Pumpkin Passion

Happy New Year! There’s so much exciting pumpkin news to report already. In fact, by noon on January 1, 2010, I already had something to share.

For reasons that are currently beyond me, Shannon and I decided to go the Rose Parade. We were supposed to go last year but the 4 a.m. alarm was promptly turned off and ignored. This year we got all riled up to go and managed to get ourselves out of bed at an ungodly early hour. I’d never been and Shannon hadn’t been since childhood. It just sounds like something you’ve got to do at least once if you live in Southern California. Why not?

Here’s why not: We had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. in order to get dressed and drive to Union Station by 5:30 a.m. We saw the sun come up on the packed Metro Gold Line ride from Union Station to Pasadena. Then we walked and walked and walked to find a place to stand that did not have the stench of bacon wrapped hotdogs cooking upwind from us. Stumbling out of a bar at 2:00 a.m., the things don’t smell as bad, but OMG! SERIOUSLY! I do NOT want to smell a bacon wrapped hot dog at 6:00 a.m.! Do other places have bacon-wrapped hot dog vendors? Please someone tell me!!! I need to know!

Finally, we found a spot in a doorway of a used bookstore. As we stood there with all the many sleepy people who were crazy enough to sleep out on the streets of Pasadena just to be 8 feet closer to the floats than we were, 6 teenagers came and stood next to us. This was our second mistake (the first was waking up). We should have moved when they first started to get annoying, but we felt like we’d already staked this spot out and it was ours, dang it! So, when a few of them left and came back with bacon wrapped hotdogs we cringed but stayed put.

Another thing to know is that there was a walkway between us and those in their sleeping bags. It was just a thin path allowing people to get past in a single file line. This tiny empty spot wasn’t wide enough for people to get past without constantly bumping in to us and others. Hours and hours of crowds bumping in to me while I’m just trying to take a couple of pictures of the floats wore on my sleepy nerves.

The entire combination of annoying teenagers (I mean REALLY annoying, not the typical level of teenage annoyance), stinky people who hadn’t showered in a while because they’d been sleeping on the street; the smell of bacon wrapped hot dogs with the grilled onions that were served with them; the lag time between floats, which lasted as long as 10 minutes; constantly being bumped into by the throngs of people; entitled Orange County parade watchers; standing for 6 hours; no coffee; only port-a-pottys; growing hunger; and the floats looked a lot smaller than they do on television all made us go a little wacky and I may have flipped off the group of teenagers as we left the parade early.

We got the heck out of there before the crowds completely flooded the Metro Gold Line and headed back home. Since we’d been up since 4 a.m. and it was now noon, we decided to stop off at Island’s Burgers for our farewell meal to fatty foods before starting the traditional New Year’s Resolution diet. As we were seated, I noticed their televisions were showing the Rose Parade and better yet they were showing the last float we saw before we were completely fed up and left. We got to see the rest of the parade from our comfy restaurant booth while eating a juicy bacon cheese burger…just like God had intended!

Unfortunately, that’s when we saw the pumpkins on the floats! Dang it! How was I supposed to blog about the Rose Parade with out pictures of the pumpkins! We decided (mistake #3, if you’re counting) to go to the float viewing the next day. After the parade the floats are parked in Pasadena and people can pay to go walk by the floats and see them up close. It sounded like a great idea.

What we didn’t know was how incredibly crowded it gets and how FREAKIN’ hot it was going to be! The place was PACKED and the temperature was unseasonably hot even for Southern California. We were sweating buckets and I even got sunburned. However, I did get pictures of the pumpkins.

There were three floats with pumpkins on them. The first and largest pumpkin display was on the Kaiser Permanente float, “Magnificent Tales of Health,” which had the best pumpkin display and wins the unofficial Pumpkin Passion Trophy. In lesser news, the float also won the official Extraordinaire Trophy. Two other floats also included either decorated pumpkins or actual pumpkins on their floats. I liked the Kiwanis International float titled “Above the Rest.” It won the Craftsman Trohpy and the Isabella Coleman Award for best presentation of color and harmony through floral use. The City of Duarte/City of Hope float titled “Harvesting Good Health” won the Past Presidents’ Award for the most creative use of floral and non-floral elements. I can’t say with 100% certainty that it was their intention to have pumpkins on their float because they kind of looked like oranges.

Please enjoy the photos! It’ll be a LONG time before I go back.

Disneyland has gone pumpkin crazy! There are pumpkins nearly everywhere you look from the entrance gates, down Mainstreet, all the way to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. There are simply too many items to mention. Some highlight are the giant Mickey Mouse head at the beginning of Mainstreet (pictured above) and the pumpkins carved with Disney characters surrounding the Walt Disney statue at the center of the park.

