What if you got a double atlantic giant? I bet that would give you a good shot at getting near a world record. Especially if it happened to somebody who was already likely to win, then they'd probably beat the competition for years.

Ever since she was little, DD loved the pecan pie filling but never liked the pecans. So I always made little pecan-less pecan pie tartlets for her when I made the pie. My pecan pie recipe has a tablespoon of flour in the filling which I think is what helps it set up and not be runny: Pecan Pie 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened 2/3 cup light corn syrup 1 tablespoon flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 3 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup pecan halves (can omit) Combine sugar, butter & corn syrup until smooth. Add flour, salt & eggs together and beat. Stir in vanilla and pecans. Bake in unbaked pie shell 1 hour at 350 F. Notes: Since the pie bakes so long, I make a collar out of foil to cover the edges of the pie crust for the first 45 minutes of baking. Remove the foil and continue baking the remaining 15 minutes.) Lori

A few years back my wife and I were traveling on business in Brazil over Thanksgiving. A professor my wife was working with took us and several of the students to a churrascaria for dinner on Thanksgiving. (A churrascaria is a restaurant where servers roam around the restaurant with skewers of various cooked meats, continually stopping at each table to carve off some to everyone at the table) While there I mentioned that it was the US holiday of Thanksgiving and described it to the professor and the Brazilian students in general terms: get together with family and/or friends and have a large meal together, and described the "traditional" Thanksgiving meal. I was merely trying to make conversation, and make the point that what we were doing was pretty similar to the Thanksgiving tradition. However the professor responded "I'll see what I can do" and flagged the head waiter over, and spoke to him in rapid Portuguese. The waiter responded to us "We don't have any turkey but I'll see what we can do." and disappeared into the kitchen. About 10 minutes later he emerged from the kitchen followed by a server carrying a large skewer of meat, he presented it to us with a big beaming smile saying "This is as close as we could get to turkey. It's Ostrich." It didn't taste even a little like turkey, but it was delicious.

Isn't the mock apple pie made with Ritz crackers? Never tried it anyway though so I could be mistaken. When I first read "faux" I thought how good could it be, but frankly, pretzels is kind of ingenious, nay, beyond that - more ingenuous. They're crunchy, moreso even than pecans. Pecans really don't have a lot of flavor (nor do any nuts for that matter). It could work fine. Have to try it sometime. Although I'd be awfully tempted to mix in a few pecans anyway, especially on top. But still worth a try. I am a fan of pecan pie. And apple pie for that matter. And key lime pie and...