Day 23
For the past few years, we’ve bought pumpkins at Halloween, thinking we’d carve them, but then not. I’m guessing that my girls want the pumpkins for sentimental reasons, but then they begin to consider the delicious foods we might make with them. So, come December, the pumpkins begin to compete with our holiday decor, and that’s that. They don’t get carved; they get turned into delectable fare.
This year, we went all out and learned how to eat the whole pumpkin (minus the stem).
We’d already learned how to eat the whole carrot, so we were ready for a step up. It was fun and creative and even beautiful, like the book that got us thinking about all this “eat the whole” thing in the first place.
Writing Prompt
When you eat all the edible parts of a food, like the whole pumpkin, you maximize your food dollars and the nutritional offerings of the item, while you minimize your food waste—a win-win, for you and the earth.
What kinds of “eat the whole” practices do you already engage in? For instance, do you ever make vegetable stock from your cuttings and peels? Have you tried eating carrot tops? Beet tops? How about the seeds inside squash and pumpkins? (They’re delicious roasted.)
Put your “eat the whole” practice (or your wish to practice) in a poem. Maybe try a villanelle, which somehow just feels like an “eat the whole” kind of verse.
Wholeness
I can recommend to you
a pumpkin far past Halloween
when the trees turn silver, blue.
I promise there’ll be nothing to rue
nothing to regret, as they lean
across the counter to you
cutting what’s tried and true
until the seeds are clean
and shining almost silver, blue.
The pumpkin will keep its orange hue
no matter if they are keen
on handing the pieces over to you,
which I promise they will eventually do.
Go ahead, old friend. You can still preen
while they read the recipes to you
and the night outside shines silver, blue.
