Pumpkin Pie

Making a pumpkin pie is something I have always wanted to do but, for some reason, never got around to doing.  Like a lot of things… So I finally got myself cranked and just did it and am I glad I did.  Now I know what a pumpkin pie is really like when it doesn’t come out of a can.  It is a multiphase project but each of the steps is simple when taken one at a time.  This is how I did it. 

First, steal a pumpkin (or two if they are small).  If you live someplace where people don’t decorate their houses with pumpkins for Halloween or Thanksgiving you might have to steal it from a grocery store and that could lead to jail time so I’d suggest you 1) take a trip out to the country and find one of those houses or 2) pay for it.  In my case I found three small pumpkins dumped in the woods across the street from one of my neighbor’s houses.  They were nestled in a bed of dry leaves just blown off the guys lawn so were protected from the recent frost and free of bruises or damage of any sort.  There are many fine pumpkins still sitting on porches all over the neighborhood and now that I know how good the pies turn out I might just go “stock up”.

Secondly, cut the pumpkins into big chunks and scrape out the seeds and stringy muck with a big ol’ spoon.  The seeds can be saved for toasting-yum!  Use the big ol’ spoon to gently push out and separate the seeds from the muck-- kinda like tiddly winks when they fly all over the kitchen.  Throw out the muck that looks like the red head’s hair on Desperate Housewives.   I put the seeds, unwashed, in an aluminum pie pan, and sprinkle a drop or three of olive oil and some Morton’s kosher salt.  Pop ‘em in the toaster oven and stir them every 3 or 4 minutes while they dry out and toast.  Keep a close eye on them and when the first one burns they are done!  Start eating them right away or you will have to fight for some when everyone else finds out you made them.

Thirdly, take the chunked pumpkin and put it in a caulender in a pot with some water and steam the chunks for about 25 or 30 minutes.  You’ll know they are done when a fork goes in really easy.  Let them cool while you drink coffee and eat the seeds and when coolish scrape the soft flesh out with the big ol’ spoon.  Mash up the flesh with a big ol’ spoon or a potato masher and 1) put in a container and save in the refrigerator (last a week plus or minus) 2)put in a container and save in the freezer for the middle of the winter when you are wasting away and starving for something good, 3) start making pies right away, which is what I did.

Beat 3 eggs, add ½ cup of whole milk or cream (if you are not scared of dying from thick blood or obesity), ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, salt (unless you are scared of dying from apoplexy in which case stop eating the seeds!).  I used fresh ginger which I shredded up with a zester and I threw in a little lemon zest as well.  Glad I did.  It doesn’t come through very strong in the final product but it really does spark up the recipe!  Mix the mess all together with the mashed pumpkin and pour it into a pie shell.  I cheated and used store-bought frozen shells ‘cause I suck at pastery.   Bake at 375 until the crust looks like it’s gonna burn if you don’t get it out of there.  (similar to the timing of the seeds.  Do you note a pattern in my technique?)  Let cool.  Start eating right away before the household finds out you made it and you have to fight for a piece!  (Note a pattern in my eating habits?)  Enjoy. 

You might want to share some with the neighbor--the one you stole the pumpkin from.  Maybe next year he will be bringing you some pie!

Bear Mountain/China Pier

The air was so fine and thin
up on Bear Mountain
I felt I could just walk off into the sky.
The day was so clear and cool
the breeze flowed like a stream
and the moss on the flat rocks
lay like a carpet
beneath my feet.

The stratocasters silky plumes
waved like Arabian fans
over a dozing baby
asleep in a hammock.
I brushed the dry lichen
from my hair
when I got up from the lawn
and climbed up
flights of concrete stairs
to the top of the overlook tower.
A map lay blooming
seventy five miles in all directions
I twirled
and became dizzy.
I have no right to want more from life
Today was a definition.
_______________________________

On the other hand

The China Pier rots.
Thick, lime water licks at the piles
bits of steel--integral bits
snagging the whole
clutching at the whole--
disintegrate.
The waving mass
undulates in the Hudson
like a jellified dead animal
it’s soul
anticipating burrial.

The China Pier cringes
in the white background sound
of the onslaught of the twentieth century.
It waits in a manicured frame
of lawn and brick
and wrought iron
beneath the power
of Indian Point--
Hogging up the sun
the huge utility lays a shaddow
over the water
flowing under China Pier.

Stars through the Blinds

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Lying in bed this morning I watched a star through the slats of the Venetian blinds. This is the same star (I assume it is a star but know nothing about the night sky-could be a planet or an alien space probe, I suppose!) I have watched on a couple of mornings recently. As I am not sleepy and lying in the same position, in the same bed, every morning about this time, I watch it “move upwards” past slat #4, then #5, then behind the leaves of a tree in the distance. The perspective of “stars” is such that it only takes a branch or a leaf down here on Earth to obliterate the “star” from view, even though the “star” itself is a scajillion times bigger than the leaf. It is so far away it can hide behind the leaf. And then it moves up towards slat #6. I know it is not the star that is moving. Again it is perspective that allows me to feel like it is the star that is moving, not the rotation of the Earth, which is actually what is happening. By the time it reaches slat #7 and has hidden behind several other leaves it is beginning to get light and I know, from other mornings observations, that I will loose the “star” entirely in a few minutes. The sun will obliterate it as it climbs out of its red bed and the sky becomes winter white.

In the last few minutes in bed I find myself mentally writing poems about the day and the light and the winter and the morning but, curiously, in a story within a story, I find I am writing a poem within a poem too. It is a haiku about the “star” It is about the Venetian blinds. Now that I am awake and I have had my coffee and toasted Sunday Bialy, the haiku eludes me. I can’t remember it now. I feel badly. Like I did something good but there is no record of it.

That is one of the nice things about photographs. When you see something that is worth recording you can capture it (hopefully with skill) right then and there. Perhaps I should put a camera on the bed stand and shoot from my pillow through the Venetian blinds? There is something that separates the photographer from the painter or the writer. The writer and the painter both have to capture the image in their brain and then transfer it to something concrete. The photographer (especially digital) has the luxury of capturing the moment directly-with no ‘middle man’ or memorization to delay the creation. No excuse though. If it is worth recording (film, canvas or keyboard) one must still get out from under the warm blankets and work for it.

Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow morning the poem will come back to me and I will get up and write it down.