Pie, Oh My!

It's impossible not to long for my mother around the holidays; she was the reigning queen supreme of beautiful cakes, pies, and cookies. Mincemeat was her favorite, and her version was always spiked with loads of extra brandy and bedecked with a miniature Della Robbia wreath she would painstakingly sculpt out of marzipan.

Her Christmas cookie assortment -- known to make people swoon -- included cinnamon stickies, apricot tarts, and stars glittering with those silver nonpareils which are now illegal (if she were still around, she'd have them smuggled in from somewhere, I'm sure).

My own humble pie has a too-brown crust and a cracked surface on its pumpkin filling and makes me miss her even more. But she would have smothered it in whipped cream and eaten it just the same, and for that thought, I am thankful...