Monday, October 29, 2007

Seasonal Favorites

Favorite Season: Fall

Why?: I love the food, the cooler weather, the colors, the festivals...

Favorite Seasonal Foods (restaurants)-

Spring: Raspberry Sorbet with juicy blueberries (olive garden has it in late spring/early summer. I used to not like Olive Garden, but this combined with their cheap soup and salad lunch makes a perfect afternoon meal after some fun outside. Early summer favorite for sure!)

Summer: Raspberry shakes (Bear Lake), even better, Nielsen's (mostly a Utah restaurant) Raspberry Concrete with hot caramel. I like my ice cream to be more cream than ice, which the hot caramel does nicely. A smooth and melty delight!

Fall: Seasonal Pumpkin anything! (Edy's Pumpkin Icecream, IHOP's Pumpkin Pancakes, Krispy Kreme's spiced pumpkin and Dunkin Donut's pumpkin donuts), my mom's homemade squash chiffon pie (like pumpkin pie but light, fluffy, and creamy with a little added spice and topped with homemade whipped cream on top). Ok, that last one's not a restaurant item, but it should be.

Winter: The good old days of Arby's 5 for $5 that happened at Christmas. What ever happened to that? Also, although it is potent, you got to have just one eggnog icecream around Christmas time, or something that is spiced with cinnamon.

I usually get a little annoyed that Christmas seems to start earlier each year, mostly because of the people freaking out about purchasing things and the holiday rush. Halloween is now a brief sale that happens in September, and who knows what Thanksgiving is anymore other than a day off from work to eat a lot of birds and have a clearance sale. That's what the stores tell you, anyway. I know that there's a lot of commercialism around Christmas time as well, but I do love it when the season starts, like when you start getting out the traditional decorations and the memories and such. KOSY and FM100 always compete in Utah it seems to play the most Christmas music, which is my favorite kind of music. That really gets the season going for me. Guess I'm a little sappy, but I really like hearing Christmas songs. Songs about Christ, songs about joy and giving, having fun, and yes, even the occasional love song.

I'll desperately miss all I've come to love in the east, especially the wonderful friends we've made, but it will also be nice to finally be around extended family for the holidays for the first time in a very long time, and back to some of the places of my childhood with my own new little family.

3 comments:

Michelle - aka Belle said...

We are sure looking forward to having you guys home for the holidays too. WE MISS YOU!!!!!!
I also am a HUGE fan of the squash chiffon pie, as you know. My husband thinks it would taste better if it had a different name.
See you in a few weeks.
-Michelle

TheScotticus said...

Maybe we could rename it "Heaven in your mouth" pie. I think Squash Chiffon sounds easier though. When I was little I thought it was "Squash-a-thon".

Anonymous said...

The pie sounds interesting (I've never had that kind before), and I actually really like the name "Squash-a-thon". I can just hear the advertising now: "Come down to Mom's Diner for Squash-a-thon Pie! It's not just a dessert, it's an event!"

It makes me think of something else that some of my college buddies and I thought up once. I've seen "Better Than Almost Anything" chocolate cake in a grocery store, I guess because they figured that "Better Than Sex" chocolate cake wasn't appropriate. Fair enough. We thought it would be interesting to have a different variety of chocolate cake, called "Better Than Childbirth" cake. I imagine a scenario like this:


(Person A and Person B both eat some cake.)

Person A: Gosh, it's really not that great.

Person B: You've got to admit, though, it is better than childbirth.

Person A: True.


I suppose that people who sold the cake could be sued for false advertising. Eating cake is certainly less painful than bearing children, but the point of childbirth is that you have a kid afterward. What's better than that?

On a less whimsical note, and speaking of desserts that actually exist, have you ever had sweet potato pie? I had some several times while at Fort Sill, and it was just amazing.