This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

My fondest memory of Thanksgiving is the smell of pies cooking. My grandmother made them. So did Mom.

My wife, who surpasses them all, spent 48 hours leading up to the big day in the kitchen making pies of all sorts and sizes. In an effort to satisfy all our preferences, her personal record is 31 pies in two days.

We have picky eaters, two grandchildren with celiac disease, and assorted purists. My wife makes the crusts by hand, uses only fresh or home-canned fruit, and will cut anyone who comes into the kitchen while she's trying to make sure everyone will get what they want.

Then there's me. I'm not at all fussy. My favorite kind of pie is "a lot." By this I mean that I'm eating pie for breakfast at least three days after Thanksgiving.

I used to believe that there was no such thing as bad pie. It was an illusion I maintained until Thanksgiving 1978, when my mother cooked several pumpkin pies — and forgot to add sugar.

She realized her mistake only after the pies came out of the oven. In an attempt to fool us, she stabbed holes in the filling and tried inserting the sugar by various methods — sprinkling sugar, pouring Karo syrups, etc.

It didn't work. My first, highly anticipated bite triggered a gag reflex so violent that my toenails left scratches on my tonsils. A small piece of the involuntarily rejected bite still adorns the ceiling above the refrigerator in my parents' home as a reminder.

Judging from the sounds the rest of the family made, any thoughts of giving thanks vanished with the first bite of "Mother Kirby's Extra Special Sugar-free Pumpkin Pie." We had a long family debate over whether to call the cops on her.

That's the year that pie-making became my wife's responsibility. And she is fabulous at it. My wife could make a pie out of spark plugs and raisins, and the entire family would fight over who got the last piece.

My eldest granddaughter, Hallie, wants to be a pastry chef to rival her Grammy. On Tuesday, we went to the Culinary Center to help the South Salt Lake Police Athletic Association prepare Thanksgiving dinner for low-income families.

The Culinary Center is run by fellow Skyliners ('70) schoolmates Diane Gemmill Sheya and her husband, expert turkey hacker Richard. This year the center produced more than 40 turkey dinners from food donated by local merchants.

While Hallie worked on the stuffing and vegetable line, I chopped turkey. It was messy, smelled wonderful, and I didn't hurt myself.

Not hurting myself carving turkey may not sound like a genuine accomplishment, but Richard keeps his knives sharp enough to perform surgery on insects. After a minute, my hands were covered in turkey grease. Being naturally clumsy, it's a marvel that some family isn't having my liver for Thanksgiving.

Never mind that. We worked until the turkeys were carved and the stuffing cooked. Hallie reminded me that it was our "second year in a row" cooking Thanksgiving dinner for people we didn't even know. She felt grateful. So did I.

Her: "It feels good to cook for people who might not have enough. We should do this every year, Papa."

Me: "Are there any knife cuts on my neck or face?"

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.