A recipe for Thanksgiving

I do not like pumpkin pie.

There, I've said it.

I think pumpkin is an absolutely fabulous thing. In fact, along with plaid, apple picking and boots, it's what I would call a true marker of autumn. I don't know about you, but my plans include turning orange this season.

Enjoying a pumpkin spice latte while taking a mid-morning walk on a crisp, cool day. Pasta tossed with pumpkin, bacon, and sage. Pumpkin tacos, if you're so inclined. I introduced you to the joys of pumpkin oatmeal. We've eaten pumpkin pancakes. I'm a particularly big fan of pumpkin bread -- I adapted Julie's version to great success for those looking for a winner of a recipe -- and pumpkin risotto. And last year, I brought Laura Calder's squash cake to Thanksgiving dinner at my uncle's cottage.

Now, the cake was good. We all liked it and the texture was especially nice. But it was also a little on the boring side. This is all well and good after a large meal, I think, and in general I tend to prefer my dessert on the less-sweet side of the scale. However, to a family accustomed to and in love with pumpkin pie, it was a little underwhelming I'm sure.

I've gone back to the drawing board this time. Maple syrup. Whisky. Brown sugar. Nutmeg. Cinnamon. Ginger. I'd like to give pumpkin pie a run for its status. I don't know about you, but I'm headed out of dodge this weekend to enjoy some time at the cottage again -- reading, kayaking, listening to Motown, playing Mexican Train, roasting marshmallows, and refining my bartending skills. It sounds promising.

And, I'll add, so does this cake.

Maple Whisky Pumpkin Cake

Yields about 8 slices

3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup pure maple syrup (dark, or Grade-C, recommended)
1/3 cornstarch
1/4 cup coconut flour or alternative
2 cups pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup whisky (I like 40 Creek)
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
21/2 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
Pinch of salt

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F and grease a springform pan. Cream egg yolks with sugar until well combined.
2. Add in pumpkin, maple syrup, whisky,  spices and salt.
3. Mix until thoroughly combined.
4. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
5. Gently fold egg whites into the batter and mix in.
6. Add in any nuts (walnuts, pecans, etc.) that you may like at this point.
7. Gently fold mixture into springform pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean and the sides are crisp, about 50 minutes - 1hr. Serve warm with cinnamon whip cream or creme fraiche.

Breakfast around here looks like this: a pumpkin oatmeal recipe

I know there are people who don't eat breakfast. I'll admit, I don't really understand these people. I love breakfast. It's the one time of the day when mixing peanut butter and wildflower honey in with my whole grains seems perfectly acceptable, when a bowl of granola sweetened with maple syrup and brown sugar passes for health food. This is not to say I'm someone who adores sweets -- I'm not. But come fall you're most likely to find me puttering around in the kitchen, nursing a pot of oats over an open flame. Gone are the days of light lunches and quick breakfasts of yogurt and fruit or fried eggs. After all, what is more soul-satisfying than a hot bowl of grains?

When I first considered a commitment to local eating a couple of months ago, I'll be honest. I searched high and low for oats. Oak Manor produces oats grown and processed in Ontario, but naturally they aren't gluten-free. Which is fine -- unless you have that pesky auto-immune disease that's so du jour. Fortunately Cream Hill Estates, out of Quebec, makes a line of gluten-free oat products that include rolled oats, oat flour and oat groats. I realize these oats aren't from Ontario, but Montreal is a heck of a lot closer than the Bob's Red Mill Wheat-Free Oats I was purchasing. Happily, these oats are also more economical - $11 for almost 5lbs, vs. $7 for 2.2lbs of Bob Red Mill's Wheat Free Rolled Oats (and this is at NoFrills -- they go from anywhere between $8 - $10 at stores such as Whole Foods, Loblaws and health food stores.)

Cream Hill Estates, according to their website, "is a small, privately-owned business producing and distributing guaranteed pure oats as rolled oats, oat flour and whole oat kernels (groats)." They're currently in the process of developing other gluten-free oat products. For those in the GTA, I purchased mine from Noah's Bloor St. (at Spadina) location.

I'll be covering alternative ways of enjoying your bowl of oats in the future, but here's one to tantalize your tastebuds for now.

Pumpkin Oatmeal

Serves 1

1/3 cup rolled oats (learn more about rolled oats here)
2 heaping tbsp pureed pumpkin (I use Stokely's, which is grown and processed in Ontario)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, or more to taste
1-2 tsp pure Ontario maple syrup
Dash of pure vanilla extract
Black walnuts (optional)
Salt

1. Cook your oatmeal according to package directions. Be sure to add a pinch of salt to the cooking water. I cook mine on the stovetop because I don't have a microwave, which takes about 4-6 minutes.

2. Closer to the end of cooking time, around the 3-4 minute mark, add canned pumpkin, pie spice, and vanilla. Mix thoroughly to combine.

3. Heat through and serve immediately. Stir in maple syrup and add walnuts or other add-ins if desired. You may need to add a little additional salt if the flavours aren't coming through clearly. Enjoy with a cup of local pumpkin tea or with pumpkin spice coffee.

And we're off (!). Again.

I'll come right out and say it: I've been trying to write this post for a long while now. How long? Embarassingly long. Twelve re-writes long. At least. Let's forget I just said that and all yell apple cobbler. That's better. I've been drinking a lot of mint tea and watching bad television and listening to a lot of good music, most notably Sarah Harmer and David Gray. Also, it's fall now. That happened. All around me people are getting sick and asking, "Where did August go?" Nevermind August. What happened to July? I'm still stuck in July. Maybe I'll quit this blog and take up a cigar habit and write a book called May and Everything After. It'll be a quick read.

That's what's new with me. What's new with you? I haven't heard from you in ages.

I haven't been writing much these days. It began innocently enough back in June when I was too busy to breathe and fold my laundry, let alone cook anything more elaborate than fried eggs. I fell out of the habit of documenting my life and fell into the lives of other people -- celebrating 21st birthdays, for instance, or hearing a woman wax on happily about a savoury panna cotta made with boursin cheese and served over mixed greens. I spent a morning pulling weeds out of a garden on the outskirts of the city as a group of guys plucked crabapples from tree limbs, and a stranger walked by and exclaimed, "Too bad there are more weeds there than grass."

I sat on a porch stoop drinking unsweetened iced tea with the owner of a local pizza chain, and later washed my purple-stained hands after picking mulberries. I ate amazingly delicious food and drank ridiculously delicious cocktails in New York City, walked Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge with one of the loveliest women I know. I met C., a lady who introduced me to the guys at ChocoSol and to their little-known but much-loved mysterious elixir, the drinking chocolate, that I swear to you will make you deliriously happy the moment you sip on it. I spent a lot of time canning and preserving and, inevitably, making a pile of dirty dishes. I went to baseball games and dinner parties and concerts and sat on as many patios as possible. Now I'm ready to write again.

I've also decided to commit to a bit of a challenge -- to incorporate as many local foods into my diet as possible. I've been interested in eating locally for a good while, so really this is not such a steep departure from where I left of. But too often I resort to the same dishes, cycle through the same meals -- poached egg on top of brown rice pasta, some version of rice and lentils. It's not a bad thing, but I think there's a lot of experimentation left to do and a lot of unexplored territory that beckons to be discovered. Certainly we're all aware that we live in uncertain times -- haven't we always? -- sudden deaths, job losses, budget cuts, poor crop yields. No matter where I am or what anxieties arise, I like to think that a few friends can sit down around a table -- even if it "sitting down" means hanging out on the floor -- and, with the magic of a bit of food and a good glass of wine, feel that everything is right in the world. Cheers to more of that.