I made a four-course Thanksgiving dinner today – soup, salad, main course and dessert. Everything came out splendidly and gave no trouble, except for the dessert course.

Now, I’ve made apple pies many, many times in the past, using the same recipe for the crust. I don’t know what I did wrong today, but after the requisite amount of chilling, my Thanksgiving pie crust stubbornly refused to roll out evenly and kept cracking and splitting. Maybe I should have added a bit more liquid to the crust during the mixing period; I don’t know. All I know is that the more I struggled with it, the worse it got. I have to admit to being startled that my old standby was misbehaving so badly; had I been in a more relaxed state I probably would have thrown it out and started anew, but I was in full-speed-ahead mode for Thanksgiving dinner preparations and there just wasn’t time.

So I did what is always useful in such a situation: I wheedled and coaxed the piecrust, I begged the piecrust, I cursed the piecrust, and then I proceeded to have a complete meltdown. I don’t know what domestic fairy floated downstairs to John’s workshop and whispered in his ear that his wife was going postal, but suddenly John appeared in the kitchen just as I burst into tears.

God love him, he laughed at me and hugged me, floury hands and apron and sweaty smeary face and all, while I sobbed over my naughty piecrust. He told me it didn’t matter what it looked like and to just do the best I could (shades of my mother). He gave me a parting smack on the butt and went back downstairs. I was still wiping my face when our friend Rick arrived, but I sent him down to John and attacked the piecrust with renewed vigor. A little patching here, a little stretching here, and I got the damn thing into the pie pan , added the filling and fought with the top crust until I had a pie. Not a pretty pie, but a completed pie all the same.

I called my mother a little later on and related my pie story. Her reaction, while different from John’s, was equally reassuring. She told me I sounded tired and that I should be sure to rest and take care of myself (I’m nursing the tag end of a cold). I read her my reviews for The Brand New Kid and she was pleased. I felt like an able and competent woman once again, albeit one who needed to maybe be a bit easier on herself.

So today on Thanksgiving Day, I give thanks for a loving husband and a caring mother. Thanks, John. Thanks, Mom.

Oh, and the pie tasted terrific, ugly or not.