A Pennsylvania Blogger Meet-Up

This post is way overdue. Months and months ago I responded to a blog post by one of my favorite bloggers, Katherine from Of Corgis and Cocktails, inviting PA bloggers to lunch.

That's me on the left! Then Kate, Stephanie, Becky, Katherine, and Marisa! Photo courtesy of Katherine.

And so in October I borrowed my husband's car and drove down to Terrain in Glen Mills to eat lunch with some lovely girls I'd never met before. The journey down was an adventure. The car was literally falling apart due to some bad repairs carried out by a garage (which we later got fixed at no charge because the garage made so many mistakes). Scooting down the highway was a bit scary as I needed to avoid potholes and braking too hard. Plus it was the furthest I'd driven by myself since moving to the US, and I had no clue where I was going, or where I was meeting my fellow blogettes!

But it was a very nice afternoon, meeting some lovely local ladies, and poking around a gorgeous store.

From the buttery bread served in flower pots and fresh water in mason jars, to the beautiful displays and delicious aromas (check out their soaps…mmm), Terrain was a great place to meet up.

And as it was nearing Halloween (hence all the pumpkins), we gave each other little treats, most of which my husband and I snarfed immediately when I got home. Let me tell you, these bloggers have skills. 

When my husband saw the photo at the top of all of us, he asked how I managed to find the five girls in Pennsylvania with the same style as me. I told him it made complete sense - we all follow the blogs that attract us the most, and blog the things that interest us the most, or that we hope others like us will find interesting. People on social media, and bloggers especially, get knocked for image crafting, but to me that's entirely the point. I'm going to talk more about this in a future post, so watch out for it.

Of course I'll do my due diligence and link to Katherine's outfit post and Marisa's outfit post so you can find out where they got their cute dresses (and see more photos of Terrain). And my dress? It's from UK store Trollied Dolly. I wore it here too. Their dresses are so fabulous that I have several, and my husband even proposed to me while I was wearing one!

12 Days of Gladness: October

October 2012: Pumpkin, pumpkin, and more pumpkin.

October 2012: The month of the pumpkin. America loves the pumpkin. I already stated that it should be the national fruit.

But I'm not the only one who noticed the prevalence of the pumpkin this year. New York Magazine declared that pumpkin is 'the new bacon' despite being distinctly unappetizing. NPR called out Starbucks for not using real pumpkin in their Pumpkin Spice Latte, which fits because a research group discovered that the prevalence of pumpkin beverages increased 400 per cent since 2007 (but very few contain actual pumpkin).

Over here on the Glad Blog we celebrated the Glad Blog Octoberfest where pumpkin was king. Have a look back over the pumpkin chucking, pumpkin beer tasting, and pumpkin carving.

photo geekery: In camera, I used white balance shift to enhance the orange in this photo. Out of camera I increased the definition slightly.

A British Girl's Guide to Thanksgiving

For my first ever thanksgiving, I was told to just sit down and enjoy myself. Soak in the experience.

This was not hard. Not at all.

The house decor had already transitioned from Halloween pumpkins to Harvest pumpkins…

The morning started with Mimosas, Monkey Bread and the Macy's parade.

To a Brit like me, a Mimosa sounds suspiciously like a Bucks Fizz: Sparkling wine and orange juice.

Show-off fact: A Mimosa is one part wine and one part orange juice. Bucks Fizz is one part wine and two parts orange juice.

Monkey Bread is a delicious cake of sugar and cinnamon dough balls to pick at.

The Macy's parade is another sparkling display of US bravado that feels just a little cheesy to British eyes, especially compared to the pomp and ceremony of our parades!

It's also a great opportunity for companies to secure good advertising. After each relevant float, the ad break contained corresponding commercials. Smart move.

The day has the usual holiday family frenetics full with amusing one-liners, especially when heard out of context:

I thought you would stuff the breasts.

I'm going to need a probe.

Apologize to her later when you're not naked.

And then the bird comes out.

festive turkey baster

 Show-off Fact: In the 1800s a turkey would have cost about $600 in real terms. Wild turkeys had been over-hunted and became quite rare during this time, so serving it was a real show-off.

As most British folks usually have turkey for Christmas, and I always certainly did, I wondered if it would be strange to have a huge turkey meal in a different kind of festivity.

