The Great Pumpkin Fiasco That Could Have Been

"What, no pie!" cried my husband Dan.

I had just informed him that we would not be having pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Emmy, my father's wife, thought my contribution of Hello Dolly Cookie Bars would be sufficient in the dessert category.

"I always eat at least five or six pieces on Thanksgiving," he continued.

Let me remind you, faithful readers, that Dan is five-foot-ten and 135 pounds (dripping wet).

I e-mailed Emmy to tell her that she and I had been vetoed. I would bring Hello Dollies and a pumpkin pie.

I had a nice-sized pumpkin in my kitchen. I decided I would cook pumpkin pie for the first time with real pumpkin instead of with my old stand-by - canned pumpkin. And then I would blog about what it's like for a not-very-domestic, semi-unskilled cook to bake a pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin. I was sure it would prove to be hilarious. I could write about being grossed out by the stringy stuff that resembled brain dendrites or about attempting to toast the seeds and instead almost burning down my kitchen (which could easily have happened).

I cut out articles in my cooking magazines. (Even though I am a semi-unskilled cook, I still like to look at pictures of food.) I looked up "how to cook pumpkin" on the Internet. And I bought a can of pumpkin just in case my foray into cooking with real pumpkin went horribly wrong. That way, Dan would still be able to happily eat his annual five or six pieces of pie.

It was soon after my extensive research efforts that I discovered my fresh pumpkin had gone bad. Its bottom was squishy and moldy, even though the rest of our winter squash was still okay. Thinking I could still salvage my awesome blog topic, I went to the grocery in search of the last of the orange fall vegetable. I returned to my kitchen empty-handed. Apparently, pumpkins go bad earlier than other types of squash. I mentally kicked myself for not having pureed and frozen the fresh pumpkin earlier in the season.

So I used canned pumpkin after all, resulting in this not-so-awesome blogging attempt. I did add a little toasted coconut to the top of the pie, a unique twist to my typical made-from-the-can fare.

I could have attempted homemade crust; that would have probably resulted in tragedy and made for good blog material. Even my crusts-from-the-box baking is sketchy at best. During this latest endeavor, some of the crust broke off as I removed it from the oven, the edges shrunk and cracked more than I would have liked, and it looked a little browner than the beautiful, golden, flaky pictures on the box. In fact, I am looking at my pie right now and am slightly embarrassed at the sight of the crust.

"You can just break the edges off all the way around," Dan suggested. I should mention that he had preceded this statement with "It smells good in here," as he walked in the door from work.

"I already did that, kind of."

"We'll just tell them the crust broke off in the car. It probably would anyway on the two-hour drive," he said.

Then he reached for a Hello Dolly as I simultaneously slapped (I suppose "love-patted" would be a better way of saying it) his hand away.

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My Yankee Doodle Dandy Kids

I recently conducted the annual Veterans Day program at my elementary school. For about two months, I prepped my students. I taught patriotic song after patriotic song, trying to feign pride in a country with which, frankly, I have become more and more disillusioned, especially in regards to the wars America has "mongered" in recent years.

"Actually, the day is about the need for peace in our world and about those individuals who have made it possible for us to have a measure of peace, however imperfect it might be. Veterans Day is about honoring those who have expended themselves in time, energy, and blood for us," my father so eloquently wrote in an e-mail a few weeks ago.

So, I focused on the individuals, rather than on our government's foreign policy. And I discovered that Veterans Day hits very close to home with my students these days. Many of my students have family members - fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles - who have just returned from or are currently fighting overseas. In our audience alone on 11/11/11, we had veterans in attendance who had fought in World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

My 3rd and 4th grade performers hailed from all over the globe as well - India, Africa, the Middle East, Myanmar, Thailand.

"That is a good song!" one of my little girls from Africa exclaimed after singing "This Land is Your Land" one morning.

I found it prophetic that she would choose a song (that began as a slightly socialist anthem) that talked about providing a place for all people to live in equality as her favorite.

"My favorite is 'I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,'" I overheard one of my little boys from India tell his ELL teacher. And then he started to sing, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again . . ."

"When I watch my class sing, I keep wondering 'Which one of you is the Yankee Doodle Dandy?'" one of the third grade teachers told me, referring to the number of refugees and English-As-A-Second-Language students in her class. "And that's their favorite song!"

