This year's batch of Thanksgiving pies is particularly lovable: butterscotch banana cream pie, coffee and maple chess pie and pomegranate cardamom apple pie, to name a few.

I was 16 when I had mashed potatoes for the first time. My family never made them, opting instead for a rice stuffing at Thanksgiving -- my mom's dish is sort of like this recipe from Genevieve Ko. But that year I was a guest at a friend's house for the holiday. I ate three helpings.

After high school, many Thanksgivings were spent on tour with the ballet company I danced with. I don't remember much about the food (generous hotel spreads), but I do remember the people: my fellow dancers crowded into a conference room, exhausted from "Nutcracker" rehearsals and excited to sit down and eat, laughing and picking fake plastic snow from each other's hair.

Now that I'm in charge of Thanksgiving dinner, I lean into my favorite flavors and assemble a feast that incorporates seasonal produce, my Japanese heritage and my grandma's birthplace of Hilo, Hawaii. Last year I made furikake party mix, shoyu chicken, mac salad, kale salad with dried cranberries and sweet onion dressing, kimchi and takuan, and a Zojirushi brimming with white rice, with kabocha pumpkin pie and pandan Basque cheesecake for dessert.

All of which is to say: There are no rules on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, if you're lucky, is an opportunity to cook the things you like just the way you like them, and to eat too much and feel gloriously full. It's for getting all your loved ones together in one room, for better or worse. Or, if a big gathering isn't in the cards, it's a Thursday evening to make yourself the dinner of your dreams to eat in perfect peace and quiet and comfort.

Thanksgiving is for cooking what you love. And, friends, I really love pie.

Meet Your New Thanksgiving Pies

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Vaughn Vreeland -- he of Cookie Week and salted margarita bars fame -- has six (!) new pies for us to consider this holiday season, and I'm honestly hard-pressed to choose. Do I want a butterscotch banana cream pie, a cranberry citrus meringue pie or a sesame swirled pumpkin pie? (Yes.) This coconut caramel tart is essentially a giant Girl Scout cookie, and this pomegranate cardamom apple pie looks like a fantastic showcase for those Honeycrisp apples I can't stop buying. And Vaughn writes that this coffee and maple chess pie is like "enjoying maple-soaked pancakes with a cup of coffee," which is perfect, since the only thing better than pie for dessert is pie for breakfast.

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Coffee and Maple Chess Pie

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There are many more pies to consider in our Thanksgiving pie collection. You'll find New York Times Cooking classics in there -- Melissa Clark's brandied pumpkin and chocolate pecan pies, David Tanis's neon cranberry curd tart, Yossy Arefi's gasp-worthy rose apple tart -- as well as new recipes for old favorites. I love the sound of this junkberry pie, a recipe from Royers Round Top Cafe in Round Top, Texas, adapted by Melissa Knific. The "junkberry" element is a mix of apples, frozen peaches and berries cooked into a delicious crimson filling; I think I'll make mine with frozen mango instead of peaches as suggested by Katie, a reader.

Our Best Thanksgiving Pies

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Our friends at Wirecutter are also here for the pie party with helpful pie-making gear recommendations, including for practical (but pretty) pie plates and an old-fashioned apple peeler that makes pie prep fun. Which reminds me: Here's Cybelle Tondu's recipe for Dutch apple pie, which can be frozen, assembled and unbaked, for up to three months.

And for all my Thanksgiving planners (daydreamers) out there, here's our ultimate guide to Thanksgiving, full of advice, recipes, wisdom and playlist picks. Try out the nifty sliders that help you find the perfect dessert for your preferred type and difficulty level. Slide them over to "not pie" and "easy," and you get Tanya Sichynsky's aforementioned Basque cheesecake, Eric Kim's no-bake caramel apple pudding and Samantha Seneviratne's pumpkin blondies with chocolate and pecans. Choose, plan, cook and eat what you love.