Excellent day.

The day started with pastry-making. I ate toast and almond butter while college daughter and I made pie dough for a double-crust pie (the apple pie she was taking to her dad's) and a single-crust pie, the pumpkin I was taking. That went swimmingly. We used plugra butter (Fr., "more fat," which term just continues to tickle me--it's "more fat fat," if you see what I'm saying)--perfect, and I mean by that "without flaw," for pie crust.

Her apple pie we seasoned with cinnamon and fresh nutmeg, as well as orange oil, a fancy new thing I like a lot--like orange extract, but better. It was fragrant and juicy as it baked. My pumpkin had the crystallized ginger I thought I had when I made the pumpkin pie for the pie party--so today's pie was even better than last week's.

I also made baked squash with Moroccan butter, roasted carrots for a much larger crowd than was actually there, and a green salad with homemade croutons, shaved parmesan, and a mustardy dressing. All good. Everything else was delicious, too--pies from my sisters, rolls, cranberry sauce, a wonderful dressing with pears in it. We all had a great time, ate too much, talked and laughed.

At the end of the evening, my niece, aunt, and I played the piano in a completely insane six-hands-at-the-piano deal--transcriptions of The Nutcracker and also a version of The Camptown Races that we managed to play faster and faster until we were playing l.s. (lickety split). It was very, very good.

These are family photos of a happy day.