a plea for pumpkin

It's October! Can you believe it? The year was going quite slowly for me until August, and now, all of a sudden, it's October. Goodness!This is the view out my bedroom window. I think the grey sky, red leaves, orange brick looks very nice framed by my faded blue curtains. Fall is definitely here, in all it's force. It's getting colder, raining more often, the days are growing shorter. Not gradually mind you, all of a sudden it went from getting dark at 8pm to getting dark at 7pm. Just this week, when I wake up at "half six" it's dark outside.

This has left me craving hearty, warming food. Earthy root vegetables and pumpkin. Mostly pumpkin. Pumpkin bread and chocolate pumpkin muffins and those new pumpkin spice hershey's kisses (which, ironically, I've never had but I still want them!). Only one problem, you can't get pumpkin here. At least not canned pumpkin. And while I have one can of pumpkin left from last year, I'm hoarding it for Thanksgiving. I suppose I could buy a pumpkin, saw some at the market this morning, I'm not sure I want it bad enough to deseed, carve out, roast, and mash in order to make my own pumpkin puree... Not yet anyway.

I've been scouring asian markets and international food shops in hopes I may find some here. I did find teriyaki sauce and cornmeal and large bags of kidney beans, but no canned pumpkin.

So I sent out a plea on facebook: I will very happily trade any requested British goods for pumpkin products from the US!!!

In happier news, bananas are quite easy to get here. Tomorrow I'm making banana bread and chocolate chip banana muffins. That'll have to do!