Free The Pumpkin!

The fall edition: on being basic, "candy for adults" and pumpkin treats. Plus, two spooky-ish shows.

Oct 31, 2021

Passing by my local food market the other day, I had to stop to peruse the inviting wooden baskets filled with pumpkins, gourds and rustic corn stalks. As much as I love a good grotesquely shaped gourd, the pumpkins were perfect. But I couldn’t bring myself to buy one.

Back in University, there was no season like fall. Wearing a cozy knit sweater, plaid skirt and high socks, I’d go to the same Starbucks almost every day to study, cozying up next to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking downtown Montreal. The image was complete with a warm drink in hand, but it was a salted caramel mocha—I was too afraid to order the ubiquitous pumpkin spice latte. Imagining those vile words roll off my tongue to the cashier made me cringe. I couldn’t be like all the other girls sitting around me, wearing some iteration of the same outfit, sipping on orange-hued foam. I was unique.

My salted caramel preferences then and ugly gourd purchases today are really just symptoms of class anxiety; the fear that I’ll be seen as a basic bitch. Calling a woman basic is, as Nisha Chittal writes, “a way of policing women’s choices and consumption habits. It’s a way of denoting that one has more unique, original taste, while the basic woman un-self-consciously likes the same things everyone else likes, and we disdain her for it.” Really, we’re just afraid of conformity; no one wants to be associated with Christian girl autumn or Mr. Autumn Man. We don’t like the idea we can be lumped into a category based on our consumption choices.

Yet, ironically, we do it all the time. We buy things to affirm our identity, not only as an individual but as a collective. In “How America Invented the White Woman Who Just Loves Fall,” Hazel Cills describes autumn as “a season for the nation to collectively get nostalgic for its own beginnings.” As Dan Greene writes, “Twentieth-century cultural arbiters from Norman Rockwell to Martha Stewart helped fashion the season’s trappings into a celebrated aesthetic of rustic simplicity.”

Our stuff not only shapes our sense of self; we use it to feel an entire season. Does it feel like fall without a cozy knit sweater, spicy scented candle and warm cup of chai? We can’t create the vibe without the good. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I just feel bad for the inanimate objects that become casualties to our class anxiety; how they become part of an aesthetic, rather than consumed at face value.

A few weeks ago I went to a cottage for Thanksgiving. Walking through the colourful forest, I resented that my brain viewed the scene through the lens of an IG post or rom-com. I couldn’t take in the beauty objectively, without projecting an image onto nature. Our feeds and pop culture has become so inundated with fall clichés, I’ve lost the ability to judge the season on my own terms. Do I genuinely think the leaves changing colour are pretty? Does fall actually feel cozy and comforting? How much of the joy I derive from my favourite season is really the product of its commercial romanticization?

And the poor pumpkin. It didn’t ask to be brought down by capitalism. Truthfully, I love the taste of the winter squash, and not just in the cooler seasons. When I lived in Barbados, we would often eat it in vegan stews. It’s fleshy texture; earthy scent; sweet flavor—what’s not to love? Call me basic, but I say we all unapologetically re-embrace the pumpkin. If something brings you pleasure, why deny yourself of it.

Best,

Anna

P.S. If you’re like me and dipping your toes back in the pumpkin purchasing pool, read on for some inventive pumpkin snacks and sips.

Published 📝

Forbes - 35 Nutritious Pumpkin Snacks And Supplements To Try This Fall

In the 18 years since Starbucks launched the PSL—the flavor has expanded from a niche preference to a cult-favorite. With a market valued at over $600 million, you can now find pretty much any food and drink in pumpkin spice form. The healthy snack and supplement aisles have not been exempt from the craze.

Look, I don’t think there is anything wrong with artificial pumpkin flavor or “unhealthy” pumpkin snacks. But these healthy spins on the PSL are so inventive (and delicious), I can't resist eating them too. You can peep some of my favourites in the Snacking section below.

Forbes - Sweet Functional Treats For A Healthy Halloween

Did you know the first candy-making machine was created by a pharmacist in 1947? As far back as the 18th century, apothecaries were known to prescribe sugar candy to treat ailments.

But we’ve come a long way from sugary cough syrups and chalky chewables—amidst a growing functional food and beverage market, functional candy has received a facelift, with playful packaging that tap into childhood nostalgia and nutritional benefits to boot. I rounded up some of the most nutritious and inventive—from mushroom chews that mimic micro-dosing to libido-boosting chocolate to greens-infused lollipops that contain the equivalent of 15 cups of broccoli.

