A girl knows she’s doing something right when there are three pies for dessert. Well, two pies and a tart, to be exact, but, come on, sweet is sweet.

Thanksgiving dinner number two got under way yesterday afternoon when Maud and I hit Steve’s C-Town for Savings and loaded up the chariot. We carried everything home embracing brown paper bags in our arms ’cause Maud thinks she is the heroine of some Seventies movie set in New York, or Sigourney Weaver in the beginning of Ghostbusters II, or something. After a couple of blocks, she said, “You know, I bet in the movies the bags are actually empty.”

Home, there was Otis Redding and The Shins and Volume One of The Best Easy Album Ever. There was some kind of unspoken rhythm in the kitchen. We sliced, we diced, we shredded, we blended. We cleaned-as-we-went. We minced, we melted, we whisked, we baked.

Tom showed up with a cherry pie.

(The thing with the pie is, when I talked to him on Wednesday, he said, “Should I bring anything?” and I said, “Will you bake a pie?, ha ha.” Which just goes to show, sometimes you just need to ask.)

Jeff showed up with two foldable chairs and a police van.

(The thing with the chairs is, I don’t tend to have more than eight people over to a sit-down meal. Last night, we were ten, then eleven, then twelve. When Vio asked if she could bring Lorin, I had to ask, sheepishly, if she could also bring a place setting for him. Then I had to call back and ask if she could also bring a stool.)

(The thing with the police van is, I dunno, Jeff came in and said, “Look out the window, I think they’re arresting my driver.” I looked out the window, and two cops were getting out of their van and walking up to Jeff’s car. I didn’t stay to see more than that, but the lights were flashing, red, through my curtains for a while.)

India showed up with a pretty tin of White Persian Melon tea and a pecan pie that had a surprise pumpkin element.

(There is no thing I need to say here about India and the pie except for the girl knows what she’s doin’.)

My cousin Sarah showed up with another cousin, I Lin.

(The thing about Sarah is that she is my mother’s cousin’s daughter. I’ve heard that that makes me and Sarah second cousins, or first cousins twice removed, or second cousins twice removed. No one really seems to know. In any case, it is very nice to discover a cousin you didn’t even know about till maybe six months ago, and then make friends as friends rather than as forced relations.)

Vio showed up with cheese, because Vio brings the good cheese. (She also brought a place setting for Lorin.) (And a stool.) (And champagne.) (Two bottles.) (Mmm.)

Numbers ten and eleven cancelled, which was both too bad and a good thing, because then everyone had a real chair.



Then there was the feeding: lemon zucchini and feta; dandelion and garlic; avocado and shrimp and pink grapefruit; tzatziki; garlicky hummus; a dish of potatoes hot and light and puffy from being roasted with coarse sea salt.

Then there was sitting around.

Then there was champagne for all, and the cherry pie, and the pecan-pumpkin pie, and the chocolate tart.

(The thing about the chocolate tart is, well, it was incredible. Who knew? that if you whipped six eggs till they triple in volume and form soft peaks when the whisk is raised; that if you then folded the result into cooking chocolate hand-carried from France and melted, with butter, in a makeshift bain-marie; that if, then, you poured the mixture into a crust made of flour and sugar and chopped walnuts and pecans; and that if—after your whipping arm has had some hours to rest—you then whipped a bowl of heavy cream into thick, white clouds of delectability to be dished out on the side in generous spoonfuls, that you would have heaven on a silver platter?

No, but really, the thing about the chocolate tart is, Tom said, “I don’t think my cherry pie is very good,” which made me say, “Tom. Please. This is very tasty. What are you, Chinese?” which started a whole thing of the Chinese girls at the table having to explain how Chinese mothers have to be all, “No, no, my cooking is not good, it’s not salty enough, it’s too salty, blah blah blah,” and “No, no, my daughter where got pretty?, yours is so sweet,” which I was surprised no one knew already, because wasn’t The Joy Luck Club and all its delicious exoticism such a hit back in the day? Pearl, ah. . . .

Somehow that led to talking about how Sarah and I are born in the Year of the Dragon, which is so totally hands-down the best year to be born in, and we were trying to explain what makes the Year of the Dragon the best year, but we weren’t getting very far, because all it is, is, it’s just the best year, people, it just is. Prosperity, grace, good fortune, I don’t know, all of it. And when you’re born in the Year of the Dragon, you sure don’t have to know heck about any of the other years. “I was born in the Year of the Sheep,” I Lin said. “Um,” Sarah said, “I think that makes you loyal.” “I was born in the Year of the Horse,” Jeff said. “Oh,” Sarah said, “I think that makes you loyal.”

So, but, the thing about the chocolate tart is, eventually I said, “Oh my word, this chocolate tart is incredible. What am I, not Chinese?”)

Somewhere around two in the morning, it was quiet again. Tom said, “Let’s go watch TV.” We lay down on the pull-out in front of the TV and the boy promptly fell asleep on my shoulder while Maud and I laughed our heads off at Eddie Izzard.