My husband and I had been married only about seven weeks. It was the day before Thanksgiving and we were having dinner with my new family. I hadn’t yet learned to cook a lot of things, and everyone was expected to bring their part of the Thanksgiving dinner. I decided that I would make the pumpkin pies, which to me had always been a traditional part of the Thanksgiving fare.

All was going well. I spent the afternoon getting everything ready to fix those mouth-watering pies. I had always loved pumpkin pie, so had no trouble with following the recipe. After all, who could not follow a recipe to make a pie. It was simple.

I cannot remember whether I fixed anything else (which I am sure that I did) except those pies. I made the crusts, mixed all the ingredients together, and cooked them to perfection. They turned out beautifully, and I stored them carefully in the refrigerator to keep them fresh for the meal the next day.

We lived only a short distance from my Mother-in-law, so on Thanksgiving morning we slept a little later than usual, then got up, dressed, and got the food ready to cart to Mom’s house. When we got there, we spent a few hours visiting with my new husband’s brothers and their families, then it was time for us all to sit down and eat the Thanksgiving meal together.

We all sat down, said the blessing, and started eating. There was quite a large crowd. My husband had three brothers, and some of them had several children. We enjoyed the wonderfully prepared food, everyone eating their fill, then it was time for dessert. My sister-in-law complimented me on my beautiful pies. I guess she thought that I wasn’t capable of making such great-looking ones.

She cut into the pie, taking a piece, and passed it around the table for everyone who liked pumpkin pie to take a piece of it. It had not reached me yet, when all at once she said something, and I looked at her. There was a shocked look on her face. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me. Oh, my! You can imagine my embarrassment when she spoke the words: you forgot to put in the sugar. I was so set on doing a good job to impress my husband’s family, that I had forgotten one of the most important ingredients.

That has been a long standing joke in our family, the beautiful pumpkin pies that were unfit for human consumption. I have made several pumpkin pies over the years, but I don’t believe that I will make that same mistake again. For some reason, it is always easy to remember the sugar.