Well, despite recovering from a sudden, but mercifully brief, cold, Z-man and I managed to make a Thanksgiving dinner.  Granted, the tofurkey took care of itself.  But the best part was getting to use the french cooking pumpkin I got from Mariquita Farms last week.

It was a pretty good size one, and splitting it open and scooping out the fibers and seeds totally took me back to Halloweens past.  And that rich, earthy pumpkin smell too! The real deal, sans cinnamon and clove and all.  Just pure pumpkiny aroma.  I haven't done that in years.  It's messy and involved, but, man, it's worth it. 

Getting that thing ready was what took up most of yesterday, actually.  It wasn't too huge, although despite making spicy pumpkin soup with lemon cashew cream, roasting the seeds, and using pumpkin in a vine/gourd veggie tagine, I still have a little left over. 

The tagine was a mix of zucchini, eggplant, butternut squash, and pumpkin.  I started with the onion/tomato standard base with cinnamon, but no cumin this time around.  I didn't have any more preserved lemon, so had to settle for a little lemon juice.  It wasn't super tagine-y, but it was very tasty and went well with the other dishes.

Z-Man made some excellent roasted red russet potato with rosemary (swoon).  I didn't even bother with cous-cous, this was so good and satisfactorily starchy.

I also made another batch of passion fruit sorbet.  I think I was a bit stretched with my attention, since this batch came out a bit less intense than the last. However light it turned out, it was a very nice finisher to the meal, which wasn't a super-heavy Thanksgiving gorge-fest.  But it was very satisfying.

The roasted pumpkin soup was just what I was aiming for.  I totally guessed at the recipe, based on other soups I've made, but it worked well.  I'll share what I did, but I was pretty much flying by the seat of my apron.  I'm guessing at the amounts here too, except for the spices, which I do remember.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Toasted Pumpkin Seeds and Lemon "Cream"

1.5 lbs fresh pumpkin, cut roughly into large cubes and de-rinded
3 red padron peppers, seeded and sliced in halves lengthwise
5 cloves garlic, whole and peeled
4 dried red chiles
1 small yellow onion
1 quart vegetable stock
1/2 quart vegetable broth
7 anise stars
6 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
salt
olive oil (about 1/4 a cup and 2 tbsp)

1 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup lemon juice (meyer lemon if you can -- I didn't have any)
1 tsp white miso paste
2 tbsp nutritional yeast

toasted pumpkin seeds, for garnish*

1) Preheat the oven to 400°.  (I used the convection setting this time).  Also, soak the cashews in warm water.
2) Grind up the star anise, cloves, and cinnamon together
3) In a large bowl, add about 1/4 cup of olive oil and add the ground spices, reserving about 1 tbsp
4) Toss the pumpkin, peppers, red chiles, and garlic in the oil and spices until thoroughly covered
5) Spread out the pumpkin/peppers/garlic on a non-stick or foil-covered roasting sheet, and roast them in the oven for about 30 minutes.  Check on it about midway and toss it all around to make sure nothing is sticking.  The padron peppers and chiles will blacken a bit, and the garlic and pumpkin will get slightly dark around the edges.  Don't let them burn, though!
6) In a large soup pot, add about 2 tbps olive oil and heat over medium-high heat.  When hot, add the 1 tbsp spices you reserved and the chopped onion.  Pick off the padrons, chiles, and garlic from the sheet and add to the oil.  Add salt**.  Sautée for about five to seven minutes, until the onion is just translucent.
7) Add the pumpkin chunks, and toss the whole shebang together.
8) Add the stock and broth, turn up the heat to high, and bring to a boil.
9) Reduce heat and simmer on low for about 30 minutes
10) Cut the heat.  Either using an immersion blender or a food processor, purée the whole mix down to a smooth, velvety texture.  Be really careful doing this with hot liquid.  I was juggling several things at once, of course, and was a bit cavalier about my immersion blender and got a few spatter-induced ouchies because of it.  If you're using a blender or processor, only blend a cup or two at a time and make sure it doesn't volcano on you.
11) Return the soup to the pot (if you used a processor).
12) Drain the cashews and add to a food processor (clean yours out if you used it for the soup).  Add the miso and nutritional yeast.  Turn on the processor and slowly add the lemon juice through the hopper.  You may have to add some plain water (or perhaps more lemon juice, or diluted lemon juice) to get the mix down to the consistency you like.  You can actually do this without the miso and yeast, as I did.  The texture is a bit different, but this is the "usual" recipe for making a vegan lemon cream.
13) Serve soup.  Garnish with lemon "cream" and toasted seeds.

