It happens each October. I resolve that next year—definitely next year—we will buy the pretty little plastic jack-o-lanterns that light up with a flashlight battery. No more messy pumpkins!
And each year when the pungent pumpkin odor fills the stores, and the memories of homemade jack-o-lanterns tug, I weaken—just a little bit.
“We’ll buy one small pumpkin,” I tell the children.
“Oh, brother! Look at this neat pumpkin!” nine-year-old Charles calls halfway across the store.
“Shhhhh, dear, everyone is listening!”
But his enthusiasm is not cooled by everyone’s amused glances. “Hey, I bet I could make a neat Frankenstein with this pumpkin.”
“It’s too big. Let’s have one little pumpkin with a pretty smiling face.”
“Aaaaaa, who wants a smiling face? We want to scare everybody like this….” He puts his fingers in his mouth and pulls a terrible face.
I pretend he belongs to that nice woman next to me busy choosing eggplants. My act works until seven-year-old Steven tugs at my arm. “Charles always gets to make the jack-o-lanterns. I never get to do anything!”
“We’ll all work together and make a pretty smiling face on our jack-o-lantern.”
“With cross-eyes and jagged teeth and a mouth that looks like this….” Charles reminds me.
“My pumpkin is going to have square teeth and round eyes,” Steven insists.
“Jagged teeth and cross-eyes,” declares Charles.
“I want mine to thmile like me,” lisps five-year-old Danny, who has just exchanged his front two teeth for two dimes with the tooth fairy.
Three-year-old Lucy proudly carries a small round pumpkin in her arms. “Mine,” she announces.
What can I say, except, “You may each choose one small, tiny, little pumpkin.”
The storeman has to carry the pumpkins to the car. They are much too large for any of us to carry, except Lucy’s pumpkin. “Mine,” she says, still carrying hers in her arms.
Of course our jack-o-lanterns are the “beautiful-est, the smilyest, the biggest, and the scariest.” Watching the children carve the faces on their pumpkins is much more fun than turning on a flashlight battery in a pretty plastic pumpkin. What pretty plastic pumpkin could match Charles’ Frankenstein pumpkin, with jagged teeth and cross-eyes; or Steven’s square-toothed, round-eyed pumpkin, or Danny’s toothless pumpkin, with a smile to match his? And careful as Lucy was, somehow her jack-o-lantern’s mouth and nose were joined together. One-year-old Douglas had a bite of each masterpiece.
And somehow I am coerced into finishing cleaning out the insides of the pumpkins, because, as Danny said, “It’s too slippery!”
But after Halloween, the jack-o-lanterns line my kitchen sink, their brief night of glory forgotten by the children. The insides of the pumpkins are charred, and wax spots dot the bottom. There is nothing that smells quite like spoiled pumpkins, so I have my choice of throwing them out now,
which disturbs my thrifty nature, or as always, to prepare them for freezing.
With a sigh of resignation I wash each jack-o-lantern, trim off the charred places and wax dots. I cut each pumpkin in pieces, barely cover with water and boil until soft. Then I strain and freeze in plastic containers. I save out several cups of pumpkin and turn on the oven.
“Oh, boy!” yells Steven, coming into the kitchen, “Pumpkin cookies! I get to make them!”
“I want to bake my own recipe for pumpkin cake,” says Charles.
Both recipes are favorites of the family and are “child-proof”—at least in our family. The boys don’t always sift ingredients, cream ingredients, or even measure accurately. Yet, despite all these handicaps, the pumpkin cookies and cakes are always successful. The recipes work equally well with fresh pumpkin, frozen pumpkin, or store-canned pumpkin. We usually triple the cookie recipe and
make twelve dozen at a time. This way they last a couple of days.
PUMPKIN COOKIES
½ c. shortening
1½ c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. pumpkin
½ c. nuts
1 c. raisins
chocolate chips (optional)
2½ c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
Stir the shortening to soften. Gradually add sugar, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add egg and mix well. Sift flour, baking powder, seasonings, soda, and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternately with pumpkin. Beat after each addition until smooth. Fold in raisins, chocolate chips, nuts, and vanilla. Or—throw in everything and stir cub-scout style. Drop on greased cookiesheet. Bake in 375° oven ten minutes. These cookies freeze well—if
you have any left over.
PUMPKIN CAKE
½ c. shortening
1½ c. sugar
2 eggs
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1½ tsp. soda
½ tsp. cloves
¼ tsp. salt
1 c. pumpkin (a little extra doesn’t hurt)
1 c. raisins, nuts
Stir shortening to soften. Add sugar, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add eggs. Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon, soda, salt, and cloves together 3 times; add to creamed mixture alternately with pumpkin. Add raisins and nuts. Bake in moderate oven (350°) 50–60 minutes. Serve with whipped cream or plain or frosted.
Janice T. Dixon wrote a series of humorous essays about her children (of which this is one) for The Relief Society Magazine in the 1960s, more than one book on teaching others to write their personal histories, and twelve produced plays. She lives in Utah.
