Filed under: asides, garden, holiday | Tags: Arizona, carve, dislike, garden, gourd, halloween, Holiday, local, Phoenix, pumpkin, season, tradition
I really want to like pumpkin.
Every year as I’m disembowling some ugly, misshapen gourd (why go generic when you can go warty, I always say) I think about saving the seeds and growing my own orange monstrosity.
I become oddly nostalgic, picturing the vine climbing along the garden trellis, smiling as I picture the sudden appearance of an orange ball, waiting for that one leaf to turn over and die before plucking my jack-o-latern.
And then, inevitably, the bubble bursts when someone gives me something pumpkin flavored – this year it was cupcakes – and I remember that I really don’t care for the taste of pumpkin.
Stuffed pumpkin, yes. Pumpkin flavored anything else? Not so much.
It’s my great food secret. I don’t like ginger and I don’t really care for anything with sweetened pumpkin as a primary ingredient.
So this year, as I was hacking into my reddish-orange, bigger than my head and riddled with warts pumpkin, I had that same old debate with myself: Save the seeds or compost them?
This year, instead of carefully washing and drying the seeds just to throw them out a month later when I can’t remember what they are, my pumpkin gave me a clear answer.
It seems, my rock hard gourd had self-sprouted every seed. Now, I’m all for gross pumpkin insides, but I’m not planting any seed that mutinously grows inside its host.
Problem solved.
This year I just carved. And I won’t be planting any pumpkins. At least, not intentionally.
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Eating Local in Phoenix 
One of my granddaughters dislikes anything pumpkin, while all the rest of us love it. I make pumpkin/cream cheese rolls and there’s the ice cream and soup,too. Have you ever added pumpkin to your chili? My cousin told me. I tried it and love it. It makes the chili thicker and smoother.
Becoming a Christian is much like a pumpkin becoming a jack-o-lantern. God cleans all the yuk out of our insides, puts a light in our heart so our smile shines.
I like your bright red lumpy one, but those seeds?????
Keep up the great writing, please.
Rae
Comment by Rae October 31, 2011 @ 1:56 pm