December 4th 2012 was not the kindest of days.
I woke up unsettled from a dream of fragmented sadness, then found myself tangled in technological terror as my blog floundered around me and my host’s support team responded to my cries for help in Computer Language that whooshed right over my head like so much icing sugar placed in front of a fan.
However, no day is allowed to end without at least a few moments of shimmering glory. Moments such as reading emails from Lisa that I’ll treasure always, or walking for an hour through dustings of rain in the darkening evening to meet wonderful potential (hopefully, hopefully, fingers crossed!) housemates in one of my favourite areas of Toronto.
It also helps to simply focus on the gloriousness that is sweet nutty creamy heavenly roasted winter squash drizzled with incredible Canadian nut butter.
Sweet Dumpling Squash.
Soft, honey-sweet, creamy, perfect with peanut hazelnut butter.
Black Futzu Pumpkin.
Firmer, nuttier, still sweet, but deeper, more complex. Looks a bit like a chestnut. Found at Brickworks Farmers Market.
Perfect with macadamia cashew butter.
Sometimes, it truly is the little things that make life so completely worth embracing.
OK you’re going to roll your eyes but that baked squash looks totally like a brain-so I’m thinking Hello Halloween!
No I’m not, because my very first thought was that it looked like a brain! I decided to write “chestnut” because I don’t like eating brains
Man, what is it about North American pumpkins? Soooh must pretter and more interesting than Queensland Blue!
All I know is that they’re one of the main reasons I’m falling in love with Canada! And I haven’t even mentioned delicata squash yet…
What’s wrong with Queensland Blue? A lovely pumpkin … but I did love the greater variety over there, I agree. A well baked pumpkin is something to treasure.
I also love that there are so many small/individual squashes and pumpkins here, so you can roast and stuff them with deliciousness for a single-person dinner. If you ever come visit during Fall/Winter, I’ll make you a wonderful roasted delicata, pomegranate, and kale salad
Aww, so glad you managed to find a bit of joy, and what a glorious way too! The squash look so interesting!
What the heck is Mystery Butter 2?! Eating has never been so curious!
Which areas of Toronto do you like best?
The ones I know.
Because I don’t want to be too specific this publicly, I like close-to-downtown, close-to-streetcars/subway, and close-to-markets.
I’ll leave the squash and pumpkins to you, Hannah as they’re must ‘Can’t eat. Don’t want to eat. Yes, I try them every couple of years ago and they’re still utterly hateful’ avoidance foods.
Wow, I’ve never heard of anything detesting pumpkin/squash before! I feel the urge to say “but have you tried the sweet heaven of delicata squash?”, but I feel you know your tastes, and that’s a-ok. After all, I’ll never like jaffas!
I have got to track down that black futzu! Looks incredible! If you like sweet dumpling, you might like carnival squash, too. I prefer the carnival squash to the sweet dumpling (sweet dumpling was more bland and mushy). I haven’t thought about pairing nut butter with winter squash… what a wonderful idea!
OMG I THINK YOU JUST SOLVED MY MYSTERY!!
The first few times I had sweet dumpling squash, it was incredible. So sweet and delicious. For the past few weeks, though, it’s been bland, watery, and mushy, so I’ve stopped buying it. I just googled carnival squash and it looks like THAT is what I was eating in the first instance; the place I went to must have been mislabeling it!
HAHAHA!!! I posted photos of them here.. indeed, they look similar!
http://tastespace.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/carnival-squash-stuffed-with-cranberry-maple-quinoa-and-beans/
The worst is the kabocha-buttercup mislabelling, but I have that figured out too!
http://tastespace.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/hazelnut-roasted-kabocha-cucumber-and-avocado-collard-wrap/
Hmm, interesting. The really really delicious squashes I had at first weren’t as orange as the carnival squash you show there; they did look more like your sweet dumpling. But google has pictures of carnival that look more like your sweet dumpling. IT’S A SQUASH MINEFIELD!
Oh, and the Sobey’s near where I am now labels kabocha as “Sweet Mama (kabocha)”. And Kabocha is known in Australia as Jap Pumpkin. It never ends.
Oh yes, Mama squash, I’ve seen that too! Crazy squashes!!
YUM. YUM.
Obviously the blog-probs got sorted? I HATE technology, it makes my brain hurt
Nope. I’m still struggling with it. I’ve been on the BlueHost LiveChat I think eight times in the past 24 hours. Ugh. But at least it’s loading, albeit slowly. UGH.
I spotted Sweet Dumpling once in my local Woolies and got suuuuuper excited over it! HAHA the shoppers then must have been freaked out by the crazy pumpkin lady
Delicata! Delicata is best!
Three cheers for the little things in life!
I’m so glad your blog is back
I hope this post means it is properly back and not just back in fragments…although now I look up through the comments it looks like it may be the latter? Ick. I hope the 5th proves kinder to you :S
I now have an overwhelming need for Canadian squash with nut butter.
Thanks Kari. I’m going to have to make some big decisions about the blog, I think. I clearly can’t manage these techno-issue things myself. Ah well! Not the end of the world
HAHHAA i had to laugh at Lorraine’s comment and I totally agree that it looks just like a fried brain not that i’ve seen a fried human brain before hehe i love love love pumpkin
I probably eat too much of it!
I totally thought brain too. You’re not alone.
Thank god for those moments of squash my friend hope all is well now
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Sorry to hear you had such a bad day. I do hate it when things go wrong that are beyond my comprehension to fix. Last night I was trying to put up a new post and when I logged on to MY site it directed me to another. I thought I’d been hacked. I tried googling my site and the same thing happened. I didn’t know what to do but somehow, it fixed itself. I hope it doesn’t happen again. Love the look of that roasted pumpkin xx
I’ve had a myriad of issues: unable to log in, then redirected to the login page when I try to access plugins, new plugins crashing, the CPU throttling still going on… it makes my head and heart hurt! Glad your issue resolved itself
These look truly heavenly, my dear. Just the thing to fix any nastiness with their soft, sweet affection.
Heidi xo
Aww sounds like a rough day, but at least it had a lovely finish