PIE
P
R
A Y
I N G F
O
R
By
Cassandra
King HE
CT
OR
MA
NU
EL
SA
NC
HE
Z;^
PR
OP
ST
YL
ING
:^ B
UF
FY
HA
RG
ET
T^ M
ILL
ER
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OD
ST
YL
ING
;^ K
EL
LIE
GE
RB
ER
KE
LL
EY
NOVEMBER 2019 / SOUTHERNLIVING.COM
58
MY MOTHER TOLD A FUNNY
story about me as a kindergartner.
After hearing a lesson about Thanksgiving at school for the
first time, I came home in tears and cried out, “We’re not going
to eat the turkey, are we?” Mama tried to comfort me, though
she was a bit mystified. After all, I was born on a farm and
understood why we raised chickens, pigs, and cows. Farm
kids know where food comes from. Prodding me further, she
discovered the real reason for my tears. “But, Mama,” I wailed,
“if we eat the turkey, who’s going to bring me presents?”
Evidently, I’d confused the turkey with the Easter Bunny,
but it was the ideal learning opportunity. What parent could
resist explaining that Thanksgiving wasn’t about getting gifts,
that it was about giving, sharing, and expressing gratitude?
Not my mother. Instead of berating me for being greedy, she
declared I was old enough to help fix dessert for the holiday.
She got me at the right age, when helping in the kitchen
sounded better than getting a basket from a turkey.
Because we lived in the Deep South, our special-occasion
pies were sweet potato—an ingredient harvested and abun-
dant in the fall. (I was full-grown before I tasted pumpkin pie.)
Although Mama made caramel-glazed yams every Thanks-
giving and Christmas, no one called them yams
otherwise. They were sweet taters. A persnickety
cook, my mother baked the potatoes (never boiled
them) and peeled them hot. Then came my job.
She put them in a mixing bowl and
handed me the potato masher. Beat-
ing the butter into them was more fun than I’d had in a long
time. Less joyous was helping with the piecrust. Mama soon
took over because I was overdoing it, evidently a mortal sin
when it came to rolling pastry. Into the still-warm potatoes,
she stirred cream, sugar, eggs, and a bit of mace and then
divided the mixture among six pastry-lined pans. When they
were baked to a golden brown, I could hardly wait for a taste.
But wait I must. In my childhood home, the kids ate in the
kitchen while the adults got the fancy fixings in the dining
room. On that November day, I counted relatives, praying
for enough dessert to go around. After the turkey-and-
dressing feast, my mother called on me to pass out pie. In a
hand-smocked dress, I performed my duty nervously, eyes
on the prize. In the end, as feared, only one pie was left,
which Mama took to the kids’ table. She divvied it up and
then said, “Now, y’all say your blessing.”
“Uncle Johnny already did,” I said, surprised.
Mama smiled and replied, “I know, but aren’t you espe-
cially grateful right this minute?”
Her meaning became clear when my cousins and I joined
hands and bowed our little heads. Even at such
a young age, I knew somehow that our shared
gratitude went far beyond a single slice of sweet
potato pie. å
A LITTLE PATIENCE CAN
FILL A HEART WITH
SWEET GRATITUDE
