A Smokin' Pumpkin Pie

     On Thursday afternoon I went to our Book Club at the library.  On my return home and entered the house, I could smell a pie cooking in the oven.  My wife had spent the afternoon making a pumpkin pie.  Once I got my coat and boots off and came into the kitchen, she began telling me of the terrible ordeal she went through trying to make it.  I don’t remember the details, because all of those facts were erased from my brain by what happened next.

    The smoke alarm went off, its high tone piercing our ears, and making our dog and cat scrambling for a hiding place.  I ran to turn off the smoke detector, while my wife opened the oven door, causing smoke to poured into the kitchen and filter into the rest of the house.  Around the edges of the pie’s crust, we could see oil sizzling and boiling and dripping to the bottom of the oven.   My wife said that the new crust recipe had a lot of butter, too much butter, it seemed.

    We weren’t sure what to do.  The pie’s pumpkin filling was not done and was still somewhat liquid, so we didn’t really want to take the pie out of the oven yet.  So we closed the oven door so the pie could continue to cook, and then we began to go around the house opening the doors and windows to let the smoke escape.  Having the windows and doors open started to really make the house cold inside as the freezing outside air began streaming into the house.

    We periodically opened the oven door, which each time allowed a plume of more white smoke into the house.  Our eyes were starting to burn from the smoke.  Then our smoke detector, which by this time had a chance to recover after having its turn-off button presses, detected the new smoke and went off again.

    I rushed over and pressed the turn-off button again which silenced it,  then we began to repeat the same actions over again:  Opening the oven to let the smoke escape, waving the open doors back and forth to push more smoke out and fresh cold air in.  

    Because the house was getting cold and smoky, I started to build a fire in the wood stove.  That would not only start to heat up the house, but also draw the smoky air from the house and up the chimney.  

    Then after another pause, the smoke detector went off again.  This time I took it off of the wall and remove a battery out so it wouldn’t go off any more.  The pumpkin pie continued to let off smoky fumes each time we opened the oven door.  A thin cloud of smoke was still layered through the house.

    Eventually, the pie crust started to brown and the filling started to become more solid, and we removed the pumpkin pie from the oven.   We went around and shut all of the windows and doors, and after about forty minutes, with the air cleared, our house became more livable again, so I put the battery back in the smoke detector and hung it back on the wall.

    The whole ordeal was pretty horrible, but fortunately, it didn’t effect the pie, which tasted delicious.  I don’t think my wife will use that crust recipe again.

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