"It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin."
Alexander McCall-Smith, The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency
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Pumpkin is one of those foods you can't help but love. It's squishy and glorious and bright and whenever even a slight chill moves through the air I feel like finding myself a pumpkin and cooking the lot. Pumpkin is for me always about winter. Pumpkin soups, pumpkin pies, pumpkin curries, pumpkin - burnt and braised and smoky fresh from a fire. It's comforting in a way that mashed potatoes is comforting, more-ish, but satisfying all the same.
I remember when I broke up with my first boyfriend I went and stayed with my grandmother who is little and spry like miss marple. She is the funniest little thing, when she speaks she always has to place her hand on yours, or your shoulder, or your head. She likes to feel who she is talking to. She placed her hand on mine and said, "Hannah-Rose, life is like this." She spread her hands wide. "But you must know that there will always be something on the table at the end of it." And then she taught me how to make pumpkin soup. I will never forget how my aching heart was warmed by the routine of chopping the pumpkin, boiling it in the pot with the onions and the stock and the like, adding the herbs freshly cut from the garden, stirring it gently, thoroughly, repetitively. People say that you should always take you mind off things by doing something active. I say that you should take your mind off things by making soup or risotto, where you just have to stand in front of a hot stove and stir, and stir, and stir.
Still, still, after horrible days when I sit in my room and cry because of uni or work or something like that my mum will knock on the door softly and silently carry in a cup of something hot and steamy. She is a firm believer in remedy by food. There is nothing you can't fix with warmth and comfort and buttery bread, she thinks. I don't know, but there is something wonderful about sitting curled up with a cup of soup in front of you.I love the colour orange, it's one of my absolute favourites. It reminds me of sunburnt summers and Australia, but it also reminds me of cold winters with fires and beaten up tractors and pots of pumpkin soup. It is a comforting thought to know that no matter what happens you can always come home to these things.
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