Lately

6:30. The earliest I've been home all week and then some!

I have to confess: we've mostly been eating out lately and by "out" I mean at the hospital where I work. Of those more notable meals, Au Bon Pain now has their Harvest Pumpkin soup back in rotation. John prefers the Old Fashioned Tomato. We can't all have good taste.

Speaking of pumpkins, two weekends ago between lab and lab I got out to the Cedar Circle pumpkin festival. Lots of children (eh, what can you do), beautiful weather, plenty of pumpkins. Incidentally, I witnessed multiple kids cry while standing in the pumpkin patch. As an adult, I find this physically impossible and so was fascinated. One toddler did manage to run headlong into a not-very-tall pumpkin still on the ground. Again, fascinating.

So many pumpkins...

...and other assorted cucurbits.

Without remembering the last time I've been to a pumpkin patch, it felt a lot like the days back in Pennsylvania where the onset of fall would incur multiple mandatory trips for my cousins and my family to Strawberry Acres for apples and pumpkins. As a kid, they even had a petting zoo. That place was the shit. Needless to say, we bought some pumpkins from Cedar Circle.

...but only after multiple thorough inspections. It takes a strong man to manage my pumpkins.

That afternoon before the night shift in lab, John took one of our prizes under the knife and I roasted the seeds. Apparently the key to keeping home-roasted fresh pumpkin seeds crisp is: don't store them in an airtight anything (like I did last year, witlessly). They are still going strong in the paper bag on my kitchen counter.

Other things that happened in the past two weeks:
  - A visit to Poverty Lane Orchards with Ben to walk the dog and pick some apples for a crisp and then some. Ben turned out to have an excellent nose for apples but unfortunately also an excellent appetite.
  - My brother's birthday celebration and the subsequent Whole Foods shopping trip, where fresh pumpkin tortellini and crab/lobster ravioli made it in the shopping cart for a quick dinner two nights later. I highly recommend the pumpkin tortellini with a brown butter and sage sauce blanche.
 - Tandem sicknesses that resulted in an acute lack of beer-drinking. Making up for this tonight has so far been fruitful.
- Non-coffee dates. I don't drink coffee now in a show of support, but make up for it on the stove-top with the occasional bitter spiced drinking chocolate which John will drink if it doesn't attack him first. Last Friday, venturing out to pick up birthday chocolate for my brother and salted caramels for my sister necessitated a stop at the Dirt Cowboy for something warm and liquid.

Hot Chocolate

The air on my run today smacked with a winter crispness. I anticipate many warm drinks to come.