* Note about the seeds:  I actually used two kinds, since I was also using leftover butternut squash.  The pumpkin seeds I dry-roasted with salt, red pepper powder, and cardamom, also in the convection oven at 400°.  It took only about 15 minutes.  The butternut squash seeds, I roasted in tamari soy sauce and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.  I think the tamari ones came out a little better, but they are a bit salty, so use sparingly or let your diners garnish their own.

** I got to use some Cyprus black lava sea salt I'd picked up last year in Tarpon Springs.  It'd super dark and leaves grey dust on your fingers, but I figured it'd be a nice smoky addition, and it seemed to be.  I used about two pinches here.

I've just learned that two components of semen include cadaverine and putrescene.

They are amino acids found both in decaying flesh and, along with spermidine, semen.

Barthes was clearly onto something, when he called orgasm "le petit mort."

I love passion fruit with a certain ardor.  It's lush, aromatic, and very tropical.  Looza passion fruit nectar was probably my first encounter with it.  That, or Ben & Jerry's passion fruit and raspberry sorbet combo, which was heavenly.

This past week, Rainbow has had fresh passion fruit in stock, amidst all the squash and pumpkins that signify fall's arrival.  I can't remember seeing it in stock before there, though they may well have had it.  But of course I had to purchase some.

They're tiny, lightweight, mottled brown-maroon fruits that wrinkle and dimple as they approach ripeness.  The insides are typically runny orange flesh with dark black seeds that are soft and reminiscent of kiwi seeds.  Edible, as far as I know.  But seeing them in the store instantly set me a-craving for that Ben & Jerry's sorbet, so with my ice cream/sorbet maker in mind, I picked up about 5-6 fruits.

They're so light, I didn't think they'd be enough, but I'm happy to say they were plenty adequate.  Here's my recipe, based on the grapefruit sorbet recipe that came with my cuisinart sorbet maker.  The results are absolutely perfect and right on. 

Passion Fruit Sorbet

2-3 cups water
1.5 cups powdered sugar
5-6 passion fruits
1/2 shot Hangar One Raspberry vodka (totally optional)

Equipment:  sorbet maker, immersion blender

1. Bring the water to a boil
2. While the water is boiling, slice the fruits in half.  Scoop out the insides, seeds and all, with a spoon or melon baller and reserve.  Tip:  The pith/rind is white, and you don't want to scrape that out.
3. When water is boiled, cut heat and add sugar, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved*.
4. Add the passion fruit innards to the simple syrup and bring the mixture to a very light simmer.
5. As the mixture simmers, use a wire whisk and beat the mixture thoroughly.  The idea here is that the fruit and essence clings to the seeds, and whisking and simmering will loosen them from the seeds. 
6. When the seeds first start to come "clean," cut the heat and continue to whisk .  The mixture will be cloudy and lightly tinted yellow-orange.  Let it cool slightly before the next step.
7. Pour the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a new bowl (Tip: a bowl with a pouring spout).  With a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, push the mixture through the sieve, raking the seeds over the mesh.  Continue to do this until the seeds are basically free of any clinging fruit goo.**
8. Scrape the bottom of the outside of the sieve with a spatula to get the last lingering bit into the water/sugar/fruit liquid.  Take care not to get any seeds in it.
9. Let the mixture cool for about 15 minutes.  Then take an immersion blender and blend the cooled mixture.  This sort of evens out the texture and aerates it.  The goal is to get a fairly even-hued consistency immediately before you pour it into the sorbet maker.
10. Turn the sorbet maker on and carefully pour the liquid into it.
11.  After about 25 minutes, check the consistency.  If it's nearly done, pour in the 1/2 shot of vodka.  Let it continue to go for another 5-7 minutes, or until it's the consistency you like.

* This was the weird part.   The grapefruit "model" I've made is 2 cups water and 2 cups granulated sugar for the simple syrup part.  I tend to use less sugar than that, and in this case, having just moved into a new place, I didn't actually have granulated sugar! But, for some reason, I have three bags of powdered sugar (Z-man and I like baking, what can I say).  So I started w/ 2 cups of water and just under 1.5 cups of sugar.  The result was actually rather thick, near-glaze-like consistency, and the sugar was dark in the water.  The granulated sugar dissolves more completely, and the simple syrup I'm used to seeing is fairly clear.  So I added 1/2 cup at a time of plain water and continued to dissolve the powdered sugar as best I could until I got it more liquidy than glazey, although the sugar was still cloudy in the water.  That was about another whole cup of water, possibly more, later.  It turned out just fine, though, given the nature of passion fruit flesh, which itself is kind of gooey when ripe.  The whisking and blending helped, I think, and the texture at the finish, and even 24 hours later, is just perfect.

