Girl With the Flammable Pumpkin- Pumpkin Bread

"I think about that girl I read about in the paper- the one with the flammable skirt...She wore it to a party and was dancing, too close to the vanilla-smelling candles, and suddenly she lit up like a pine needle torch...But what I keep wondering is this: That first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think? Before she knew it was the candles, did she think she'd done it herself? With the amazing turns of her hips, and the warmth of the music inside her, did she believe, for even one glorious second, that her passion had arrived?" The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender

I love this paragraph. I do. It's even more satisfying in the original context. I neglected to put some key sentences in the quote, because it is my personal opinion that this paragraph alone is so perfect that it could stand along as a piece of flash fiction and I don't feel right about copying an entire piece of work. Or the shorter version- go read this.

I carved the above pumpkin. And then I realized I had recreated this scene. The girl in the skirt. And her passion had arrived...

Anything worth doing takes passion. Something that makes you thrum with excitement as you realize that this was something you were meant to do. That this is something you want to do- that you can do- and the marriage of the two is so perfect that you can't help but be gleeful. It doesn't matter how long or hard the task is, you have the patience to see it through. To make things is my passion. I love to make things that weren't there before, to piece different things together to see them in a new light. I want to carve a pumpkin, to bake a batch of cookies, to write a perfect sentence. You don't have to love only one thing, but if you find a single thing to love, it will see you through anything. 

Even pumpkin carving...

There's something satisfying about gutting a pumpkin. The seeds are cold to the touch and covered in orange goop. They resist leaving the squash, hanging on by fibrous threads, until with a good yank they come free. And yet no matter how disgusting they feel on your skin, you still love scrapping the carcass clean of all seeds. Then comes to scalpel.

Insert Evil Grin Here.

The cut up carcass is then hoisted onto the porch and has a hot candle shoved inside of it. Very kid friendly, no? What are we teaching our children? How to be sadistic pumpkin murderers? Probably.

So tonight, let's burn some pumpkins! Who's with me! I'll get the torch...

...Or we could just make some pumpkin bread. Fine. Be like that.

Pumpkin Bread

(Recipe from: Jane Brody's Good Food Book)

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

2 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup blueberries

1/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan.

Beat together sugar, oil, pumpkin, and eggs. 

In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Fold into pumpkin mixture, just enough to combine. Do not over mix.

Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour batter into pan.

Bake for an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan and cool completely.

What do you love?

The Importance of Eating Muffins

JACK: How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins, when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.

ALGERNON:  Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.

JACK: I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.

ALGERNON: When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as anyone who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins.

- Oscar Wilde, TheImportance of Being Earnest

Muffins are irresistible to everyone, except celiacs, masochists, and people of that sort. Why else would a celebrated wit such as Oscar Wilde choose the muffin over an abundance of British tea time treats? What about bread and butter, teacake, or those queer, porous crumpets? Clearly they are all inferior.

There comes a time each year when I crave pumpkin. (Some call it “fall.”) My seasonal instincts are telling me to eat those bulbous orange squashes that grace the entrances of every supermarket. I thought a lot about making pumpkin muffins. I knew I needed to make pumpkin muffins or I would think about them day and night until that thought circuit became a reality. 

This vegan pumpkin coconut muffin recipe is adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe clip from the New York Times site. (Watch the video and catch the Milan Kundera joke at the end.) Rather than the usual half all-purpose, half-whole wheat approach, Bittman uses whole wheat pastry flour and a cup of produce puree. I veganized this recipe by replacing the stick of butter with a half cup of coconut oil, which I also rubbed all over my skin. Try not to get it on your cuffs.

Some say the best way to prevent muffin-provoked violence is to make enough for everyone. This recipe makes 12-14 muffins and one small bowl of vegan pumpkin pudding.

Vegan Pumpkin Coconut Muffins

2 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour

¾ cup maple syrup

2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder

½ teaspoon aluminum-free baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup pumpkin puree (Bake and puree peeled pumpkin or buy it canned like a square. Your choice.)

½ cup coconut milk

½ cup melted coconut oil

¼ cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ginger

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat to 375 degrees.

Combine the pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl and stir. In another bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, coconut milk, coconut oil, and shredded coconut. Gently blend the two mixtures together and keep in mind that over-mixing will result in unpleasantly tough muffins. Grease a muffin tin with coconut oil or fill the tin with muffin cups. Pour in the batter.

Place the tin in the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.

As you wait, eat the remainder of the batter with a spatula. Rename the recipe “Vegan Pumpkin Pudding” and call it a night.

I try so hard not to look like one of those people who stuff their mouths incessantly, but it still seems like whenever anyone speaks to me I have a mouthful of corn chips. Call me Chipmunk Cheeks, but what can be done? Could I grow my own self-control with a green tablet in a tub of water and use the resulting spongy-thing to soak up my unbridled addictions? Probably not.