Reading 📖

🍎 How apple picking is a bizarre performance of labour.

“Activities like apple picking, Cills wrote, allow ‘white-collar city dwellers to play-act a pastoral fantasy.’”- Dan Greene.

🍁 It’s a Meg Ryan fall and it’s justifying all of our autumn-themed purchases.

“This year’s fall frenzy feels more like an attempt at extreme nesting, a desire to gather safeguards against the despair of another winter in lockdown.” - Rebecca Jennings.

😓 Maybe the blues you’re feeling is fall regression.

👻 Contemplating how the cursed image relates to the pumpkin spice craze.

“‘Systems can only instrumentalize taste; they turn any expression of self into a reductive data point meant to generate more data at the same level,’ writes Haley Nahman quoting Ludwig Yeetgenstein. “The goal is almost always to sell us more stuff, so we can, in turn, better cultivate our vibes, and the cycle continues.”

😈 What it’s like to be a haunted house actor.

“Many treat haunt acting as a form of stress relief. ‘You can’t, in your regular day job, tell somebody you’re going to rip their arms and legs off and toss them into the woods.’” - Alexis Soloski.

🧛‍♀️ Here’s how to choose your costume.

“You know what’s scarier than the killer being inside the house? The killer being inside your own body. Inside your own mind. A killer you can’t reason with because of her murderous irrationality. And can’t kill, because, well, you are her.” - Abeni Jones.

☕️ Horchoffee might be the quintessential fall drink but in the Latinx community, it’s enjoyed year-round (and has a long and varied history).

“These chains are essentially adding cinnamon and calling the drinks horchata, which does nothing to help people understand what horchata really is.” - Ludwig Hurtado.

🍭 First it was dalgona whipped coffee, now it’s dalgona candy.

“Dalgona candy is representative of fetishizing K-pop and K-dramas, and seeing one thing and saying, ‘Wow I’ve discovered Korean culture,’ when in fact the candy, the cinema, the television series, all of these things, have been in existence.” - Nancy Wang Yuen.

Watching 📺

I’ve been on the hunt for a show to get me in the mood for my favorite holiday. The notoriously dark and violent Squid Game fit the bill. Plus, as Netflix’s most watched show in history, I needed to see what all the fuss was about. Truthfully, it’s too violent for me, and I don’t think it actually says anything meaningful on the cultural critique of Korean society it’s attempting to make.

Still, I appreciate that another South Korean cultural export is resonating in the Western world. Like Burning and Parasite, North American viewers are seeing themselves in the disenfranchised, unemployed South Korean youth who face rising inequality and an intense pressure to succeed.

“We are eager to project ourselves into these stories, and South Korea appears to be just the right distance away: Strongly influenced by the United States, the country is high-tech and hyper-capitalist yet appears to retain Old World values (filial piety and clannish loyalty). All this makes for a perfect site of rebellious fantasy.” - E. Tammy Kim.

Every time I watch You, I have to ignore the nagging voice at the back of my head that thinks, ‘this show is really stupid.’ And yet, I keep coming back. This season is the best yet, mainly for its cultural commentary. While the first two were based in NYC and LA, this one takes us to the fictional Bay Area suburb of Madre Linda, where optimization-obsessed dads and influencer moms obsess over sustainability and gluten-free baked goods. Joe (Penn Badgley) hates them all and I revel in his voice-over critique of them. I won’t spoil it for you, but the serial killer storyline is better than the previous seasons too. It’s kinda trash but kinda brilliant; not too scary but just dark enough for the Halloween season.

Snacking 🍌

I’m embracing pumpkin in all its glorious forms, call me basic I don’t care. In my drinks—as a caffeine-free, plant-based latte, the protein powder in my smoothies or a quick protein shake. As the star ingredient in desserts: in vegan blondies, “adult” chocolate bars and of course, instant banana bread. As an energizing snack in the form of greek yogurt (made with rescued pumpkins!), adaptogenic overnight oats and grain-free cereal. The pumpkin-flavoured cherry on top? Mixing all of the above with a seasonally themed spread like pumpkin granola butter or pumpkin chocolate peanut butter.

And it’s Halloween! What’s your favorite candy? Mine are Reese’s. But I’m also loving candy that does more for me than satisfy my cravings for nostalgia. Like peanut butter cup protein bars (or real dark chocolate peanut butter cups made with quinoa and greens), sleep-inducing chocolate bites (that really work!) and stress-relieving gummies made with ashwagandha or some good ol’ CBD.