There were plenty of things discussed. Family secrets, the landing of Curiosity on Mars. Classic movies, current movies, and James Bond movies. I think there was a weird joke or two about the Kardashians. And a long discussion of education in America, of the 60s assassinations, election fraud, and just about everything to do with the outcome of the recent election.

I had to do a little research this afternoon just to satisfy my whetted appetite. Here are some leftovers to chew on from The Atlantic Wire. Of course, maybe you already know all this--but I'll bet you're on your third piece of pumpkin pie right about now, so have some more of this, too. And there's more if you follow the link above. More! More pie! More!

Obama got 93 percent of black voters (representing 13 percent of the electorate), 71 percent of Latinos (representing 10 percent), and 60 percent of young voters. Thanks to the GOP's rape apologist caucus among other generally bad for women things, he also not too surprisingly won the female vote, getting 53 percent of women voters. But, other generalized groups of people went for the president that we wouldn't necessarily have expected to go for Obama.

I'm feeling so thankful that maybe I'll have an inauguration day party. I wonder if my friend Ellen could bring her fabulous wine jello and dye it blue.