Pumpkin Pie... Recipe for Disaster

In Japan, determined that even if I had to work on Thanksgiving I was going to have atleast something "Thanksgivingy", I taught myself how to make a pumpkin pie in my microwave. And I decided that if I could do it in a microwave in Japan, I surely could do it in Guinea where I have an oven. Surely.

So I went grocery shopping and sent the following email to my Momma and sisters on the night before Thanksgiving:

"Well, there is good news related to the Pumpkin Pie Attempt: I went to the SuperBobo grocery store and voila [note the use of French... it doesn't happen very often], they had all the necessary spices, most imported from India. I even found the evaporated milk! But....the problems are as follows:

1. I'm going to buy a pumpkin tomorrow and boil it.... is that what happens to the pumpkin that goes into the Libby's cans?

2. There is no solid shortening... only vegetable oil. I hope the pie crust will be OK with that. I've never made one before so this should be interesting...

3. I asked the housekeepers today if there was a pie pan in the kitchen. They said that it was rusty and that I should ask the administration to give them money to buy a new one. They came back with some tin pans... like cheap frying pans with no handles. That will make the crust making even more interesting.

4. The oven only has numbers instead of degrees... it says 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ... to 11. Soooooooooooo.... hmmmm..... who knows what temperature this is supposed to be on?

5. And the no rolling pin problem that Momma solved by telling me to use a glass. Will do.

6. No measuring cups. Will be guessing on all this.

So. This will be fun. Will tell you how it goes.

:) Jennifer"

On Thanksgiving day, I got up and set off to go to the traffic circle down the road to buy the pumpkin. Irene, the office assistant decided to go with me.

No one in Guinea buys pumpkins. They buy small chunks of pumpkin usually swarmed by a mess of flies, but never the whole thing. So we were trying to find some enterprising woman in the market who would sell us some bigger pieces.

I saw one woman with some whole slices of pumpkin, and Irene and I approached her just as she was shaking a knife at a screaming child in front of her. Lovely. Irene asked her how much the slices were and she told us... A bit expensive, but I told Irene to tell her that I would give her that amount if she wouldn't shake her knife at small children anymore. :) She laughed at me like I was crazy for suggesting such a thing... took the money of course and then, back home with the pumpkin.

I steamed the slices and then scraped the meat out of the shell and tried to stir it up, but it didn't really look like Libby's... So then, I found the blender and tried that option. Until the blender started smoking. Smoked pumpkin pie... interesting... I gave up on the Libby's appearance and went on attempting to grind up cloves with a mortar/pestle thing and make the pie crust.

After about 2 hours work, I ended up at the point where most American START in their pumpkin pie making process. With a pie crust, Libby's-like pumpkin puree, a can of evaporated milk, and some crushed mixed up spices.

Another hour later, I had a pie in a pan that looked like it was ready for the oven. I started carrying it downstairs to the kitchen (no air conditioning in the sauna/kitchen so I was cooking in our lounge).

Of course, in all of my cautiousness not to spill the pumpkin filling outside of the crust on the way down the stairs, I missed the last step and half the pie filling went splattering down the steps, walls, and my pants. Excellent.

It can always be worse. I could have dropped the whole pie. And I had some leftover filling so it was OK.

I approached the oven with the newly-refilled pie and prepared to tackle the perplexing issue of the mysterious number vs. degrees system on the temperature knob. I decided on 8 of 11 for 400 degrees and got ready to put the pie in... but the oven door handle was broken off.

This is a situation that any Klein is prepared to tackle since I don't think our oven at home has had a handle for about 5 years. So I started looking for prying utensils and ended up with a metal spatula. Nothing like a bit of Breaking and Entering into your own oven.

Broke into the oven and put the pie in, said a few Hail Mary's and went back upstairs to clean up my (big) mess.

...The pie ended up edible. Ugly as sin, but edible. And if we take into account the extenuating circumstances, damn good (if I do say so myself).