** Mmm, goo.

Forgot to mention:  last night, Z-Man and I had comp tickets to a marriage benefit here in SF, at the Palace of Fine Arts.  The cast from the SF production of Wicked featured prominently, and other folks' names were attached, including Vanessa Williams, Margaret Cho, Carol Channing, Lily Tomlin, Valerie Harper, Florence Henderson, Rita Moreno and lots of others. 

Actually appearing last night were Bruce Vilanch, who was quite funny and read a letter from Harvey Firestein; Patty Duke, who is a) tiny b) but not as tiny as Selene Luna, and c) attached to the SF production of Wicked; Carol Kane, who is awesome and mad, and read a letter from the woman who authored the book to the stage version of Wicked; Lee Meriweather -- yes, that one, Miss America 1955 (which she laughed at hearing out loud), and the original Catwoman from the Adam West Batman movie in the 60s; and, pretty much the reason I went, Selene Luna.

There were some acts I hadn't heard of or wouldn't have put a name to, including the Barnaby Sisters, who did a wonderfully campy-dykey version of "When the Special Girlfriends";  Ava Garter, an amazing old-school burlesque dancer with feathers and pasties and all; Nicole Parker, formerly of MADtv, who did a very, very funny faux "cabaret star of the 80s" song and act; Celisse Henderson, another Wicked cast member who did a really good drum and rhyme bit about marriage; and some other acts that were enjoyable.

Favorite quotes:

"Holiday time is the worst.  There's so much pressure on me to be . . . enchanting."
-Selene Luna, comedienne (don't call her a midget)

"I'm sorry I'm laughing so much.  I hadn't heard how they were going to introduce me this evening!"
-Lee Meriweather, on being introduced as Miss America 1955 and the original Catwoman

"Somone messed with Patty Duke's box.  Oh, that didn't come out right."
-Suzanne Whang, remarking that the diminutive Patty Duke's podium elevation was removed from its expected location

"People stare, yeah, I get it.  But it's the ones who. Keep. Staring.  I just want to go up to them and say . . . 'Only you can see me.  I'm here to help.'"
-Selene Luna

 After missteps, mis-coordinations, and the usual last-minute frenzy, Z-Man and I are moved in.  Halle-effin-lujah.

There are still a few loose ends for me to deal with, including storage for a few items that we don't have room for; a couple of points of business to take care of; and a few things to clean up at the old place.  But the hard part of purging and packing is done, as is the heavy lifting (thank you, Delancy Street Movers).

The unpacking is far less sucky than the packing, but things are still unsettled.  I still have some books to unpack.  A few items are still looking for homes here.  My brand new mattress just arrived today.  And Bella is still adjusting (cat + spiral iron stairs = better than reality television (waaaaay)).

And I really love this new place.  The layout, the roof garden, the location, the 15 minute commute.  Things are still, as I said, a little unsettled yet, but it's just the little earthquakes afterward.

I hate moving.

No, like, you can take something you strongly dislike, and say, "I hate it," but that's not the same thing.  That's "distate," or "revulsion," or "suck-tastic."  You can loathe it too, but that's different altogether.  Loathing has no love at all.  "Hate" is the flip side of love. 

And nowhere is that more true than with moving and I.

I'm not exactly a pack rat.  I don't just accumulate for the sake of accumulating.  But I'm deeply sentimental.  "Mental" being an important part of that word.  Z-man, wisely, keeps trying to tell me, "Sentiment is emotional, not physical."  And that's true.

But it's not merely sentimentality.  As my mother reminded me, my grandmother, one of the most sentimental people I have ever known, was ruthlessly good at throwing things away, which is sort of out of character from what most people might have thought of her.  It's a Cancer thing (the sign, not the disease).

No, physical things to which I am attached are a version of personal read-only memory (P-ROM).

My brain, as certain close friends have remarked, is kind of hard-drive-like.  Recollection is a scan which they physically see happening.

But I think I'm getting older.  There's been some degredation.  I need a defrag, too.

