Pumpkin Passion

Name: PumpkinPalooza
Purchased At: Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge
Price: $7.00 admission fee
Availability: Year Round for the gardens/Seasonal for the Palooza

On Saturday I visited Descanso Gardens’ for their PumpkinPalooza Festival. With a name like PumpkinPalooza I had some high expectations. The festival was described as a fanciful pumpkin celebration with a costume parade, hay rides, an antique farm tractor display, pumpkin people, and an enchanted railroad.

The gardens were beautiful to walk around and view. There were plenty of off-the-beaten paths to hike and view the fall foliage. In Los Angeles you’ve got to seek out trees with beautiful fall colored leaves because they’re difficult to come by.

One section of the gardens looked like a scene straight out of “Sleepy Hallow.” We had to run through it just to make sure the headless horseman wasn’t chasing after us. Then we came to a site of mini looking headstones…freaky. Most of the gardens, however, were of the typical rose, lilac, Japanese garden variety

The pumpkin festivities were located in the main lawn area loaded down with pumpkins stacked in clusters and the obligatory gigantic pumpkin. The “pumpkin people search” was extremely disappointing. There were TWO pumpkin people in the center of the main lawn, which is not a “search.” There was a costume parade and some pumpkinish crafts but these were for kids under the age of 6. The festival was overrun with the young ones but they mostly stayed in the central and rose garden areas of the park.

The PumpkinPalooza Palace was SOOO not a palace. It was a room in the food court area with a few crafts, cookies, cakes, and toys but few were of the pumpkin variety. However, the gift shop did have a good variety of pumpkin trinkets.

The best exhibit was the antique farm tractor display. The vintage tractors were interesting and surely a RARE sight for all the L.A./Pasadena kids. Admit it, who doesn’t love to look at a shiny green John Deere tractor?

My absolute favorite part of the whole day was probably the food. For the festival they had an outdoor barbecue for grilling hamburgers and hotdogs. I haven’t had a barbequed hotdog in so long that I’d forgotten what a taste of heaven those things are…yummy. Mini pumpkin treats were available for dessert for $1.50 each–one was a pumpkin pie and the other a pumpkin brulee. They were both only two-bites big but were delicious. The pumpkin pie had excellent flavor as did the brulee; the only difference between the two was a deep creaminess to the brulee.

In sum, it was a good day and I’m glad that I went but it was not a true celebration of the pumpkin…it was more of a fall/Halloween festival.

PumpkinPalooza Rating: 3 out of 5
Pumpkin Pie Rating: 5 out of 5
Pumpkin Brulee Rating: 5 out of 5