Around this time of year, I always recall a pumpkin pie memory.

In December of 1978 I was staying with a bunch of “hippie backpackers” at the Isra Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand.  I had been traveling in southeast Asia since Labor Day and, by this time, had happily adapted to the life of a solo traveler.

I was sharing a bedroom (not a bed) with a handsome Canadian named Graham and an affable Welshman named Trefor.  Housemates included a French couple and crazy, free-spirited Peter – a long-haired, pot-smoking, barefoot hippie from California.  Dale is a semi-professional golfer from Vancouver who is spending the winter in Thailand, where it’s warmer and cheaper.

Two weeks earlier I had shipped my suitcase back home to Michigan, along with nearly everything I had originally brought with me.  I wrote a letter to my Mom, explaining that my suitcase full of practical mix-and-match polyesters was just not practical.  I told her that everything was a lot different than I had expected, that I was doing fine and that she shouldn’t worry about me.  But I knew that was futile advice – she was going to worry, no matter what.

I didn’t go into too much detail about how each day revealed extraordinary new adventures, exotic new tastes and interesting new people.  I was experiencing a great big wonderful world that had eluded me in the comfortable, boring bubble of Midwestern life.  I was having more fun and finding more fulfillment than I’d ever experienced.  There was almost nothing about my former life that I was missing, but didn’t want to rub it in.

Still … Christmas was coming.  The holidays were a favorite time of year and even though I was delighted with my current nomadic lifestyle, I anticipated some homesicknesses.  I was pleased when Graham, Peter, Dale and the French couple agreed to stay here with Isra and his wife to spend Christmas as a “family.”

Graham was quite the cook, so he started to plan a menu for Christmas day.  I volunteered to make a pumpkin pie.

I didn’t admit that I’d never made a pumpkin pie in my life.  Regardless, I was a Home Ec major!  I could do this!

Hmmmm.  I’d need a recipe.  This was years before internet so I had to get resourceful.  I found a Betty Crocker cookbook in a bookstore and copied the recipe.  Progress!

Canned pumpkin puree was not available but they sold pumpkins in the local market.  An Indian medicinal shop had fresh whole spices – cinnamon sticks, cloves and nutmeg – which I ground to a powder in a wooden mortar and pestle that I bought at the market.  Couldn’t find a round pie plate, so I substituted a square cake pan.  Flour, eggs, cream and butter were easily sourced.

Now … all I needed was an oven.

Thai kitchens don’t have ovens.  Most everything is cooked in a wok and some things are barbecued.  But a traditional western-style oven?  No.

Fortunately, Dale regularly played golf with some wealthy ex-pats who lived in a western-style housing complex.  He asked one of his buddies if they had an oven.  The guy said yes.

When I showed up at their doorstep the day before Christmas, my bicycle basket laden with pumpkin and all the other ingredients, the lady of the house seemed rather put out.  Apparently, they assumed I would come with a pre-made pie to simply pop in their oven for an hour.  Nobody had mentioned that I was literally starting from scratch.  The pressure was on!

First I baked the pumpkin.  That was easy, but the mashing and pureeing was a messy and laborious process.  My pastry was a disaster.  Recalling how my Mom rolled out a beautiful sheet of dough which she carefully laid down in her pie plate, mine was a sticky, buttery mess that I pressed crudely into the corners of the cake pan and stuck in the refrigerator to chill.

It didn’t help that the lady periodically popped into the kitchen to assess my progress … as she had her own dinner to prepare.

I guessed completely as to the quantity of spices to add.  Betty Crocker wasn’t much help after all.

A few hours later, I tidied up the kitchen and extended profuse apologies and thank-yous to my hosts for their generosity.  I carefully balanced my concoction in the bicycle basket and pedaled back to the guest house.

By this time, Isra’s wife, Mon, had decorated a tropical bush with colorful candies as our Christmas tree and cut letters from crepe paper to spell out, “Merry Christmas.”  She was beyond excited.

I helped Peter cut up fresh fruit for a salad: papaya, mango, banana and pineapple.  We set up tables in their front room and I watched Isra make Sukyaki.  Into each bowl he layered green veggies, added some beef and squid which had been gently boiled in a broth, added cooked rice and vermicelli noodles and filled the bowls to the top with a piping hot broth.  He added Thai chili sauce to each bowl: a weak mix for us foreigners, and a more potent version (with six times more chilies) for the Thais.

That’s me in the green shirt – at the beginning of my southeast Asia travel adventure

The caretaker, a bony old man we called Mr. Noo, showed up in a halter top and skirt who tended to the chicken on the barbecue.  The French couple made crepes, which we slathered with lemon juice and sugar.  There were bowls of peanuts and sweets, as well as copious amounts of Mehkong whisky of which Mr. Noo had more than his fair share.  Everyone was in a festive mood, further enhanced by Thai sticks (marijuana) of which Peter had more than his fair share.

Someone produced some clove cigarettes from Indonesia.  Perhaps the Thai sticks intensified the humor of Peter’s comment, “It’s better than smoking a ham!”

By the way … my pumpkin pie was absolutely terrific!

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