Going through my desk tonight (one of my parsed-out goals for purging), I came across correspondence from 20 years ago, before email and blogs were "invented" (or at least popularly accessible).  I forgot how good a letter-writer I was, back in the day -- the day being my freshman and sophomore year of college (1988-1990).

I've come across things that I instantly knew what they were, why I had them, but weren't really a part of my memory any longer-- possibly the most hilarious being some stickers I got in 1983, when I visited my friend Gary, after he'd moved from Miami to Jupiter, and worked that summer in a photo-developing place (nearly a relic itself).  The stickers were thought- and word-bubbles, like you'd see on the comics page.  They had such witicisms as "Where's the Beef?" and "Girls just want to have fun!" and "I love Rock 'n' Roll!" One was meant to apply these stickers to people in your pictures.  Hilarity ensues. 

As a bonus, in the sleeve with the remaining few stickers (of which all of the above quotes were found, perhaps proving by their lack of use that I've never been too dreadfully trendy) was a decal sticker of Inky, Blinky, and Clyde, and . . . um . . . the other ghost from Pac-Man.

See, I can't remember the other ghost's name without that sticker!

Granted, that's probably not important anymore.  A garbage bag on my floor is positively lined with items about which I've reached the same conclusion.

So, I'm doing pretty well with the purging.  And there's surely an up-side to throwing away items that you're embarrassed about having now, and I mean that in a non-destroy-the-evidence sort of way.  But I'm not feeling it at the moment.  I feel, at the moment, like I'm losing people and experiences to a general aether of forgetfulness. 

And I've signed the lease to a new place.  Packing and purging begins this weekend, to culminate on the move on Friday next.  Woo-hoo! The place is really nice, and I will be posting pictures.  I'm genuinely looking forward to being in this new place w/ Z-man (both cake and icing).

But right now, I'm trying to choke down my burning hatred of a thousand suns for the moving process. 

Choke, choke.

I remember reading about the Marshmallow Experiment some time ago, and its interesting findings. Seeing it edited and wrapped up like this is kind of awesome.

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo. (Via Sullivan)

And speaking of delayed gratification, Z-man and I may actually, really, have a place (for rent, not for purchase).  I won't say too much more about it, since it's not set in stone (or even paper), and Mercury is retrograde, heh.  But here's hoping!

At 5:35pm tonight, I will be thirty-nine years old.

I'm too tired/busy to panic.

So far, let's see, my cat peed on the floor in front of the litterbox (in her defense:  it's dirty and I need to clean it), I have migraine flashies (going to pretend its free psychedelics and recall my 25th birthday). 

On the plus side, I came home to a beautiful array of treats from my parents, who picked out all sorts of items from one of my longtime favorite places back in Gainesville, the Wine and Cheese Gallery.  So thoughtful! There's a bottle of ice wine, some fig spread, actual black truffle (yum), some havarti, actual reggiano, and, without knowing that viognier is currently my preferred wine of choice, a bottle of a viognier/pino gris blend.  The viogniers I like have an almost balsamy taste to them, notes of green tea, and a dry finish.  The good ones make me see fireworks with each sip.

Tonight, Z-man and I have a dinner date at Fleur de Lys, which he managed to somehow wrangle on a Friday night on short notice.  Can't wait!

Honestly, I haven't given my birthday much thought in a few weeks.  Dr Rogish and his partner just left town on Monday (my parent's fortieth anniversary!), after a week here.  It was so good to see them, and I'm glad the Old Gainesville-in-SF Contingent got to see them as well.  We had a nice week involving limos and wine country, Alcatraz at night, parties thrown, sights viewed, and friends visited.  Bit of a whirlwind, and even then, we didn't get to do everything they'd wanted to do.  They're either still in or just leaving Yellowstone now, and on their way to Las Vegas,. I told him he has to go see Zumanity, because.  Just because.

I'm hoping our next reuinion will be on his side of the Atlantic, and possibly (ideally) in Paris.

In the meantime, still looking for a place, trying to see if I can get to Tokyo in December, and done procrastinating at work (bad me).

Well, maybe not you, but possibly someone you love.  Warning:  your arteries may harden just by clicking on this link..  (Update:  in case linky no work, it's http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/)

The following is dubbed the Magical Rainbow Tower of Dreams.  It is the least offensive thing on this site.

Magical Rainbow Tower Of Dreams
Ten layers of multi-coloured chocolate chip sponge cake, each separated with a layer of icing