Things I did today

1. Drove out to my brother's, with my mom, to see my nephews off to school. Left the house at 6:15. Hit hypnosnow - that stuff that looks like what you see when the Enterprise is moving above sublight speeds - while driving up a mountain. Then drove through more hypnosnow while driving over narrow, winding roads covered with wet leaves. Fun! (More snow is predicted for tomorrow. Three consecutive days of snow in mid-October?)

2. On the way back, stopped at a supermarket and bought ingredients for pumpkin pie.

3. Came home and made apple fritters for breakfast.

4. After a pause to reload, made pumpkin pie filling (using the recipe on the label of the can of pumpkin puree) while watching Ratatouille.

5. Ladled filling into pie crusts I had purchased earlier.

6. Realized I had enough pie filling to fill at least four such crusts.

7. Learned how to make a butter pie crust from scratch.

8. Made one. (I used butter instead of shortening, and did the egg-wash trick as recommended for pumpkin pies. NOTE: Sea salt is a poor substitute for "kosher or coarse salt." Looks like I need to add another ingredient to the arsenal.)

9. Made a third pie, larger than the first two, along with a small bit of pudding with the leftover filling.

10. Ate them.