Halloween is a holiday that’s largely passed me by. It never seemed to be a big event in the UK, and it seems even less so now I live in Germany. Sure, once every few years I’d put on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but nothing more than that. I feel like this year I’m up for celebrating any and every holiday (especially World Pasta Day) so today I decided to commit to Halloween and carve a pumpkin.
The only pumpkins I could find at the shop were some little organic ones that were a lot smaller than the typical Halloween pumpkin. That was totally fine, I didn’t want to be stuck with some humongous thing, and eating leftover pumpkin for weeks. A friend had advised me to use a serrated knife with a pointy end to carve, which was great advice as I was going to use my huge chef’s knife and probably lose a few fingers along the way!
I did not enjoy this one bit. I didn’t like clearing all the stringy bits and the seeds from inside (my least favourite thing about preparing pumpkins) and I found no pleasure in cutting the design. I don’t know if it was because I was rubbish at it or I was doing it wrong, but instead of a spooky face, I ended up with a weary old man. Poor guy. James had a really good time making his and it looks a million times better, so maybe the technique was the issue? Either way, it’s not something I’ll be doing again!
I put a candle in it and left it lit for a little while and I have to admit, it did look pretty cool. I decided not to leave it up for Halloween though as I was more bothered with letting the pumpkin flesh go to waste – I had my heart set on making a pumpkin lasagne!
New Day, New Thing 