They even had a pumpkin Mickey Mouse Hat. Of course, I had to get one with my name stitched on the back. I don’t think I’ve had one of those since I was about 6 years old.

The Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted House is the #1 reason to go to Disneyland this season. It’s simply awesome.

While you’re feasting your eyes on all the pumpkin decorations you can also treat your tummy. There’s a pumpkin latte and a pumpkin cupcake at Blue Ribbon Bakery on Mainstreet. The latte was descent but cold and the cupcake was good but the frosting was similar to what you get with grocery store cupcakes. At California Adventure in the Wine Country Trattoria there was a tiramusu with a pumpkin mousse in a take-home ceramic Mickey Mouse mug. It was simply delicious but didn’t taste much like pumpkin. It tasted much more like banana. I wanted to eat 4 of them for a complete set of mugs to take back home. I probably could have eatten them all because the portion is teeny tiny–there’s a disposable plastic cup inside the ceramic cup. The whole thing is little more than the size of a shot glass but it was yummy and super cute.

Since I could never adequately describe all the many pumpkin items, here’s a little montage:

This weekend was jammed with pumpkin events. It was so full that we had to get up early Saturday and Sunday just to fit them all in.

First off, early on Saturday morning we drove over to the Cal Poly Pomona Pumpkin Festival. When we drove past the crosswalk in front of the event, we realized that we may have forgotten an important item, a wagon. It seemed as though everyone had a wagon or a wheelbarrow and those that were headed back from the event had pumpkins piled high.

The pumpkin field was brimming with pumpkins. However, upon closer inspection the pumpkins weren’t growing out of the ground. They’d been gently placed all over the grassy hills. I saw a few people with pumpkins that had vines attached. So, maybe there was a section of the pumpkin patch where pumpkins were planted.

They also had a few craft and food booths but none had anything pumpkin to eat. What was surprising was seeing people eat the craziest foods at 9:00 a.m. like kettle corn, cotton candy, ice cream, and funnel cakes.

It’s a fairly small festival. The main event is picking your pumpkin—$5 each or 5 for $20. We picked out a good sized pumpkin but then had to carry it back to the car which was far, but could have been really REALLY far had we been shoved in one of the Timbuktu parking lots. Did I mention that it was close to 90 degrees this weekend. Walking in 90 degree heat, while carrying a large pumpkin, with not enough sleep, and PMSing is not exactly fun. By the time we got back to the car, I had a road rage break down while trying to back out of the parking. There was much cursing and screaming involved…it wasn’t pretty.

The best part was the Farm Store at Kellogg Ranch. The Agriculture Department at Cal Poly Pomona seems fairly large, which surprised me. They grow fruits and vegetable on the campus fields and then sell them at the Farm Store. It’s open year round and it has good prices on produce. We stocked up on butternut and acorn squash for only $1 each. They also had several products that are pumpkin oriented and by oriented I mean that they have Poprocks with pumpkins on the packaging but they are orange flavor—SOO very annoying. Those pumpkins that were not chosen over the weekend (So SAD!) can still be purchased at the Farm Store. Please give them a good home! In the end, I was glad that we went to the Cal Poly Pomona Pumpkin Festival in order to discover the Farm Store.

Other weekend pumpkin events included the Calabasas Pumpkin Festival, the best pumpkin eggnog ice cream ever, and a pumpkin tiramisu in a pumpkin head Mickey Mouse cup. Stay tuned as I attempt to blog each of them!

How’s your Pumpkin Eatin’ Season going? Been to any good pumpkin festivals lately?

Name: Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch
Purchased At: Yucaipa, CA
Price: Free Admission!
Availability: Seasonal

If I were going to sit in a pumpkin patch Halloween night to wait for the Great Pumpkin to arrive, the Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch would be the one. If you don’t know about the Great Pumpkin, he’s the unseen star of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” The story goes that on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises from his pumpkin patch and flies through the air to deliver toys to all the children. However, he’s not like Santa…he’s more location specific. He doesn’t distribute toys to all the children everywhere. He only gives them to the children that he finds in his pumpkin patch.

The challenge is to try and find his pumpkin patch. Linus provides us with some hints on finding the correct patch,

“The Great Pumpkin always picks the most sincere pumpkin patch to rise out of. He’s just gotta pick this pumpkin patch. He’s just gotta! Look around. You can see that there’ not a sign of hypocrisy anywhere. Nothing but sincerity reaching out as far as the eye can see.”
“Hey, aren’t you going to stay to greet the Great Pumpkin? Huh? It won’t be long now. If the Great Pumpkin comes, I’ll still put in a good word for you!” [realizing what he just said] “Good grief! I said ‘if’! I meant, ‘when’ he comes! I’m doomed. One little slip like that could cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by. Oh, Great Pumpkin, where are you?”

