My cute little daddy–in the middle, with the beard–had worked in a bakeshop of one kind or another, ever since he was about 8 years old. So, when he went into the Navy, it was only natural that he became a cook. To hear him talk, he must have loved it. One story that he told us when we were little, was of being on a battleship, somewhere out in the middle of the South Pacific on Thanksgiving Day.
He said the food was always as good as they could possibly make it, considering what they had to work with. But today, the guys were hoping for something more–anything that would make them feel just a little closer to those they loved back home.
Canned turkey was expected, along with some sort of dried bread stuffing and soggy vegetables, but what they all were missing the most, they said, was pumpkin pie. Of course there was no pumpkin–fresh or canned out in the middle of the ocean–during a war. But that wasn’t good enough for my smarty-pants dad.
He thought about it and thought about it and realized that cooked pumpkin, in many ways, is quite similar to…
carrots. Yesiree. Carrots.
So, while no one was looking, he cooked them up and added all the right spices, milk, and sugar. He said, that he found that if you treat a carrot like a pumpkin, it will act just like one. So when the “pumpkin” pie was served that day–it was perfect. Everyone thought it was a miracle or that pumpkins had just dropped out of the sky or something. They never knew. But they didn’t think too hard about it because they were way too busy being grateful for all their blessings…
and their amazing Superman cook–my cute little daddy….
who saved Thanksgiving Day.
And that’s the way he told it…
except for the Superman bit…that was all mine.
heh, heh.
