There is a bright golden haze on the meadow. There’s a change in the air—a crispness. A clean ocean smell replete with a saltiness you can taste on the tongue. The morning air is colder. Outside, you shiver. Autumn has arrived.

Perhaps you have grown a small garden in the backyard. Out the backdoor, you cross the cut grass. A frost lays on the green surface and shimmers like soft glitter in the first morning light. The squash have grown well this season, better than the tomatoes. On small mounds of black dirt, three orange pumpkins catch your attention. You might think of Thanksgiving. You certainly think of pie.

My wife, a pie baker extraordinaire, likes a sweet pumpkin, sometimes called a sugar pumpkin. If you don’t have a garden — we didn’t for years — here’s an alternative: Drive north. There is a pumpkin farm in Brady, Washington, near Elma, called the Chapman Farms. The ground is fertile there, the heat of summer more penetrating. It’s a great place to bring the whole family, complete with a pumpkin patch, washing station and corn maze. When we get home with our harvest bounty, my wife, Laurie, is all business.

The pilgrims were saved from starvation that first winter in 1620 by Native people. The Wampanoag brought them pumpkins. There were no pie shells, so the English hollowed out the bright orbs and boiled them. They saved the seeds.

The inner flesh was sweet and rich and sustaining. They added sugar and milk and ate with relish. A year later they applauded their survival, and that sacred moment became a thanksgiving. It wasn’t until 1863, during the Civil War, that Abraham Lincoln officially proclaimed Thanksgiving a holiday.

Now, we should celebrate. Celebrate our forefathers and the First Peoples who saved them. Celebrate our diversity and our natural abundance. Let’s make a pie.

By Laurie Anderson

Makes one single-crust 10-inch pie. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

For the crust:

1 ½ cups sifted unbleached flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup butter (well-chilled)

¼ cup shortening (well-chilled)

½ slightly beaten egg

1 tablespoon vodka

2 to 3 tablespoons ice water

Sift the flour and salt together into a large bowl. Cut in the cold butter and shortening just until the pieces are the size of small peas. Combine egg, vodka and ice water. Stir into the flour mixture until dough begins to come together. Gather up with hands and flatten into a disk. Refrigerate for one hour or overnight. Roll out pie dough and fit into a 10-inch pie pan. Flute edges. Line with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights. Bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 12 minutes. While pie crust is baking, prepare filling.

Pumpkin Pie Filling

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups heavy cream

½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon flour

2 cups pumpkin puree

Lower the oven temperature to 350°.

Whisk the eggs in a large mixing bowl. Add the spices and salt and whisk to blend them in. Next, add the heavy cream, the brown and granulated sugars, the flour and pureed pumpkin. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer directly into the prepared pie crust. Bake the pie until the custard is set–about 40 minutes. Test by shaking the pie slightly to see if the center is firm. Transfer the pie to a rack to cool completely before slicing.

Using a small cookie cutter with a fall motif, cut shapes out of the remaining pie cough and brush them with milk and top with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Reserve and top the pie with them when it is finished baking. Serve with whipped cream.

For this recipe you can use canned pumpkin puree (not canned pumpkin pie filling), or you can bake your own pumpkin. Simply slice the pumpkins open and place them face down on a baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for about an hour or until fork-tender. Remove seeds and scoop the pumpkin out of the shell and puree in a blender. Look for the small “sugar pumpkins” in the fall, as they are best suited for pie. A sweet, dense squash also makes a delicious pie.