Harry & Sally. Rhett & Scarlett. Lancelot & Guinevere. Lucy & Ricky. Johnny & Baby. Name famous romantic couples and since 2007, Marlboro Man and The Pioneer Woman deserve a spot in the Top Ten.

Forgive the coarse language but there's no other way to put this: The State of American Pie? It sucks. I'm four months into The Great Hunt for Homemade Pie, ordering pie at every restaurant that claims to make 'homemade' pie. From truck stops famous for mile-high pies to white tablecloth glitzy restaurants, I've dipped my fork into slice after slice. Here's what I've learned.

Today's gratitude goes to Glenna from A Fridge Full of Food for her reminder that (1) it's time to make fruit cake and (2) for anyone turning up her nose or turning away to gag, loving fruit cake starts with examining our expecations. Glenna puts it so well:

Research says that we cook the same 20 dishes again and again. Again and again. Again and again. (And again.) Sure, every six months, we drop one and replace it with another. Eating in rhythm with the seasons changes that. Each season, each month, there's something new to pique our curiosity and tickle our tastebuds, something that just last month wasn't available or wasn't at its freshest or had to travel from, alors, South America to reach your table. So, tis late fall. Tomatoes are two months gone and asparagus are five, maybe six, months away. What's special about what we cook in November? Here are three vegetables that will turn November into something special, something memorable.

Somehow it seems apt that the time changed for many of us at the close of October, the eve of November. The evening's darkness, it seems to signify a time for nesting, for nestling in with family and loved ones, 'not forgetting your own dear' self as my grandmother used to say. So what might we do -- food-wise, budget-wise, life-wise -- in November, stuff that fits the month like the gloves we'll soon be needing.