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THANKSGIVING 2004 |
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of the Great Pumpkin  |
An imaginary monster
ruins a T-Day confection
By GINA GALLO
of TheColumnists.com
There's an old saying that the apple doesn’t fall
far from the tree. It’s a comment about the power of genetics
that’s been the subject of hot debate for decades.
Some scientists believe that you can’t blame everything
on heredity, but only because they’ve never experienced
my family, especially around the holidays. If they ever witnessed
what happens when you combine inventive kids, overactive imaginations
and a family gene pool that never filtered out the eccentric
raconteurs, it would shoot their theories to pieces.
One particular theory-busting event occurred the Thanksgiving
that has come to be known in our family as ‘The Scourge
of the Great Pumpkin.’ It started when the nuns at my sons’
school, Our Lady of the Holy Smoke, got the brilliant idea to
host a Thanksgiving feast of foods from each student’s particular
ethnic background. On paper, a great idea. In practice, holiday
bedlam in the making.
Letters to the parents were sent home, requesting that every
kid bring a meal item that represented their family’s cultural
heritage. Even before we made it to the kitchen, my seven year
old son Brett was worried.
“You’re not going to make me bring hand grenades, right?”
he asked me.
“What are you talking about? This is supposed to be a Thanksgiving
feast, not a minefield.”
“Joey Lundgren said Italians are bomb-tossers and belong
to the mafia.”
“Get real, stupid.” As the self-appointed voice of
reason, nine year old Eric rolled his eyes. “If we were
in the mafia, you think we’d be driving a Chevy van? Those
guys have limousines and big mansions.”
“Maybe we’re undercover?”
“Maybe you should stop listening to babies like Joey Lundgren
who pees his pants in the lunchroom and leaves wet spots on the
seat. And he eats boogers when he thinks nobody’s watching.
Gross! I bet his mother’s going to make him bring a booger
pie.”
It was a culinary concept I didn’t want to think about.
On the other hand, with that on the imaginary table, anything
I suggested was going to be a thousand times better by comparison.
Since no second-grader can resist sweets, my suggestion for a
dessert item involved almost no negotiation. Brett liked the
idea of a tray of cannolis, especially when I told him
we could make both chocolate and vanilla fillings, mixing in
candied fruit, chopped nuts or chocolate chips for more variety.
He agreed immediately.
It was too easy--always a red flag when kids are involved. But
I was blinded by the naive hope that maybe this was one Thanksgiving
that would go off without a hitch. So, with a sense of community
and shared purpose that’s extremely uncharacteristic for
our family, we began the great cannoli project.
First we made the shells--delicate almond-flavored pastry wrapped
around aluminum cylinders and deep fried just long enough to
form a golden, flaky tube. Sixty perfect tubes later, we were
ready to fill them with creamy ricotta custard sweetened with
vanilla sugar, fruit and chocolate.
It all went so smoothly it might have been a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting--Mama Gina and bambinos in the kitchen, whipping up the holiday treats. Even the few minor glitches...like the dog upchucking a nearly-digested sofa cushion in the middle of the kitchen, or Brett jacking up the blender to max speed to see if it would go airborne--didn’t dampen our enthusiasm.
In just a scant hour or
two, we cleaned up the mess on the floor, decided that the sugared
butter clumps on the ceiling looked almost exactly like snow,
and had trays of delectable goodies to show for our efforts.
I should’ve known it was too easy.
With their school’s Thanksgiving program scheduled for the
next afternoon, the boys went to bed happy about their contribution
to the feast. But once they were both tucked in and the lights
turned out, that’s when genetics reared its ugly head. In
simpler terms, one of my rotten kids just couldn’t resist
starting something.
“Hey, Brett,....you asleep?”
“How could I be? I just got in bed.”
“You remember the Great Pumpkin, from that Charlie Brown
cartoon?”
A huge yawn followed. With visions of pilgrim hats and showstopper
cannolis in his future, Brett had no interest in revisiting
blasts from the holiday past. But--genetics again--Eric wasn’t
willing to let it go.
