November 25, 2016 - Black Friday

        When we talk about Black Friday and Thanksgiving only one not-so-fond memory comes to mind.

        Several years ago the Friday after Thanksgiving, commonly known as Black Friday, was spent by my husband knowing that you can take the oven door off its hinges in order to get to the nether regions of the gas oven.  He carried the bottom of the oven and the nether regions of the oven out to the patio for a major scrub after I went off Christmas shopping.

        But, let me start at the beginning.  I had company coming on Thanksgiving.  Father Gabriel, a retired priest of my church, and his friend, Dr. Bruce were my guests that year.

        An aside about Doctor Bruce, the first time I met him I casually asked him what type of doctor he was and he quipped,

        “Surgeon, is there any other type?”  Doctor Bruce was a retired heart surgeon.  He was always thrilled that I served steamed broccoli – “so heart healthy” he would say.

        We loved having Father Gabe and Dr. Bruce at our table.  Father is a learned man and great conversationalist and tall, thin Dr. Bruce always gives rave compliments about the food and eats lustily.  He always has seconds of everything.  As a hostess-cook, it is always a delight to have a robust chowhound at your table.

        To me, it just isn’t Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie on the menu.  I was running tight for time the Wednesday night before, so I opted to buy one of those frozen pumpkin pies that you bake instead of making one.

        Early Thanksgiving day I put the pumpkin pie in to bake according to the instructions.  Instructions were: Remove frozen pie and do not defrost – bake from the frozen state.”  I had the pie baking time scheduled so that when the pie came out the Ham would go in.

        When the gas oven came up to temperature, I popped the pie into the oven and went to the other end of the house to touch up the bathrooms and make certain the rest of the house was presentable.

        About a half hour into baking the pie my husband who had been watching TV on the kitchen end of the house called, “My eyes are burning. What are you burning in the oven?”

        My eyes were burning too, but when I checked the pie in the oven, it showed no signs of the pumpkin pie filling bubbling over and there was no smoke.

        About 10 minutes later my husband said,

        “What are you burning?”

        Now there was a little bit of smoke coming from the oven.  I went to the oven and again the pie was not bubbling over, but this time I noticed a cupcake sized mound of crusty black soot in the bottom of the oven and suddenly noticed a continuous drip, drip, drip from the underside of the pie.

        I removed the pie, put it on an edged cookie sheet and scraped up the mound of crusty soot.  I continued baking the pie thinking no further dripping would end up on the bottom of the oven.

        By the time the pie was done, we had to open all the windows in the kitchen area and the sliding glass door and turn on the stove exhaust and ceiling fans to get the smell out of the house.

        Curiously, there was hardly anything showing on the bottom of the oven. We had company coming and I had everything timed precisely, I had to put the Ham in.

        When my guests arrived, I finally got to turn off the oven and thankfully it was a warm, clear day as we still had the windows open and there was a fresh breeze coming in to dissipate the acrid air.

        My guests were understanding about the pie burning over and didn’t mind the fresh breeze.

        At the end of dinner, after serving a few pieces of the pie it was obvious to all of us the aluminum pie pan was defective.  It didn’t have dimples in the bottom it had small holes that made it porous and as the pie thawed in the oven the filling oozed out of the holes dripping from center bottom of the pie.

        The gents at the table concluded the machine that created the dimples in the aluminum pie pan was calibrated incorrectly and it created small holes instead of dimples.  It was a defective pie pan.  NOT a defective cook.

        The next day I went off shopping for Christmas bargains on Black Friday.

        When I came in with my shopping bags, I find my darling husband on his knees on the back patio in rubber gloves.  I noticed the can of oven cleaner set to one side and lots of oven parts surrounding him.  As he switched from the paint scrapper to the wire brush he growled,

“Most of that pie filling was down under where the gas flame chamber is. I’ve been working on this all day.  Don’t ever by one of those #$%^&@  frozen pies again!”