Mmmmmmaple Walnut Pie

After having been shut out of buying Maple Walnut Pie for THREE years at the Craftsbury Antiques & Uniques Festival, at last I decided to make my own to bring to the Thanksgiving potluck.

I made Cream Cheese Pie Crust (mine was from the 1997 Joy of Cooking), which I'll immodestly admit was the best crust I've made ever. It turns out that following recipes can actually pay off. So much for my usual ADHD approach to baking.

It's hard to say just why Maple Walnut Pie is so much more delicious than my old favorite pecan pie, but it just is. Of course they're very similar, but the smoky maple taste and the slightly tannic, bitter walnuts of this one create a sort of accessible complexity that is just terrific. (The mini one in the picture, by the way, is one made with pumpkin seeds for my friend who's allergic to nuts. I would have pan-toasted the seeds first except it was Thanksgiving morning and there was zero chance of this level of attention to detail by then.)

It seemed the right thing to choose Yankee Magazine's recipe for such a Vermont-y seeming dessert, and I think I'll be making this often.

Will You Shut Up About Thanksgiving?

Here's the deal: Thanksgiving makes me hate food.

I'm sorry. It's curmudgeonly. But it's true. I hate the annual festival of NPR announcers promising upcoming segments about new ways to cook the bird, the cranberries, ensure the stuffing is moist, combine unlikely pie ingredients, all of it. I do not want to learn more about cunning table decorations or place markers or how to put flowers into eviscerated squash.

I know this is a particularly privileged position. I'm a more than capable cook from a family of foodies who lives in a tight-knit community of excellent cooks. Our gatherings are convivial and delicious, and I'm usually lucky enough to have multiple invitations and friends to visit and eat with.

But do we have to all act like a bunch of stupid damn goldfish every year, pretending that we've forgotten what works and what doesn't and that we've got to be the cleverest reinventers of everything autumnal?

Can't we just eat the damn bird/seitan with the f'ing potatoes how we like them and the pie and the stuffing with whatever it is it's supposed to have? Please?

That said, I'll admit that Ruth Reichl knocked my socks off with her Pumpkin-Cheese Fondue in this year's Gourmet, and so I attacked various squash and pumpkins left over from my CSA share and turned them into what my friend called "Cheese Bombs."

But then again, she's Ruth Reichl. Of course she knocks socks off. But the rest of 'em aren't and should just leave us alone.