Falling

It is finally here.  Yeah - I know, the first day of Autumn was last week sometime, and facebook posts from my Northern friends have led me to believe that it has been hovering for a while.  I live in Florida.  Fall does not happen by calendar, and sometimes it happens so subtly that you will miss it if you aren't paying attention.  But I pay attention.  It is my favorite season, and I am not going to miss it by not getting up early enough to feel that coolness in the morning that burns off when the sun hits it.

Around here, "Fall" means pumpkin.  Pumpkin muffins, with cream cheese.  Pumpkin pancakes (with caramel syrup if I am really ambitious).  Pumpkin cheesecake.  Hot spiced Pumpkin milk.  My neighbors start on me early - letting me know when the calendar says it is fall.  Calling me if they get up early enough to feel some coolness in the air.  But I have to FEEL it.  Wednesday it showed up.  Boom.  I wore  long sleeve shirt to walk the dogs, then hurried home to make muffins.  Called the neighbor boy and told him to stop by the house before school - he knows what that means, I did not even have to tell him why.

But there has been pumpkin drama.  I usually have cans in the pantry (I am NOT a purist, real pumpkin is too hard), but last week I went to check, 'cause I knew it was close, and we were completely out.  None of my local Publix markets carried it, something about two years of bad crops, seasonal item, no hold over from last year, will have some the middle of October.  WHAT!?!?!?!  But it is coming!  I feel it!  What if it gets here and I don't have any pumpkin?  Darling husband to the rescue - he bought Wal Mart's last 2 cans.  Big cans.  

Yay - one batch of muffins, and pancakes for breakfast.  Except, sometimes I don't pay attention.  For one - he got pumpkin pie mix, which is a much different animal.  While reading the recipe, which I only do for inexact ratio estimates, I mistakenly thought it said 1 3/4 cup sugar, which I reduced in my head because of the pie mix, then doubled to make more muffins.  Except that it was supposed to be 1 and 3/4 cups FLOUR, and I had already mixed in the sugar.  So - no pancakes, a quadruple batch of muffins.  Completely gone by Thursday.

The good news is Sweet Bay has pumpkin,  bought 8 cans and did not clean them out.  Plus - as a bonus, the people at the deli counter were not stupid.   Publix may have a run for its money with me - did I just say that?  I have shopped no where else for like 15 years.  Fall is about change.  But I'm not sure I'm ready to change grocery stores, it is not like changing your socks (which I do in the fall). Publix needs to step up, and hire people that know what Havarti cheese is, and can cut a block of American with a real knife instead of running it through the thick setting of the slicer.