Food Projects

I love Food Projects. Love them. I usually have about 4 or 5 going on at once in my kitchen, and this usually creates a very cluttered fridge and commandeers almost all of my storage containers. I don't care. I love Food Projects. So much so that I seem to have made the term a proper noun.

In October, a food tradition we have around our house is soup making. I make big steaming pots of soup. On Saturdays, K makes his famous chili. I bake different types of breads, depending on the type of soup (baguettes for French onion, cornbread for chili, etc.). It's also a great way to counter all the not-so-healthy things we tend to eat this time of year--fair food, football game food. You know, really really yummy food.

October is typically the perfect month for these food projects--the weather is finally cool and crisp, the leaves are changing, and many root vegetables and gourds become readily available at our grocery store.

However, this October has been quite different. It hasn't rained in at least 6 weeks, probably longer. The weather is still topping the low-90's during the day, even though the nights have cooled considerably. Looking through my 10-year journal, I am struck by the difference between now and this time last year, where I remark that "fall is finally here" and that I am busy "winterizing the garden."

But I digress. Anyway, we were blessed with a few days of real fall weather and in my optimism, I loaded the boy up in the car and we went to the grocery store to buy supplies for our #1 traditional Food Project for the month of October: pumpkin soup. A soup so delicious that K (the pickiest eater in this house) made a face at initially, but has continued to request it ever since. A soup so beautiful in color and texture that I lament not being able to buy those happy little pie pumpkins year round.

I bought my pumpkins and other ingredients and rushed home to finish up some previous Food Projects so that I would have room for my latest--pumpkin soup! Much to my dismay, the weather has turned hot again, and it's just not fun to eat pumpkin soup while the air conditioner blasts and we discuss the possibility of going swimming after dinner.

Still, I was determined and the pumpkin was begging me to cut him open and revel in that glorious pumpkin smell. So I did. And despite the weather, it was delicious.