Reading and Eating, Pumpkin-Style
The first weekend of Pumpkin Palooza has come and gone! I think of Labor Day weekend as kind of the “Opening Ceremony” of Pumpkin Palooza, so I like to go all out. But first! I finished two great books: The Mimicking of Known Successes is a sci-fi mystery, which I first heard about from ccr in MA. The story is set on the planet Jupiter, which humans have colonized after destroying Earth. To be honest, the storyline was interesting but not amazing, but I LOVED the setting. The description of life on Jupiter was fascinating and so well done. I had an odd experience though- I didn’t read the description of this book at all, but dove right in without knowing much. About halfway through I realized I didn’t know if the narrator was male or female. For some reason I had vaguely been thinking male (their name is “Pleiti” which I would contend is gender-neutral) but when I realized I wasn’t sure, I flipped back to the beginning for clues- and I couldn’t find any. There was no mention of appearance or clothes- other than special scarves that shielded them from the harsh atmosphere- nothing that specified a gender. Finally I took a glance at the description on the inside jacket which describes it as “a cozy gaslamp mystery and sapphic romance.” Oh! I guess Pleiti is a woman. In a way I was disappointed that I found out- I was kind of enjoying reading the story and not knowing. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my son several years ago. We were at a store together and after we left I asked him “Do you think our cashier was a man or a woman? I couldn’t tell.” His response was, “Why does it matter?” Yes- why DOES it matter? On the subject of gender, Adichie’s Feminist Manifesto is so good. I think I’ve done a pretty good job with my daughter- never called her princess, or talked about her being “pretty”, and avoided any talk of “girls do this; boys do that.” But the other day she was telling me about a friend who liked a boy but didn’t want to tell him, because she didn’t want to be the one to initiate anything. I said “Yes, that’s a good idea. Let him initiate it.” WAIT. Why did I say that? It just goes to show- I need a check-in now and then. This book is FULL of wisdom, and it’s a very quick read. Now for the food! First breakfast of Pumpkin Palooza: pumpkin pancakes. I used this recipe from Running on Real Food. They’re made with chickpea flour! So they were a little odd, ha ha. But still delicious! I used my usual trick for pumpkin baked goods- take the amount of pumpkin spice the recipe calls for and double it, and add a pinch of cloves. The only thing I would say about this recipe is, there’s too much salt. Next time I would cut back a little, but I enjoyed these. For dinner I made this recipe for Pumpkin Pasta Bake from Nora Cooks. She uses an almond ricotta, but I made a tofu ricotta instead. And I topped it with Miyoko’s liquid plant-based mozzarella. We’ve been getting a lot of use from that cheese! This dish was good! The sauce has coconut milk (but it doesn’t taste like coconut) and pumpkin. We enjoyed this for THREE dinners- I love leftovers. Last year I ate so much pumpkin in early September that I got sick of it (ack!) In order to prevent that tragedy again, I’ll be taking a short break from pumpkin (after I eat my pumpkin oatmeal for breakfast today, heh heh!) Have you read either of these books? Do you think it’s obvious from the picture on the front that Mimicking is about two women? Do you like pumpkin baked goods?