Though many of the 180 kids in my Veterans program were not "Yankees" by birth, by the end of that afternoon, they had truly become proud Americans, "however imperfect" they might later discover America to be. They filed onto the risers, clad in red, white, and blue, and sang their hearts out. They watched in reverence as the veterans stood and accepted thank you notes from one of the fourth grade helpers. They saluted the audience with gusto during the final song. Wasn't this the definition of "Yankee-hood," the essence of "The New Colossus?"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

"All those kids, they sang to us," one of the World War II veterans said to me afterward, tears in his eyes. "It was beautiful."

And it was. It was yet again a case of the students teaching the (jaded, cynical, disillusioned) music teacher.

Or, as I like to say to my kiddos from time to time, "The student has now become the master!"

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The Halloween Candy Dilemma

As my husband and I prepared for Halloween, I was consumed with a nagging sense of guilt that had been festering over the last few years.

My students get almost more excited about Halloween than they do about Christmas, all that frenzy over a pillowcase full of free sugar. On top of that, on Fridays at my school, the kids can buy popcorn, Popsicles, and - on special occasions - cotton candy. This year, the "special occasion" happened to fall on the Friday before Halloween - as if they weren't going to be eating enough junk already.

Of course, I suppose I contribute to this problem. I have a couple packages of Dum Dums and Smarties (notice the cute juxtaposition) hidden in my classroom for students who help me move instruments or risers around.

Our school also sponsors a special trick-or-treat night where the kids can parade through the school, after hours, in their costumes, while the teachers stand in front of their classrooms and pass out candy. It actually makes for a fun evening, and it's a great excuse to see the kids in their Halloween best. But it also means kids get two nights of trick-or-treating or, in other words, double the candy.

I started to reevaluate my feelings about handing out candy on Halloween. Plus, I was not happy with the Hershey Corporation's recent use of foreign student slave labor. How could Dan and I promote a healthy lifestyle and be socially responsible on Halloween, the sugariest night of the year?

On Cotton Candy/Popcorn Friday, I discussed my misgivings with my co-workers in the faculty room. One teacher said that she and her husband give their grandkids graham crackers and a couple of pieces of candy. Another teacher said that she buys playing or trading cards at Costco as alternatives to sweets.

"I'm thinking about handing out apples and toothbrushes this year," I lied, knowing I would never have the guts to do that.

“That's a good way to get your house egged," said one of the student teachers.

Dan and I had just watched a TV show the night before where one of the characters decided to give full-size candy bars to the trick-or-treaters.

“I’m going to be the hero of the neighborhood,” the guy announced proudly, accompanied by a laugh track. Dan and I - sheepishly - shared that sentiment.

We didn't want to be the uncool, granola neighbors. I had heard my students talk about those people.

"Oh, you're that house," one of my former students said when I told her I had considered handing out fruit this year. "Some hippie lady gave us organic chocolate, and it's disgusting."

"One lady said she ran out of candy so she gave me an apple instead," another student once told me disdainfully.

So, Dan and I found ourselves at the grocery store staring at shelf after shelf of chocolate gluttony.

"We could get sugar-free candy,” Dan suggested half-heartedly.

"That's almost as bad as giving them dental floss."

"It's kind of the parents' job to monitor how much candy their kids eat."

With that part of my conundrum rationalized, we took up the daunting task of deciding what kind of candy to buy. As I said earlier, we were boycotting Hershey this Halloween. Dan also said he had heard socially irresponsible things about Nestle.

"I don't know about Mars. It's probably just as bad," Dan said.

"Well, ignorance is bliss, I guess."

(And yes, I discovered later, Mars Incorporated has had similar labor/fair practice issues in the past. It is supposedly taking steps to rectify this, not that my expectations are all that high.)

Then we had to decide how many bags to buy. The big bags were 30 cents per ounce, and the small bags were 20 cents per ounce.

"I'm not spending that much on these weirdo kids just so they can have free candy and get diabetes," I said, reaching for the small bags. "No more than one - two pieces max."

"It's okay if we have leftovers," Dan hinted.

"Yeah, we can just eat it all to keep the kids from making bad nutritional choices."

It took the first little Woody from Toy Story ringing our doorbell - "Twick ow Tweat!" - to make me forget about my aversion toward the candy industry.

"You want a piece of candy? Here, take four or five!"

We ended up running to the store and buying two more bags.

At school the next day, one of my fourth graders brought me an apple. She was only the second student to bring me an apple in my ten years of teaching. Did she really love me, her wonderful music teacher? Or did she just make the mistake of trick-or-treating at the neighborhood hippie house the night before?

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