Happy Thanksgiving!
Pumpkin Pie
I feel this is a good day to dip my toe back into the substack world and be in touch with my loyal readers and welcome new ones, how ever you managed to sign up. I give thanks for you all and hope you stick around if you like what you read. If you are wondering if I worked out what to focus on here those of you who know me will not be surprised to know that I have not, and those who don’t, you will get used to this, or not.
I have much to be thankful for, but I am not Pollyanna and I don’t feel the need to spin bad, sad or disappointing events into something shiny and positive. I mean, just for e.g. the US election and terrifying prospect of a giant, angry, uncoordinated toddler in charge of a large part of our burning/drowning planet, self important, strutting men at war games, religious leaders crashing off pedestals all over the place, like Catholic statuary in the time of Henry VIII.
Talking of Henry VIII, he was also, in part, responsible for what is now a major American holiday, Thanksgiving (nowadays one word, I know not why), held on the last Thursday of November every year. After the reformation in 1536 the 95 Catholic holy days, where church attendance was mandatory and work was banned, was reduced to 27, and then renamed, with pressure from those joy suckers the Puritans, as days of fasting or days of thanksgiving, depending on if things were going really badly (think plagues etc) or swimmingly (think victory over the Spanish armada). * Perhaps being made to go to church and not being allowed to work was not as much fun as the Puritans must have thought, as no work meant no money (no holiday pay in them days) and church wasn’t exactly a laugh a minute, but I am sure they found fasting and giving thanks in their own sour way was much better.
* reference the Bodleian Library & Wolf Hall
What is now this annual thanksgiving holiday tradition in North American was documented for the first time in 1619, but of course there are many claims by many different factions as to the true story of that first thanksgiving, probably as many as there are different versions of the ‘true’ church in North America. It is in the good old tradition of harvest festivals, giving thanks for a good harvest and therefore food security for the coming winter. This feels relevant to me, particularly in this very unstable time - although perhaps it’s more of a hoping than a thanking.
Black Friday, which is an absurdity that once again we here in our British wisdom have adopted with gusto, started out as a reference to financial calamities as far back as 1869, and workforce absenteeism post thanksgiving. Now it is seen as the beginning of the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy which it seems only John Lewis can calm.
My beloved and I will spending Christmas with little sister and her family (which includes a baby! who doesn’t love a baby at Christmas? only grinches) where we are not doing secret santa, but ‘white elephant’ instead. I suspect they did not look up the actual meaning of that term before deciding upon it, but in this instance the idea is that we will each buy or make something, keeping costs under £15, and they will go into a lucky dip. I hope I don’t get my own gift. I expect that eventuality has been foreseen but either way I think this is an excellent plan and takes pressure off the list making and the purse.
* reference the Bodleian Library & Wolf Hall
I have only ever managed a full Thanksgiving dinner here once, despite the American husband. People here are less available on a Thursday, and doing it on any other day loses impact, in my mind anyway. But this year said husband is giving a talk, accompanied by music, at our local arts centre, entitled ‘America’s Next president - What Next?’. He will be giving some background and context to what the hell happened on November 5th (here of course we were celebrating the near blowing up of the House of Lords by Guy Fawkes who we ceremoniously burn every year for that, so you, we are morally superior etc), singing some songs with his History Boys & Gal, and eating pumpkin pie, because I have made one. I have never madly loved pumpkin pie, but I think that’s because I have only ever had the commercial, claggy, over sweet kind. I haven’t eaten my home made one yet but the mix certainly tasted pretty good, especially after adding a dash of bourbon.
I know it’s unlikely you will want to make one right now since the day is well on its way, but just in case here is the recipe.
Pumpkin Pie
Pastry for a 10” tart case (make your own or buy it ready made)
I pumpkin or squash - medium
1 cup double cream
2 tblsp butter, melted
⅔ cup soft brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
1 ½ tsp mixed spice
¼ tsp ground cloves
1 tblsp bourbon (optional)
Line the tart case with the pastry and blind bake it in a pre heated oven set at 160C fan/170C/gas 6, and set aside.
Peel, de-seed and cube the pumpkin, and bake in the oven until very soft but not brown.
Mash or blend the pumpkin until a smooth purée.
When cool add the mix to a large bowl, add all the other ingredients and whisk together well.
Pour the mix into the pastry shell and bake for 30-40 mins. Some recipes say there should still be a wobble when you take it out, but I have baked it to quite firm so it can be served more easily. I will let you know how it turns out later!
This pumpkin was bought from Glebelands Market Garden which I am lucky enough to live a few minutes walk from. Growers like this are what will make our country more secure. My niece started a growing project, Redlynch Community Patch, in Somerset which was devastated in the recent storm (Bert makes it sound cuddly - it wasn’t). They started a crowdfunder to fund the replacement poly tunnel and they are nearly at the goal amount only 4 days after setting it up. That is incredible and wonderful and absolutely means that humans are good and have vision and believe in food security and community. Please add a few quid if you can.
Today is the funeral of an old work buddy, family friend and significant part of a small part of my past, Matthew Pruen. Tomorrow is the funeral of a very old family friend, significant part of one of my brother’s life, John Dowling, who I have known since I was about three, our families growing up side by side in our Oswaldkirk homes. The filaments of intertwining lives, the memories attached, important and unimportant make a web we are all a part of. My day to day life will not change because of these deaths, but a part of me grieves deeply for these men, and for the parts of my life that they touched on.
Death seems to have crept into this year with an insistence that would be admirable in something a little more positive, and while I am all for discussing death more, and and understand that it’s coming for us all, swinging that bloody scythe, and me and the husband are checking the ice floes for possible ways out as when needed, I do wish it would lay off for a bit now.
To finish this post I am going to big up my husband, Russell Walker, who has completed 25 years with ‘our’ (as politicians insist on referring to it) NHS. He received a badge for this, which he calls a pin, and which when he first told me sounded like pen because he has a weird accent. My pride in him and his work knows no bounds, but I do feel that if they are going to mark 25 years it might have been with holiday in the Maldives for two, but the pin is very nice.
It is a nice pin, and would probably have been a nice pen but as we're squillions in the red in Hywel Dda, I'm settling for the small thing. Very excellent pumpkin pie, consumed by my lovely audience.
'Twas a lovely pumpkin pie!