“Well, you know what happens after Halloween, right? The
Great Pumpkin turns into a monster to get even with all the people
who carved up his relatives into jack-o-lanterns. And even if
it takes all year long, he gets his revenge. Anyone who killed
a pumpkin is going to get it. And... remember when we carved
that pumpkin with Mom?”
“So what? You’re nuts. I never heard of a monster pumpkin.”
“That’s cuz you’re stupid. Why do you think we
carve up pumpkins in the first place? They’re evil. If we
didn’t cut 'em up first, they’d kill us. And now the
monster’s coming for us.”
“He’d have to get past Blitz first.” Brett eyed
the dog who was snoring at the foot of the bed. “Blitzie
would eat him.”
“An atom bomb wouldn’t wake up Blitz when he snores
like that. Besides, the Great Pumpkin doesn’t work alone.
He brings monsters with him. He goes to graveyards and makes
all the dead people climb out of their coffins to help him. Sometimes
they leave clues so you know you’re gonna get it next. Like
skulls or bones or........” A long dramatic pause for effect,
“Fingers. Filthy skeleton fingers oozing pus, that break
off when they touch things in the real world.”
“Liar!” But Brett was already burrowing deeper into
his blanket’s protective custody.
“We’ll see who’s lying. Just wait ‘til tomorrow.
I bet the Great Pumpkin has the monsters snatch those cannolis
and leave their fingers behind instead. That’ll be the sign.
And once you walk outside, they’ll snatch you and--"
”SHUT UP, you dirty liar!” Just a screech away from
hysteria, Brett pulled his pillow over his head.
“Okay.” Confident in victory, Eric rolled over. “All
I can say is, I wouldn’t want to be you. Those monsters
always go for the little ones first.”
Without the privilege of hearing that conversation, I wasn't
prepared for the scene in my kitchen the next morning. Our dog
was happily slurping his way through what had been 60 perfect
pastries, before they’d been tossed on the floor and bludgeoned
with a plastic wiffle-ball bat.
At the suggestion of his
expert older brother, Brett had performed a few other rituals
guaranteed to repel monsters, Great Pumpkins and any other ghoul
who might be lingering in the vicinity. Garlic worked for vampires,
Eric said, and he was pretty sure it applied to the undead and
avenging squash. Without any fresh cloves handy. Brett opted
to dump an entire bottle of garlic salt in a circle on the floor.
When told that a stake through the heart could drop the most
fearsome vampire, he did a quick freezer inventory for a T-bone
or sirloin. Unable to locate one, he selected a package of frozen
turkey burgers that the dog was now gnawing in between cannolis.
And with just half an hour before the kids had to leave for school
with Thanksgiving offerings in hand, the cannolis were
history so they were both up Plymouth Rock without a paddle.
And that’s when the other part of our family genetics kicked
in--the part that dictates a mother's contingency plan, especially
considering our history of holiday mishaps So while I whipped
up an impromptu dessert substitute, I explained the myth of pumpkin
monsters to my sobbing younger son and the consequences of parental
wrath to his brother.
With just minutes to spare, we put the finishing touches on the
desserts: Ice cream sugar cones filled with pumpkin mousse, drizzled
with caramel topping and sprinkled with chopped nuts.
“What are those supposed to be?” Brett sniffled.
This time, I took advantage of all those past laps done in the
deep end of the gene pool, where I'd learned never to underestimate
the power of the imagination.
“They’re Great Pumpkin bludgeons,” I said calmly.
“Big clubs that can kill any ghoul on impact, and so scary
no monster will come near you. Now get your coat on and don’t
forget your homework.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PUMPKIN SOUFFLE CONES
A/k/a “Great Pumpkin Bludgeons”
(Serves 6, or kills 6 monsters)
2 cups canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp grated lemon peel
1 cup ricotta cheese
Optional:
chopped pecans
caramel topping
candy sprinkles
In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, honey, cinnamon and lemon peel. Fold in ricotta cheese and mix well. Pipe into sugar cones, refrigerate to set up, then drizzle with caramel topping and choice of nuts or sprinkles. Refrigerate until serving.
©2004 by Gina Gallo.
The cartoon is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco
Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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