"pumpkins" news and stories

Cheer up, Linus: if you lived in Ukraine, you'd be glad the Great Pumpkin never showed up.

That's because, according to NPR, for centuries women in the former Soviet republic have used pumpkins to send a not-so-subtle message to would-be fiancés: essentially, "no."

A man would visit the home of a woman he wanted to marry. If the woman said yes, the family would break out the vodka. If her answer was no, "the poor guy was silently handed a pumpkin" and turned away.

Really, it's this image of youthful romance being dashed without a word, only the hand-off of an unwieldy gourd, that makes the whole thing sort of priceless. No apologies, no awkward explanations: just take your pumpkin and go home.

'Tis the season for pumpkin carving, but don't throw out the scraps! AOL KitchenDaily's toasted pumpkin seed recipe and these tips make it easy to turn a pile of pumpkin seeds (or pepitas) into a tasty and healthy snack.

If you want a slice of adorable with your Halloween, go no further than ZooBorns.com. We're not the only living creatures out there that go nuts with pumpkins! From the uber cute frog above, to apes, tentacley things, and big cats, there's a whole slew of pumpkin-centric pictures to gush over. It's got me scheming a plan to buy and empty out a ginormous pumpkin and lure the bengal inside with a trail of catnip. But methinks that would lead to unhappiness similar to this baby with a lot of sharp, talon-led panic.

At the very least, if the pumpkin is big enough, you can scoop out some flesh for cooking and still have fun with the animals.

• Pumpkins are everywhere right now and they are some good eating. Don't dismiss your big jack 'o lantern gourds, they can be used as serving vessels for soup.
• Breaking down the available varieties of pumpkin. The rule of thumb is that the more orange the flesh is, the better it is for you.
• This week in the Market Basket, you've got the Norpro apple peeler-corer-slicer, Bailey's with a hint of coffee and ghostly cookie cutters.
• Rick Nichols ponders Philly's happy abundance of cozy bistros.
• A helpful round-up of cookbooks perfect for the experimental amateur cook.
• This week the Rush Hour Gourmet has us cooking Wine-Poached Sole.
• Philly residents looking for a classic Tex-Mex burrito should search no further than El Fuego.
• A sushi restaurant has landed on East Passyunk Ave.

You can tell that we here at Slashfood are knee-deep in autumn: some of us are swilling pumpkin beer and mixing pumpkin cocktails; some of us are making comfort food from soup to pot pie; and no few of us are stuffing Halloween candy into our mouths. So what better time to share a slim, marvelous volume devoted to recipes and techniques for autumn's centerpiece ingredient?

Yes, a pumpkin is a squash (and squashes, by the way, are gourds), and so are crooknecks, acorns, butternuts, zucchinis, chayotes, pattypans, carnivals and all of the summer and winter squashes that take center stage in A Harvest of Pumpkins and Squash. The book begins with cookbook author Lou Seibert Pappas' thoughts on squash, from their history to their purchase and preparation, followed by a wonderful and useful squash glossary (squashary?). From there we proceed to squash recipes (squashipes?).