Autumn=Pumpkin

Growing up in the North of England it was unheard of to ever eat a pumpkin. They were to be scooped and lit once a year, that is all. I recall having the vague idea they were poisonous, at least until English telly became saturated with American shows and I learned of pumpkin pie.

Philistine!

A combination of moving to New Zealand and establishing a veggie garden have turned me into a pumpkin fanatic. Autumn=pumpkin. The kiwis are mad on pumpkin. Despite the fact we’ve eaten pumpkin in some guise nearly everyday this week (Penne a la Zucca, pumpkin Arancini di Riso; pumpkin risotto, pumpkin and potato pancakes etc) Mr Blackbirdhasspoken was really reluctant to put the knife into the butternuts for anything but eating purposes.

The lack of winter festivities is one of the very few difficulties of living in New Zealand. Reading ‘Celebrating the Southern Seasons’ by Juliet Batten (here, she blogs too, hurrah!) gave me confidence to institute some round our place. In recent years I’ve held a midwinter Christmas, with a secret santa and a big dinner in the middle of the day featuring a turkey, chestnuts and all the trimmings (sprouts!). As most of the invited kiwi’s had eaten neither turkey nor chestnuts, I think I’m excused on the initial pumpkin avoidance front.

A slightly pumpkin stained wee ghostie

This year with Juliet’s inspiration again and especially for THE little pumpkin entertainment purposes, we’ve also introduced a mini pumpkin fest. Pumpkin lanterns last night, and Pumpkin Moonshine for Claudine’s bedtime book this week, a classic tale from 1936. And more pumpkin eating.

We’ve also been taking Claudine outside at night, now it’s dark before her bedtime, to do some star gazing. She can say both ‘star’ and ‘moon’ now. Beautiful stuff.

                                                                  Two little pumkins