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?
20 Responses
It’s tricky.
Somehow, gender is still an important factor in identifying another person – just like old/young, tall/short, big/thin. It’s something we grew up with and that came very naturally.
Just like we may ask a pregnant couple: Is it a boy or a girl? I guess that’s also a question we need to scrap. Including the gender reveal parties.
Enjoy the pumpkin palooza!
Yes- I always ask whether someone is having a boy or a girl! But why? It’s just a habit.
I like pumpkin, but don’t eat it much? A slice or two of pumpkin pie is about it for me each year. I feel like it’s not quite as big a deal in Canada as the US? Or maybe I just live under a rock…haha.
And I agree with you on the spices for just about anything – I ALWAYS double the spices for ginger cookies etc and also love to add a pinch of cloves!
Yes, I read that somewhere and now I always do it. Great baking hack!
I find it so interesting how our kids’ generation (Gen Z I guess) thinks about gender. Or, at least, my kids and their friends, I guess I can’t speak for the entire generation. They just are so open and accepting of gender differences, dysphoria, expression, etc. It’s so different from my experience growing up, and probably from yours too.
I got my pumpkin motif tea towels out of the linen closet yesterday!
Yes, I actually had to learn a lot from my kids. I’m wondering where they learned to be so open- certainly not from what’s being taught in school.
Yay for pumpkin towels!
I didn’t realize that I had been assuming Plieti was a man until they described a feeling as “a womb-deep thrill of distaste” and I said, Oh! But that’s pretty far in, so I guess the author didn’t feel like putting in early clues. Fair enough, it got me thinking and that’s a good thing. Anyway, I’m glad you liked it!
Oh, I missed that! Or maybe at that point I had already read the description and realized she was a woman. Whatever- I kind of liked that confusion! And I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.
Well you can’t judge a book by its cover! Yes it looks like two women but how are you supposed to know that the narrator is one of the people in the picture?
My big Gender Confusion is the podcast Maintenance Phase. It took a long time before I realized that the hosts – Michael and Aubrey – were a man and a woman. There’s just nothing masculine about Michael’s voice and Michael can be a female name so…correct IT DOES NOT MATTER but it still catches me off guard sometimes.
The kids are back in school and the first Halloween decorations in our neighborhood went up last week but I still haven’t made the transition to fall. It’s a process. I’m sure there will be some type of pumpkin goodness getting eaten (by me) in our house before Halloween.
Yes, I’ve had that before when listening to a podcast. You can’t always tell! Now I’m curious- I should listen to that one.
No Halloween decorations in our neighborhood yet, but I’m eagerly awaiting the first.
It’s hard to make a call about the book cover after reading that it is about 2 women, but I’m inclined to think that they do look like 2 females although that is a “stereotypical” way of identifying genre. The one on the left looks like a woman because off the cut of her coat and the height of her boots. The one on the right looks female because of her hair length. I haven’t read either book but I do plan to read the 2nd one! I need to get it from the library soon. I have 2 sons so don’t have a daughter to raise, but I have nieces and friends with daughters. And I am trying to raise my boys differently than my brothers/peers were raised. Like I am very open about having my period. I was inspired by Joanna Goddard of Cup of Jo. She is trying to normalize periods for her boys so they won’t be ‘weirded out’ by them. So I will tell them I have to change my tampon, for example. There was so much shame around periods when I was growing up – I don’t want that to be the case going forward so this is one small thing I’m trying to do.
I do like pumpkin good but I rarely make anything because Phil is not a huge fan and GF baking is such a chore for me and it’s hard to predict how things will turn out!
I think gender issues are important for moms of girls AND boys. Although I do have to say, a lot of times it’s my kids correcting ME, or informing me of the correct way to speak or think (like the incident with my son and the cashier.) Kids are definitely way more savvy these days when it comes to gender issues.
That’s funny… at dinner last night, my hubby remarked: I can’t tell if our waiter is a boy or girl.
You are a very creative cook… I’m getting pretty lazy and it’s too hot to turn on the oven that’s my excuse.)
I’ve only had pumpkin cold brew at Starbucks… I’m trying to hold off…
Yes, we’ll be seeing that more and more! My daughter has a friend who’s non-binary, and I keep referring to them as “she” and my daughter keeps correcting me- it’s THEY. It’s hard for us old folks to get used to this!
I saw my first Halloween decorations in the neighborhood with Hannah yesterday! I was unprepared for it, to be honest. It’s still pretty hot here, so it doesn’t really feel like fall, although I guess now that it’s September, I should be prepared.
I didn’t notice the lack of pronouns in the Older book. Interesting that it was like a puzzle for you! There’s a sci-fi series called Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (I don’t necessarily recommend it) where there’s a character who belongs to a species that doesn’t have gender, so they default to “she” pronouns and tries to figure out male/female pronouns, often incorrectly. I didn’t love the series, but I was constantly amused by the gender stuff.
Well, I knew Mossa was female- but Pleiti is the narrator so there was no need for pronouns if you know what I mean. It was all “I.” Near the very end somone refers to her as “young lady,” aha! But that was the first time her gender was mentioned.
Even though we have pumpkins as such I don’t think we have the obsession with pumpkin – the coffee chains do each do a pumpkin latte but there are often things exhorting people to eat the pumpkins they leave out on their doorsteps on Halloween rather than just throwing the innards away! I do like a pumpkin katsu curry but that’s all year round.
We went out for ice cream the other day and my 11 year old had pumpkin ice cream – it tasted just like all the good bits of Thanksgiving!
I once read a romance series where there was a major character that turned out to be a woman, but you didn’t find that out until the end of the third book (it was a series of four). I had to go back and re-read the reveal several times because I just took it for granted that the character was male because of the profession, and I thought I had misread something along the way. The author was really quite clever and intentional about the whole thing. I wonder, if that kind of narrative device will have as big of an effect in years to come? Or if people won’t understand why it was such a big deal because it would have been equally plausible for a character to be any gender (or none…).
It’s weird for me because I LOVE LOVE LOVE fall….. but I really am not a pumpkin fan at all. I’m not sure if it’s the “spice” in “pumpkin spice” things that I actually don’t care for? I mean, I can eat pumpkin things but I don’t ever choose them. I’m good for a tiny slice of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, but I greatly prefer apple, caramel or other fall flavors.
The only reason I “care” to know if someone is male or female or other in public is if I don’t know how to address them and then I would feel bad about it if I accidentally goof it up. We had this happen once many years ago where the person serving us (me and my dad) in a store was a woman but just looked a bit masculine/ was legitimately a little hard to tell. (I do not think it was a situation of the person identifying differently, which is a different situation.) She had turned around to go get something and my dad wanted to ask something else as she walked away and called out, “Oh, excuse me! Excuse me? Sir?” And I was really embarrassed because she was really a woman and did not intend to be seen as a man or anything; she just looked a little more masculine/plain and had shoulder length hair like some guys do. But my dad had just glanced at her quickly and thought she was a guy….. So then it was just very awkward.
I am not a huge pumpkin fan (give me cinnamon and nutmeg any day!) but I will probably indulge in one or the other treat. I love that you’re going all out for pumpkin season 🙂
I recently had my first “in person” encounter with a gender-neutral person. I am totally open to the concept and think anybody should live their lives as they want, but I realized that our society is not set up for it yet… I stumbled over pronouns, and I think it’s “normal” to look for clues if someone presents as “female or male”… I mean, ultimately it doesn’t matter, but I think it’s normal to ask yourself is male or female or other, if only to “address” them correctly. It’s a learning curve.