Autumn - The Year's Last, Loveliest Smile

Out of the four lovely seasons to be experienced each year, Fall is my absolute favorite. I love when the days start getting a little bit shorter and the air is just a bit more crisp and it stops making me sweat just to drink my mandatory cup of coffee in the morning. I adore boxing up my Summer sundresses and pulling out my cozy sweaters and boots. I love warm cider and caramel apples and seeing my breath in the morning on my way to the car. And the colors of the leaves, oh the colors! We all already know I'm big on bold, radiant, magnificent colors (although my favorite, lime green, shows up more in the Spring than in Fall), and the leaves turning colors makes my heart skip a beat. When I drove up to Parkersburg last Monday, all the trees still were fresh and green without even the slightest hint of yellow or orange, as if it were still Summer. But yesterday, I drove up to Dunbar to visit Liz and little Mason and lo and behold, all the trees had changed color miraculously! They were outstandingly orange, radiantly red, and cheerfully yellow (I couldn't think of an adjective that starts with 'y' to really go with 'yellow, sorry). It made the drive so much more enjoyable, and a little bit more difficult to focus on the road because I wanted to gaze at the trees. 

One of my other favorite things about Fall is all the pumpkin stuff. I truly love anything and everything pumpkin. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin cheesecake, you name it, I love it. My friend Danielle who writes the Trauma Mama blog (which you should seriously go check out ASAP - it's bangin' awesome) has recently put up some terrific-sounding recipes containing pumpkin. 

The other day when I was doing a little grocery shopping, I came across Krusteaz brand Pumpkin Pie Bar mix. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, the mix stuff is already all vegan anyway, but it requires 2 eggs and a crap ton of butter. So, of course I substituted the eggs with flaxseed meal and water (1 tablespoon meal mixed with 3 tablespoons water replaces 1 egg) and used vegan margarine. The mix has a gingerbread crust that you mix with butter or margarine and bake for five minutes, then you pour in the filling and bake for about 30 minutes. I was so excited to make this today, but was sorely disappointed with the end result. Apparently it just isn't meant to be vegan. Sad! The filling never wanted to set up, and the crust ended up chewy instead of soft and crumbly. It had a good flavor, but the texture just wasn't what I was hoping for. I guess sometimes you just have to nix the boxed stuff and make it from scratch, so I'm going to have to play with some recipes to make my own vegan pumpkin pie bars or even just plain pumpkin pie. I'll bet it comes out exactly the way it's supposed to if you use eggs and butter like the recipe actually calls for.

One plus to my baking failure is that I got to use the BEAUTIFUL Campbell Pottery pie dish Liz's parents bought Durb and I as a wedding gift last year. Two years ago at Liz's bridal shower, she received several pieces of Campbell Pottery that were exquisitely beautiful and unique. The company is located in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, only about 20-25 minutes from where Liz grew up in Meadville. Bill Campbell's pottery is sold in over 600 locations at various galleries and also from their website (which I provided the link to - go check it out), as well as their own store there in Cambridge Springs. I very much admired the pottery Liz received at her shower, so I was very pleasantly surprised to receive my first piece of Campbell Pottery as a wedding gift. Bill Campbell uses unique colors and designs like nothing I've ever seen, incorporating beautiful, earthy colors and interesting shapes. I've always been particularly fascinated with pottery and glass creations, especially locally crafted pieces from companies like Blenko and their line of Rainbow glass, as well as Pilgrim glass. My Campbell Pottery pie dish is something I will cherish for decades and hopefully pass down to one of my nieces one day when they're older. 

This looks quite similar to the pie dish I have. Beautiful!

Another bummer about pumpkins is that I completely missed the Pumpkin Festival in Milton this year. It was only the second time I've ever missed it, the first being when I lived in Chicago and obviously couldn't skip school to go see giant pumpkins and sample pumpkin butter and watch a whimsical little parade. I'm pretty sad I missed it because there's always all kinds of fantastic treats to try out and lots of people I know to run into.

Maybe tomorrow I'll run down to Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte (with soy of course) and a pumpkin scone - how yummy does that sound?