A pumpkin party

This summer Sydney grew really ugly pumpkins. Squash, actually, but hideously ugly all the same. Of course, Sydney vigorously disagrees. I’ll offer no response except a note that everyone who has seen these things says something like, “Whoah, does your pumpkin have some kind of disease??”

One thing we didn’t realize about these squash is that they often, as with the first one we brought home, weigh something like thirty pounds. That’s a lot of squash, even for two people with appetites like ours. So this weekend, which is also our fall break (we get Monday and Tuesday off), is also pumpkin weekend. Sydney has culled something like 30 recipes involving pumpkin or squash, and is now proceeding to make dish after dish. Pumpkin pie is on the menu, as is a pumpkin lasagna.

This evening when I left to take care of the dog, Sydney started cooking. He made a pumpkin casserole (it has a fancy name I don’t remember), wild rice with sauteed onions, and a dessert of baked spiced apples and pears. Yum. Unfortunately, our dinner began with a minor problem: Sydney lifted the leaf of our table, put his plate on it, and the leaf immediately collapsed, dumping the pumpkin on the floor. A whole plate of lovely food–orange food, I might add, on cream carpet. So we mourned the lovely plate as Sydney got himself a replacement meal and I scrubbed the floor. After that, however, all was peaceful and delicious. We’ll just be sure to check that the leaf is locked before testing it with a dinner plate from now on!
Erin