Yesterday was my 4th Thanksgiving in the UK. To try and combat the disappointment of not being able to spend it with my family, each year I try and cook a nice Thanksgiving meal for himself and I. I always make at least three dishes- sweet potato casserole, mash potato casserole, and green bean casserole. I am pretty sure the casseroles are what Thanksgiving is all about (food-wise) and I have mastered those dishes quite well.  Well yesterday I wanted to add a desert to the menu and decided to try and make a pumpkin pie. I searched everywhere to find a tin of canned pumpkin, and finally found one at a specialist store and was ready to give it a go. So yesterday I was following the directions and rolling the pastry to put in the baking tin and everything seemed to be going as planned. I put the pastry crust in the oven and 10 minutes later it looked like this….The crust took up the whole tin! It was so thick that there was no room for pumpkin. Deflated and upset I went out to the shops to buy more pastry. I wasn’t going to give up this easy!  So, this time I decided to solicit help from himself. He rolled the pastry out very thin and that seemed to do the trick. This was going to work! So, I filled the crust with the pumpkin filling and put it back into the oven. 50 minutes later I took it out and it looked PERFECT!! After it cooled, I cut a slice and topped it with whip cream and was quite satisfied with my handywork….. that was until I took a bite. It was horrible. Bitter yet bland. It was utterly disgusting. I looked at the recipe to try and see what went wrong and realized I forgot the sugar. The SUGAR… the very staple of any and all desserts. AHHH… all the work. all the preparation… all the expensive, speciality ingredients.  Oh well, I grabbed my glass of wine and thought about all there was to be thankful for (my cooking not being one of those things!)