Pumpkin Soup

This soup has a story. For our anniversary several years ago, I surprised my husband by planning a trip to New York City. We slept in a little hotel right off Madison Avenue. I had arranged our itinerary so that we could walk to everything in true New Yorker style. Over the course of a long weekend, we explored Museum Row which houses many well-known spots for art lovers all over the world. We lingered in museums and coffee shops and indulged at restaurants.

One afternoon, we stepped inside the Neue Gallerie, just a few blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and wandered into their Cafe Sebarsky. A man at the piano was playing Chopin. Dark wood walls lined the generous, arched windows overlooking the street outside and Central Park where we could see people walking their dogs, chatting on the sidewalk, and going shopping. We sat at a small, marble-topped table and sipped European coffee.

I ordered a butternut squash soup which floated across my palate like silk. Warm, honeyed notes of vanilla and cinnamon mixed with the hearty texture of creamy custard. I was charmed to my toes.

The next day, we returned home to shoulder our daily responsibilities. But I carried that afternoon with me. A couple of weeks later, I created a pumpkin soup which recalls my experience at the Cafe Sebarsky.

It's utter luxury, indulgence, romantic fantasy. I don't pretend it's anything else. Sometimes, I have eaten it for dessert with a simple, chewy bread. It tastes like pumpkin pie.

Cassandra's Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients:

I large can of pumpkin

2 cups of milk (I use soy milk, but any kind will work)

Enough water to make the consistency of soup your prefer

1/4 -1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 - 1/2 cup raw, unrefined sugar (any other sweetener works just as well)

1 - 2 teaspoons vanilla

1 - 2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4- 1/2 teaspoon cloves

Directions:

Blend the ingredients with a whisk in a large pot. Adjust flavorings to your taste. Heat over medium heat until hot, but not boiling.

Serving Suggestions:

I like to sprinkle roasted pumpkin seeds on top as a garnish. You can also try a dollop of whipped topping. A chewy Italian or French bread is a nice companion. I like to dip my bread in the soup. The leftovers can be refrigerated and reheated.

All recipes copyright by Cassandra Frear 2009. Photo of Central Park is copyright free, obtained through istockphoto.

The Fragrance of Fall

Autumn,

the year's last,

loveliest smile.

- William Cullen Bryant

In the fall and winter months, we enjoyed creating our own simmering potpourri. My sons liked to experiment with fruit peels and spices and compare them. We saved the peels from apples and oranges and lemons and blended them with sweet spices or dried herbs. Then we added boiling water to the mixture and kept it warm, either over a candle, or on the stove on "simmer," or in a mini-crockpot.

Our favorite recipe was:

Apple Peels from 1 or 2 apples

Orange Peel from 1 orange

1 tablespoon cinnamon or 6-8 cinnamon sticks

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves or 1 tablespoon whole cloves

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups of boiling water

Even very young children can have a delightful time measuring and smelling the separate ingredients and mixing them together. After making the potpourri, we made tea with the rest of the hot water in the kettle. We put a slice of orange in the top of each cup and used a cinnamon stick to stir it. Then we read a book together. One of our favorite fall reads was the story by A.A. Milne of Winnie-the-Pooh and the Blustery Day.

As my children grew older, our reading naturally became more sophisticated. But we still enjoyed the smell our homemade potpourri filling the house in the first week of October and the comforts of spiced tea against the brisk, nippy winds rattling our windows.

Fall Flowers

It often happens to children -

and sometimes to gardeners -

that they are given gifts of value

of which they do not perceive

until much later.

- Wayne Winterrowd

Another fun fall project is to plant bulbs now for spring. With the crisp weather and fewer insects, this is a great time of year for gardening.

It's a science project that will teach your children much about plants, and become a gift to sagging spirits come spring.

Your equipment is simple. A good, sturdy spade for each student, a ruler, and some bulbs. Lowe's and Home Depot offer bulbs for sale this time of year. They are inexpensive and usually sold near the front door. You can follow the directions on the bulb package or go to this article to learn how to plant them.

I recommend that you pick a sunny spot for planting, and that you take the extra step of mixing in a scoop of peat moss or potting soil with the dirt in your bulb holes. It's important for bulbs to have plenty of sunshine for food and air in the soil for good drainage and for root growth. Make sure you dig the hole at exactly the prescribed depth -- usually found on the bulb package. Place the bulbs in their holes so that the pointed tips face up.

If deer or rabbits are troublesome, daffodils are the best choice. These are poisonous and the animals leave them alone. If you want to try a variety of flowers, I recommend tulips, hyacinths, paper whites, and crocus. When you plant different types of bulbs, you can enjoy the display over several weeks. Place the highest ones in the back of a bed against the house, or in the center of a round bed in the lawn. Then stagger down the plants according to height with the shortest ones in the front. An inch of light mulch over the bed will help keep the bulbs healthy through the winter.

Be sure to plant at least six bulbs of each kind so that your efforts will satisfy. A single bulb will only produce one plant. One bulb in ten may not flower. So plan accordingly.

This is a great project for hands-on learners. Be sure to take pictures of the work in the fall and of the results in the spring. You can also take the time to research bulbs and plants. You can draw pictures of bulbs and label their parts. It can be fun for the whole family, with each child learning at their own pace.

At the end, be sure to celebrate a job well done. Sweeten the party with fall treats like popcorn, fresh apples, roasted peanuts, and pumpkin pie.

Fall Foilage Fun

Autumn is a second spring

when every leaf is a flower.

- Albert Camus

When my children were younger, we enjoyed making simple window decorations with brilliant fall leaves. During the peak of the season, we would go on forays to find large, clearly defined leaves that were fresh off the trees. We took these home to use in our annual leaf art project.

We placed each leaf between two sheets of wax paper. We heated an iron at two notches below the "cotton" setting. We placed a flat cotton dish towel over the wax paper and gently pressed the hot iron down evenly, lifting it as we moved it from spot to spot until the entire creation was stuck securely together and the leaf was safely sealed between the papers.

Next, we made frames for our leaf pictures. We used various types of papers for this, cutting frames in different shapes that suited our fancies: rectangles, ovals, circles, squares, even more complex shapes. Any kind of sturdy paper worked well for the frames. We cut two sets of each shape and glued them with household glue to both sides of the wax paper. Then we trimmed the excess wax paper away. The result was a frame around the translucent wax paper and a leaf in the center of it.

Once our creations were dry, we mounted them on large windows where we could enjoy them. When the sunlight shown through them, they looked like stained glass. We usually stopped for a treat after working -- hot cider or hot chocolate. We played Vivaldi's Four Seasons while we sipped our hot drinks and admired our art. I remember one of my boys saying, "It's magical!"

And it was.

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You can add a bit of science to this fun project by using a guide book to identify the trees of your leaves and studying the process of photosynthesis and why leaves change color in the fall. This can be done on the same day, or on the following day.