So, sincerity and complete and utter faith are your best bets to getting the Great Pumpkin to your patch and I do believe that the Live Oak Canyon Pumpkin Patch has both. Today was my second visit to the Live Oak Canyon this season and I’m totally entranced by the place.

The first time we went was on opening weekend. Most of our time was spent in the gift shop. I’ve never been in one place that had so many pumpkin knickknacks. The best purchase EVER was 3 Halloween cupcakes! So very cute and when we went back only two ugly ones were left. Then, we picked a little tiny cute pumpkin. Her name is Francis and she’s the first pumpkin I’ve ever picked directly off the vine.

We were pretty overwhelmed the first time we went because of the sheer size of the place and how many pumpkins there were to look at. This time we went with a purpose, a bale of hay for our front porch and to take pictures. My camera was stolen from my car and the first time we went I only had my cell phone camera which sucks, big time. We spent time in the pumpkin patch searching for the perfect pumpkin and taking pictures of all the many types of pumpkins they have for sale. I’ve never seen so many varieties. It made me feel a little lazy, like I haven’t been doing my pumpkin duty by learning all of varieties.

There’s so much to do! It’s a kids’ paradise with lots of bouncy things and mini John Deere tractors to ride. There’s a couple of snacky type of food booths…but none that we saw with pumpkin eats. You can also take a tour of the grounds on the back of a truck bed or just take sit and watch the crowds go by.

I love this place! You should go soon because it’s getting picked over quickly. I could find the perfect pumpkin in the variety I wanted. You can see all of our pumpkin patch pictures here.

Rating: 5 out of 5

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

Every season the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas changes out their Conservatory & Botanical Garden. If you can work your way through the onslaught of tourists taking pictures in front of the gardens which will surely end up as default pictures on their myspace pages (I confess I did it too), you’ll find a beautiful display with lots of pumpkins during the Fall 2007 season.

Here are some images that unfortunately had to be taken at night:

For better pictures, go to the Bellagio website and click on the “360 View” tab.

This summer I took my ultimate dream vacation! Since my undergraduate days, majoring in Women’s Studies, I’ve wanted to visit Seneca Falls, New York. Seneca Falls was the site of the first Women’s Rights Convention back in 1848. The site is now a National Park consisting of a Visitor’s Center; the Wesleyan Chapel, the actual site of the First Women’s Rights Convention; Elizabeth Cady Stanton home; and a statue near the river bank commemorating the meeting of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was truly a dream come true.

What does all of this have to do with a blog about pumpkins? Well, at the Visitor’s Center we saw a display on the gender gap. This is the text of the display:

Apples and Pumpkins and Cans of Worms

In 1990, women earned 68% of what men did for the same job. Two plans to lessen the gender gap in wage earning are equal pay for equal work, and pay equity (or comparable worth). Equal pay for equal work means the same wage for the same job regardless of who does it. In pay equity, elements of a job are given a number value. The total scores of various jobs are compared. Jobs with similar scores earn similar salaries.

Civil rights legislation passed in the 1960’s and 1970’s forbids wage discrimination on account of sex or race. But pay equity encountered strong opposition. In 1977, Washington State Governor Dixie Lee Ray denied a request for pay equity because she felt the study proving inequity compared “apples and pumpkins and cans of worms and they are not comparable.” Now Washington, Minnesota and other state governments are required by law to use pay equity to determine wages.

Yes, this has become know as the “orphan blog” but I’m back and am looking to reclaim my little round orange baby, aka “Pumpkin Passion.”

While my blogging on pumpkins may have taken a hiatus, my passion for pumpkins did not. In fact, even my very first vacation requiring a passport involved my love for pumpkins.

Back in late October, I took a trip to London, England. Yeah! Much fun was had by me and my friends. The trip involved my loves for Harry Potter (we saw platform 9 3/4), Jane Austen (we visited the The Jane Austen Centre in the city of Bath) and Pumpkins.

At Kew Gardens they had an Autumn Harvest Festival complete with 5.3 million cranberries, 200 varieties of Apple, and 30 tonnes of pumpkin. While I’m not sure if they REALLY counted all those cranberries and I had to google “tonnes” to learn that it’s a measurement of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms, I do know that the gardens were absolutely beautiful and it was such an enormous pleasure to be there during the fall season.

The pumpkin display was the best I have ever seen. Just look at some of these pictures:

The highlight was the 6 metre figure of a running man constructed from pumpkins!!! How freaking awesome is that?!?! It’s not something you see in the States because we look at pumpkins and see jack o’ laterns and pies but they see art.

Even though we were there the week before Halloween, this was really the only time we ever saw pumpkins. There was absolutely no pumpkin food-not even a pumpkin spice latte could be found at the London Starbucks. We did, however, manage to have a great time.

Rating: 10 out of 10