Yummy Fall Flavors Surround Me

I love the flavors of the fall season, especially pumpkin and eggnog flavors. I believe Jason already wrote about the pumpkin we somehow grew at our Stevenson address, well yesterday we put all the pumpkin pulp into a food processor and today we made our first batch of pumpkin bread. It's not going to be ready to try until tomorrow morning, but I can just imagine now how wonderful it's going to taste. We froze five or so more cups of the pumpkin pulp so we can continue to make pumpkin bread or pie throughout the winter season.

I love the new coffee drinks that Starbucks come out with for the season such as the Pumpkin Spice, Gingerbread, and Eggnog Lattes.

I bought spiced pumpkin creamer at the store today and I can't wait to drink some delicious flavored coffee at work tomorrow- YUMMY!! As I sit writing this now I can smell the bread baking downstairs and it's amazing smells are consuming me.

The Holiday Season Begins

I'd never really thought of Halloween as the beginning of the holiday season, but I think that may be because, as an adult I'd never really taken in part in any of the traditions, apart from dressing up. This year was different.

Clearly I'm food motivated, because as soon as food rituals are wrapped into a holiday it comes alive for me. This year Kate and I prepared a pumpkin for the first time. Long story, but sufficed to say we had a mid-size specimen growing in the front yard of the Stevenson Ln. house. The weeds had gotten a bit out of control. I brought it home, unsure it would come to any use, but hopeful. Last night I gutted it, baked it, and stripped the flesh from the skin in preparation for home-made pumpkin bread. I also prepped and baked the seeds, boiling them first with salt and Herbs du Provence and then baking them with more salt, cinnamon, curry and a little onion powder. Delicious.

So now Halloween is much more firmly tied to the other Autumn celebrations for me, and feels like a friendly distant cousin to Thanksgiving. Given that it seems to tie up summer nicely and drop us with fresh eyes into fall, I think Halloween isn't a stand-alone holiday, but the start of the season. The first stop on a procession of holidays, each with its own charms, tying out the year with New Years.

Who knew I was such a sucker for pumpkin?