For the second year in a row, I can’t find a pie recipe I clipped a million years ago. I didn’t clip it from a newspaper or magazine or anything respectable like that, where I might be able to track it down. It was one of those Godawful recipes that you refuse to show anyone, no matter how much they beg, because you don’t want to admit even to your closest friends that you might serve them something in which Cool Whip features as a main ingredient.
For the record, this was Chocolate-Chip Pumpkin Chiffon Pie. Which sounds wonderful. And tastes wonderful. And features such crimes against humanity as instant pudding mix and the above-mentioned Cool Whip (or, as we call it in our house, Petroleum Product Creme). You don’t have to apply any heat or thought to this monstrosity. You beat some “ingredients” together, add the all-important chocolate chips, and throw it into an Oreo crust. (That last part was my idea.)
I may be able to fake it. Frankly, I can’t imagine anyone complaining if I get anywhere near the target. I can’t imagine them having the nerve to complain even if I’m pretty wide of the mark, since I’m not only cooking the entire meal and transporting it to my in-laws’ home, but I’m making some awesome from-scratch Thanksgiving eats for Veggie Lad and his father Adult-Onset Allergy Man.
Let me just kvetch about those guys for a minute. When my son was about four, his dad was hit with a hideous lung infection. It was as if his entire system hit reset afterward. Everything he ate felt like an assault, and was treated accordingly.
Before we had any idea of what was going on, my husband had racked up allergies to:
Peanuts
All fruits
Tomatoes (to you science nerds: yes, I know tomatoes are considered to be “fruit” by some people. We’re not talking science here. We’re talking what the hell I’m supposed to make for dinner. Please shut up.)
Avocado (see above)
Chocolate
Coconut
Vinegar
Alcohol
Buttermilk
Sharp cheese
Fermented anything of any kind
Thankfully, the peanut allergy went into remission after about a year. Doubly thankfully, because like many people, my husband suffers from the kind of allergies where you don’t have to ingest the food in question; you just have to be around it. So we’d spend the weekend at the hospital because while my husband was in the elevator on his way home late Friday afternoon, someone would open a Snickers bar. Just as a for instance.
The other allergies are still running strong. At least we’re past the stage where, for about a year, I had to cook everything fresh for every meal, because leftovers counted as fermented food so far as his system was concerned, and that triggered the Red Alert.
About this time, my son confessed that eating meat made him cry and could he please be a vegetarian.
For everyone who’s told me that my son’s vegetarianism is a stage: That “stage” has lasted about nine years now. If that’s a stage, so’s life.
I’ll have some serious rhymes-with-itching to do about allergies and the public’s response to them in a later posting — although I do have to say right now that if someone’s allergic to something and you take it personally and/or decide they’re being a drama queen, I hope that the next person the Adult-Onset Allergy Fairy decides to hit with her wand is you.
For now, I’d love to circle back to the topic of Scary Food. The pie mentioned above obviously won’t pass my husband’s allergy barrier. In case you’re feeling sorry for him — okay, go ahead; but spare some sympathy for the only person in this house who can cook. Because he gets pretty good food every day that specifically won’t kill him; and he’ll have a gourmet-quality home-baked pecan pie all to himself this coming Thursday. It’s the only Thanksgiving-type dessert I can think of that won’t kill him, and he adores pecan pie. And he’s the only one who does.
The rest of us will be eating Suburban Trash Pie. There. I’m out of the closet.
Anyone else want to come out and tell us their favorite scary ingredients and/or recipes?