Audra’s Pie Adventure
“My granddaughter Audra came to California to visit us last year. Since we’re so far away from her Arizona home, we’ve had limited time to get to know each other; this would be her first time flying to California by herself at age 7. It was scary for all the adults, but Audra was just flat-out EXCITED.
“I’d just started a new job before Audra’s visit — between that and my anticipation of my granddaughter’s arrival, the excitement was almost too much! We talked on the phone so many times in the weeks preceding the trip that the phone conversations became bonding time in and of themselves. I learned how interested she was in Nature and science (and the Discovery Channel), and how she could talk a-mile-a-minute on just about any subject.
“One thing we planned to do while she was here was to visit Earthbound Farm’s Carmel Valley Farm Stand for the Bug Walk. Audra was fascinated by everything Farmer Mark had to say; she’d never seen produce growing in the field, or snails and slugs crawling on leaves (they don’t have them in Arizona). But when the time came, she absolutely would not touch the ladybugs — no way no how, nope, nope, nope!!
“Later, we picked out our Halloween pumpkins. We found the perfect jack-o’-lanterns for each of us, but the real treasures were the baking pumpkins! You see, Audra LOVED pumpkin pie (which I’d learned from our phone conversations). She had no idea about the reality of turning a pumpkin into a pie; pumpkin came out of a can when you made ‘punkin’ pie, right? She’d never experienced the process.
“The next day, we started those pies. We looked up the recipe and wrote the shopping list for the store — a very challenging job when you’re seven! But Audra was so excited to FINALLY be making the pies that we flew through the store and checkout in 10 minutes.
“We scrubbed the outside of the pumpkins and split them open, scooping out the seeds and marveling at how great they were going to taste when we roasted them. We had to cook the pumpkins in two batches because we had so many!
“After all the baking and mashing and scooping, we had what looked like orange mashed potatoes. With careful measuring, and some quick education about fractions, we assembled all the ingredients (and made sure to put love into the batch as well). We poured the mixture into the pie shells, carefully placed the pies into the hot oven, and set the timer for 45 minutes.
“We watched the pies anxiously, and when the timer finally went off — a whole lifetime later, according to Audra — they were ready. Slight jiggle in the center, golden-brown edges, beautiful glossy top. The aroma was so tantalizing we had to go back to the instructions and confirm that yes, you really did have to wait for the pie to cool before you could eat it! (We ended up putting the pies in the fridge so they would hurry up and cool.)
“At last the waiting was over. Time for Audra to serve her pie, cutting the one pie into three HUGE pieces for Papa, Nana, and herself. We all sat down to eat the best ‘punkin’ pie ever in the whole wide world… before dinner!”
