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One way in which I suffer is that I love pumpkin-flavored things. Pumpkin, not pumpkin spice. When pumpkin spice first came on the scene, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. I imagine this would've been what it felt like for a woman with a body shaped like mine to be alive at the peak of Empire waists—I watch Jane Austen adaptations and think, YES—or how women with lush eyebrows must feel right now. I'd thought the world and I were in sync. I was wrong.
Because, as we've learned, "pumpkin spice" doesn't mean "pumpkin; spice," it means the spices that go along with pumpkin. Here I heave a heavy sigh. Because the whole point of putting those spices together is that they go well with pumpkin. Where is the pumpkin???
I thought I'd found at least some of the pumpkin earlier this week when I went to Trader Joe's. (There are now two Trader Joe's within a five minute walk of each other in Brooklyn; it makes no sense, but one of them's hidden in a mall basement and I've never seen it crowded. If you're not from New York City, trust me, this is a miracle, though I worry for this location's economic viability. ANYWAY.) Trader Joe's, it seemed to me, was extra conscientious about this flavor situation, labeling some products "pumpkin spice" and others simply "pumpkin." I loaded up on the latter, of course (alongside cans of tuna and dried mango, the only things I ever really buy at Trader Joe's—it is still too alien, too luxurious to do a normal food-shop there). I came home with PUMPKIN Joe-Joe's and PUMPKIN toaster pastries.
Spoiler it was all bullshit.
The Joe-Joe's might as well've been called Orange-Colored Ginger Joe-Joe's, and the erstatz Pop Tarts had such a bad pastry consistency and so little filling that, okay, maybe they were pumpkin-flavored, but they were bad.
I also bought pumpkin Nousa, at my regular supermarket, and it's unbearably sweet.
Right around here I'm feeling self-conscious about writing a whole letter about snack foods, and boring ones at that. Everyone else's Tinyletters seem so thoughtful, are about such interesting things. Grief and motherhood and more motherhood. But here I am treading water so you won't notice that this is all a food blog–style preamble to a pumpkin bread recipe.
I made pumpkin banana bread today, because I've been craving true pumpkin products, and because I'm doing The Artist's Way again, and this week is about ~abundance~ and I haven't done any of the tasks for the week. Because one is about collecting rocks, and every rock in the city is gross, manufactured, or both; and one of the tasks is about collecting leaves and flowers, and I feel too bad taking living ones, and even when I saw a beautiful stem of yellow, spearhead-shaped leaves on the sidewalk a few days ago, I just didn't want to take it home. Am I denying myself abundance? I don't know. It's the end of the month and I feel very out of money. But still I went to the supermarket today for butter (Kerrygold, what was that about out-of-money?) and a can of pumpkin puree, because I—abundantly—had all the other ingredients already at home. I did this because "bake something" was another one of the tasks for the week, too, is the point.
I read a handful of recipes and ventured far enough into adaptation that I was worried it wouldn't work, mostly in terms of leavening agents, not wanting to taste them but needing them to do their job. And it worked. So here's the recipe, because I guess this is a fucking food blog you signed up for.
1 c mashed banana
1 can pumpkin
3 eggsÂ
2/3 c melted butter
3/4 c sugar
2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t ginger
several shakes of pumpkin pie spice, if you have it, if you doubt the potency of these spices once you're tasting the batter (or just a bit more of each of the spices above)
3 c flour (I used 1 c whole wheat, 2 c white)
3-4 T maple syrup, added along with the last cup of flour, if you doubt the sweetness and general flavor strength of the bread, and things are looking a little dry and you're worried. Or added along with the sugar since hindsight is 20/20.
1. Preheat the oven to 375 or 350, depending on how often your quickbreads come out a little burned.
2. Butter two 9x5 or 8x4 loaf pants.
3. Mix together the bananans and pumpkin.
4. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, butter, sugar, and maple syrup. Add the bananas and pumpkins. Whisk or stir.
5. Add the baking soda and powder, and the spices. Whisk or stir.
6. Stir in the flour.Â
7. Divide into loaf pans. It will not fill them up. Mix in toasted slivered almonds if you want texture and the reassurance that this is healthy, but you really don't like walnuts or even pecans in baked goods, and you have slivered almonds on hand because you saw someone mix them into yogurt when you were a college freshman, and you thought it was the loveliest, healthiest, most adult thing you'd ever seen. Also your grandmother puts slivered almonds into her honey cake, which you didn't get any of this Rosh Hashanah, and this doesn't taste the same, but the almonds have the same sort of crunch.
8. Bake 45-60 minutes.
Yes I sliced an end off the loaf on the left, that's how I knew it was good enough to write about.