Thanksgiving?

Since moving to Australia, one of the things I have definitely not missed is Thanksgiving. To be honest, I was never a huge fan of the holiday, even before going vegetarian. I know that the meanings behind the holiday are nice, and giving thanks for people we appreciate is something that we all need to do more often. But the idea of celebrating overeating, when so many people in the world--and even in America--go hungry, just never really felt right. I blame the sociologist in me: I can't do anything without critiquing it. (Ask Andy. When we were just starting to get together I couldn't even watch Shrek 2 without a racial analysis of the characters.)

My lack of love for the holiday, coupled with being home alone, meant that not celebrating was a no-brainer.

But... in my lazy week which involved not much time at uni, I watched a few episodes of the show Pushing Daisies, which I kind of love. If you haven't seen it, you should. I won't rehash the plot here, but the main character is a pie-maker and a lot of the story takes place in his pie shop. All of the pies in the show gave me a serious craving for pie. And, reading all the blog posts and facebook updates about Thanksgiving from my US friends confirmed that the pie I was craving was pumpkin.

Townsville is currently too hot for successful pastry-making. The ingredients can't stay cold for long enough to make a good crust. So instead, I made a half-batch of oatmeal-raisin cookie dough, and pressed that into the bottom of a springform pan. On top, I poured my pumpkin pie mixture, then popped it all in the oven for an hour.

The result was delicious (especially with a bit of chocolate ice cream), and something I will definitely be doing again in future.