Rolling out crust for Thanksgiving pies makes me ruminate about kitchens.  We’ve never hosted Thanksgiving ourselves, but I’ve made pies most years; it seems to be one thing that hosts are happy to farm out to guests, and it happens to be my favorite part of Thanksgiving cooking. Our first condo had four small peacock green squares of counter.  At any given time only one was free for cooking.  Making pie crust meant clearing small appliances off of a square or two and then inevitably bumping my elbows into the wall next to the counter.  Our next apartment had a small kitchen with a luxurious granite island which was perfect for rolling crust, and even better for displaying the finished pie.  In our current apartment we have a very large kitchen; most of it, though is empty space bisected by a beautifully awkward beam that holds up this end of the building.  We’re left, once again, with not much pie-making space.

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