Dream Big
by Kathleen Everett

“It is the time you have wasted on your rose that makes the rose so important.”

—Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

“There are three things I’ve learned never to discuss with people— religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.”

—Linus

Humans can be cleanly divided into two groups; those who fantasize about growing the world’s largest pumpkin, and everyone else. Our household consists of one of each. For years I’ve listened to my dear one excitedly relay tales of seed fees and pedigrees, espionage and intrigue in the world of prize-winning pumpkins. I’m certain he dreams of a plaque bearing his name in the Pumpkin Hall of Fame.

A few years back I surprised him with a weekend trip to a fall festival whose grand finale was The Great Weigh Off. I was not entirely clueless when it came to the big pumpkins. I have seen Cinderella’s coach in Disneyland, and have watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” annually since its debut in 1966. But a lifetime of lovely visuals was erased when we arrived at the Tent of Champions. These were hardly the picturesque autumnal spheres of my youth. The contestants for the grand prize looked like an aberrant fairy godmother had taken a bouncing baby pumpkin, waved her wand, and Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo! turned it into a lumpy, anemic two-ton beanbag chair. I was certain that Cinderella would WALK to the ball in glass slippers over cobblestone streets before she’d be seen riding in one of these monstrosities. I hadn’t given much thought to the physics, the unavoidable tug of gravity on a ton of squash. But still, I thought they might be a little more, oh, I don’t know, round?

But I wasn’t there for the love of pumpkins. I was there because I love passion, I love dedication, and I love this man.

After years of research and longing he’s taken the plunge. The chosen seed is the descendant of a prizewinner in the champion producing state of Rhode Island. Now that it has started gaining weight rapidly in the long summer days his eyes see gorgeous where mine see grotesque. While he dreams of making it to the top ten I don’t ask how we will deal with this decomposing Ozymandias after the ticker tape parade. Suppose Michelangelo had been deterred by the doubters asking, “What are you going to do with all that scaffolding?” And if Ruth Wakefield had stopped to consider the leftover mountains of not-quite-perfect dough, humans may have been denied the perfection of the chocolate chip cookie. I will never ask about the cost of raising, watering and transporting this pumpkin—at least we’ll never have to put it through college.

I feel blessed to have a front row seat to all of this passion. The love he pours into that vine is part of what makes my prince so charming. And, ultimately, this is a love story.

So it doesn’t have to make sense.

Kathleen Everett’s forthcoming book, Heart Knocks, will be released in early 2011 by Simple Truths.

Things to Do with Pumpkin Puree (Besides Pie)

Add 1/2 cup pumpkin puree to soups, stews, gravies, broths, pasta sauce, white sauce, or cooking water for rice, millet, quinoa or spelt. It adds a lovely color and lots of nourishment.

Combine puree with cream cheese, maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, nuts, raisins, applesauce, and sweet spices to top a muffin or toast, or to make icing for a cake.

Make great open-faced sandwiches by combining with mashed cooked beans, grated cheese, chopped dates or figs, raisins, dried cherries or cranberries, chopped nuts, and pumpkin or sunflower seeds.

Make a beauty mask that nourishes skin and sloughs off dead, dry cells using equal parts pumpkin puree and brown sugar. Apply with gentle circular motions to a clean face, then rinse and pat dry.

— Cait Johnson