OCTOBER 2026 42 T ake a good look at the pumpkin sitting on your front porch. At first, you might see a vegetable meant for a kitchen recipe or a rugged October decoration. More precisely, it’s a fruit – specifically a botanical berry called a pepo which develops from a single flower and contains multiple seeds. Its thick skin, fleshy interior, and seed-filled center allows this single plant to be a fruit, a berry, and a vegetable all at once, making it a remarkable three-in-one creation. When you grab your carving knife this season, you’ll be cutting into one of the largest and most recognizable berries on earth – but the history of how this oversized berry became a Halloween icon is much darker. The tradition of carving jack-o’-lanterns dates back centuries to an ancient Irish myth about a devious man named Stingy Jack. Folklore says Jack tricked the Devil into a promise never to claim his soul. When Jack died, Heaven rejected him for his misdeeds, and Hell barred him due to the Devil’s vow. Doomed to wander the eternal darkness, Jack scooped out a turnip, placed a burning lump of hellfire inside, and became “Jack of the Lantern.” To scare away Jack’s wandering ghost during the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, people in Ireland and Scotland began chiseling terrifying, grotesque faces into turnips, beets, and potatoes. When millions of Irish immigrants crossed the Atlantic in the 19th century, they brought this tradition with them. On American soil, they discovered a native North American fruit: the pumpkin. Instead of hacking away at dense, rock-hard root vegetables, immigrants could easily slice through the rind, scoop out the soft berry guts and leave a perfectly hollow chamber for a candle. A pumpkin is born from a single flower, designed by nature to protect a hidden sweetness inside a tough, unyielding rind. How beautifully fitting for the matriarchs of our lives. Before I ever learned the science of a pumpkin’s anatomy or the spooky lore of Stingy Jack, October didn’t belong to ghosts or monsters. It belonged to the safe sanctuary of my childhood home. It was my grandmother’s house, but it felt like my house, too. Every October, she would take my hand and lead me past the flashy storefront displays straight into our neighborhood Basha’s. From down there, with my tennis shoes squeaking against the polished linoleum floor and the countertops sitting right at my chin, the world felt massive, but her warm hand felt safe. I always wondered why she bypassed the massive, jagged carving pumpkins stacked in giant cardboard bins and walked straight to the peaceful corners of the produce aisle. To this day, I can still hear her voice vividly, a timeless whisper guiding me through the produce section to help pick out the perfect harvest. She didn’t use written formulas because she knew the secrets hidden. She taught me to look for the small, heavy, and unassuming Sugar Pie pumpkins. I would stand right there in the aisle and listen to her knock on the rinds. The heavy, hollow thump against the dense, thick flesh that proved those perfect little orange orbs hadn’t dried out. Gram understood that kind of resilience. Come October, the air in our tiny house always smelled like toasted pecans and warm nutmeg. I remember standing next to her, so small that the flour dust from her rolling pin would settle onto the worn fabric of her apron strings right at my eye level. Watching her tie those strings sparked a deep, lifelong love for aprons within me – to this day, putting one on feels like wrapping myself in her protection. There were no timers or written recipes; she measured the world by touch, knowing exactly when the pastry dough was flaky enough just by the feel of it. Her gnarled, twisted hands, severely deformed by years of rheumatoid arthritis, would painstakingly cut the cold cubes of Crisco into the flour until it looked like small peas. The physical weight behind that smile rarely revealed the burden of keeping her interior soft, sweet, and bursting with nourishment for the grandchild she helped to raise. To this day, no matter how many times I try, I still can’t make a pie crust like her. Mine turns out too heavy or breaks too easily, lacking that impossible, feather-light flakiness that she conjured effortlessly, forcing her hands to move with an elegant grace across the shortening and flour. I watched her transform that hand-picked, oversized berry into pure gold. The kitchen became a symphony of small, honest sounds: the sharp crack of eggshells against a ceramic bowl rim, the rhythmic swish-swish of her wire whisk beating the pumpkin puree, and the sudden hiss of melting butter bubbling in a small pan on the stove. Right in the middle of it all, she would reach into the bowl, press her white-dusted finger gently against the tip of my nose, and break into that beautiful, crooked smile that instantly turned the corners of the world upright. It was her way of bringing me into the magic, a playful mark of love that always left us both laughing amid the flour dust. At times, right in the middle of the music of that kitchen, the whisk would stop. Gram would pause and let her swollen knuckles rest against the edge of the ceramic bowl. She would stare out the window looking into a landscape only she could see. In those fleeting moments, I would look up and see a sudden, heavy shadow pass over her eyes – the unmistakable reflection of memories she never mentioned to a soul. She carried old, unvoiced heartbreaks and quiet histories behind her smile, secrets locked away too deep for words. Then, with a soft exhale, she would look back down at me, gently tuck a stray wispy strand of my auburn hair behind my ear, and crumble the browned butter, sugar, and pecan streusel over the warm pumpkin pie for its final minutes in the oven, letting the rich, caramelized color wash the ghosts away. Back then, I just assumed she would always be there to make the magic happen. I was too young to understand how quickly time disappears, too content just being small to realize I should have asked more questions while I watched her bake. I should have asked how she learned to brown the butter just right, what she was thinking when she stared out that window, and whose memory she was holding onto. Years later, I find myself standing in my own kitchen, reaching into a bowl, touching a flour-dusted fingertip to the nose of one of my grandchildren, and watching that familiar laughter break across the room. Sometimes I do it to an adult friend, too, just to bring back that same moment of childhood mischief. For an instant, my grandmother’s hands are there again – not because I remember exactly how they moved, but because I am moving them for her. Thyme in My Kitchen BY SHERRY KLUSMAN thyme.in.my.kitchen • 1 unbaked 9-inch-deep dish pie crust, thawed • 1¾ cups pumpkin puree • 1 egg • 2 egg yolks • ½ cup brown sugar • ½ cup granulated sugar • 1¼ cup evaporated milk • 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour • 2 tbsp. bourbon • 1 tsp. cinnamon • ½ tsp. nutmeg • 1 tsp. ginger • 1 tsp. vanilla • ½ tsp. sea salt • 1/8 tsp. white pepper • 1/8 tsp. cloves PECAN STREUSEL TOPPING • 1/3 cup unsalted butter • ¼ cup brown sugar • ½ cup all-purpose flour • ½ cup pecans, coarsely chopped • ¼ tsp. sea salt Remove stem, cut in half and seed one large sugar pumpkin. Brush insides with olive oil and place face down on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast at 350° for about 45-50 minutes. Cool. Use a large spoon to peel the skin away from the flesh. A blender or emersion blender will puree the flesh to a smooth and buttery consistency. Preheat oven to 425°. Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the pumpkin puree and remaining ingredient until completely smooth. Pour the mixture into an unbaked pie crust. Bake at 425° for 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 350° and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Melt butter in a small pot over medium heat. Let it bubble and swirl the pan occasionally. The butter will foam and form tiny golden-brown bits at the bottom. Transfer to a separate dish to stop the cooking and let it cool slightly. Stir ¼ cup of brown sugar into the warm butter until smooth. Stir in the flour, sea salt, and chopped pecans until a crumbly texture forms. Remove the pie briefly from the oven after its 30-minute mark. Crumble the pecan streusel evenly across the top. Return to the oven for the final 10 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick. Cool. Chill in the refrigerator before slicing. Bourbon pumpkin pie with brown buer pecan streusel A STORY OF SHORTENING, SECRETS, AND SUGAR PIE OCTOBER RECOMMENDATIONS COOKBOOK: “What’s for Dessert” by Claire Saffitz NOVEL: “Theo of Golden” by Allen Levi

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