Diana McCaulay

My sister, Suzie, her helper, Cherry, and I considered the pumpkin.  It had been cut loose from its vine too early and we feared it wouldn't ripen.  Was it like a banana, which would ripen after it was picked?  Or like a yam, which wouldn't?  Cherry cast a practiced eye - she thought the pumpkin, given the right treatment, would one day make it to table.  And so the pumpkin was sunned, sheltered, wrapped and unwrapped and finally, was cut day before yesterday.  And it was BEAUTIFUL!  But it's a lot of pumpkin - so stand by, friends and co workers - you are about to be blessed with pumpkin.  And I'm thinking of a pumpkin party - everyone will be issued with a bit of pumpkin and you'll have to bring it to the party, transformed by your favourite receipe. 

For now, here is a still life of our pumpkin, along with some of Cherry's world famous pumpkin rice - the onions I put in for aesthetic reasons, didn't grow those.  As I see this photo - a ground-breaking event in itself as it was taken with my cell phone - I realize I should have put the pumpkin rice into something a bit more pleasing than a plastic container.  Oh well.  Martha Stewart I'm not...