a little softshoe gentle sway.

I roasted my first pumpkin the other day. It was a milestone. Really it was practice for the pumpkin beer that Colleen and I will be brewing on Thursday (All the ingredients are finally in place. The fact that they arrived in an old Pampers box is a fact that I'm just going to ignore). Originally, I was going to make these pumpkin bars from the Moosewood Dessert Cookbook. They're always a hit with the kids & gentlemen in your life. Unfortunately, Colleen got the aforementioned cookbook in the divorce settlement. So I had to improvise. All the recipes for pumpkin bars online only have cinnamon for the spice. Big mistake. Huge.

I finally settled on a pumpkin cookie recipe from a cookbook in my cupboard that is so ancient I don't even know the name of it.

1 c. sugar

1 c. pumpkin

1/2 c. shortening

1 Tbsp. grated orange peel (i used OJ)

2 c. flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon (like the other recipes, this one only listed cinnamon. I was going to add ginger & nutmeg, but I decided to be a pampered chef and used this little spice combo called cinnamon plus. I'm not really sure what the plus entailed but it was along the lines of other pumpkin spices and maybe a few little other extras...if you know what i mean)

1/4 tsp salt

*the recipe also calls for raisins & nuts. I prefer chocolate chips. Totally your call though.

Heat oven to 375.

Mix sugar, shortening, pumpkin and orange juice. Stir in dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips or any other misc addition of your choosing. If you're like me, you'll bake the first tray before remembering to add the chocolate chips. Oh well...all aspiring chefs are absentminded. That's why the contessa is barefoot right?

Bake 10ish minutes. There's a glaze for them which i didn't use because i had to go to work and ran out of time. Honestly, they're plenty sweet without the glaze.

For the sake of posterity:

Lt. Brown Glaze

1/4 c. butter

2 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1-2 Tbsp of milk.

Heat butter. Stir in sugar and vanilla. Add milk til smooooooth.

Also, I made an apple salsa which was devine (literally, it had white wine in it). I'll tell you all about it when you're older.

Annnnd, the vampire weekend cover of that bruce springsteen song. i just can't get enough. I've probably mentioned it but i'm going to keep rementioning it until i can listen to it without involuntarily playing air piano.