Not at all. It's an entirely different kind of meal, preceded by grace and thanks. Thanks for long and prosperous marriages, for good grades, for health, and good food.

My husband gave thanks that we were finally able to enjoy our marriage together.

My mum, who flew over earlier this week, gave thanks for Thanksgiving as a good reason to come and visit.

I gave thanks that I've always had solid ground under my feet, and a stable roof over my head.

And then we tucked in.

Show-off Fact: Thanksgiving dinners were quite common in England during the Protestant Reformation. They were partly a protest against the showy festivals of the Catholic calendar - I wonder if the irony of this was lost on those who celebrated such a thanksgiving. They became a regular affair during November harvest festivals, and also surprisingly to celebrate Guy Fawke's night.

I wonder why, then, that Thanksgiving really hit it off after the settlers arrived in the New World, but lost prominence in the UK. In the USA it gained a new significance when Natives saved the settlers from the harsh American winters (and scurvy of course, by way of pumpkin pie). But what happened in the UK?

However, if you tell Americans that Thanksgiving was an English invention, they may not take too kindly to being informed their favorite holiday comes from those quirky Europeans with stiff upper lips and bad teeth ;)

Thanksgiving Week: Old Fashioned Pumpkin Pie

This week I'll be experiencing my first ever Thanksgiving.

Last month I became engrossed in the pumpkin culture prevalent in the USA. Not only are pumpkins for carving, but they are also for picking, chucking, flavoring beer, and also for flavoring other questionable consumer products.

And, of course, they are also for pie. As I already learned several years ago it's this week of the year that Americans really need their tins of pumpkin for pie.

Since I wrote about the history of pumpkin pie and pumpkin spices, I've been fascinated knowing that the basic recipe has barely changed in hundreds of years.  I was determined to find out how to make it like the Native Americans may have made for the settlers for the first American Thanksgiving.

As I said before, they filled their pumpkins with milk and spices. Was this the first pumpkin pie, or the first pumpkin spice latte?

I wanted to find out. Lo and behold, I found this recipe from Rural Spin! It's for pie in a pumpkin, so I had to try it!

The recipe itself is fairly simple:

And the result?

Erm, it was okaaay.

The pumpkin was baked wonderfully and was a treat to eat. The spices were familiar and sweet. A spoonful of pumpkin, spice and sweetness tasted pretty good.

But my 'pie' did not rise at all, not like the one on Rural Spin. I do have to confess I used a mixture of whole milk and half and half, not cream. And after a few spoonfuls it tasted sweet and cloying. I could understand why the colonialists weren't too keen on it and ended up with scurvy.

It was super fun to try though, and I would try it again to attempt to perfect the recipe. But for my first Thanksgiving here, it'll be pie in a crust for me!

It's my first ever Thanksgiving and I'm very excited about it! Tell me some of your traditions, and stuff I should try out!

When Winston met Teddy

After Teddy met Winston, he wrote that he thought Winston was "a rather cheap character".

The only photographic evidence of their encounter in the year 1900

At $2.50 for a pumpkin in a store desperate to get rid of them, he wasn't wrong. 

With Sandy causing a ruckus outside, we stayed in for the most traditional of October activities: Pumpking carving.

We chose leaders from our respective countries: I did the Winston Churchill pumpkin, and my husband did the Teddy Roosevelt pumpkin.

When the storm kicked in and the power went out, we sat in their soft glow, checking the news on Twitter on our phones.

The director of Sixth Sense, M Night Shyamalan, sets his movies in Pennsylvania. The Sixth Sense is set in Philly, and the rest, including Signs and The Happening, are set in rural PA.

Sitting out here during the Frankenstorm felt a bit like an M Night Shyamalan movie: High winds, no power, fields of corn swaying in the darkness, no traffic lights at intersections, trees down and no traffic on the roads.

Luckily our corner of PA came out of the storm relatively unscathed, and we only lost power for a day. I hope the most affected areas can recover and rebuild quickly, especially Seaside Heights and Coney Island.

Five Pumpkin Beers you need to try

Adding cream to pumpkin beer, a la pumpkin pie, is optional

We're still celebrating Octoberfest here at the Glad Blog. And we couldn't have an Octoberfest without a selection of seasonal beers! Here's an extra special guest post for you: Five pumpkin beers you should try this Fall.

Fourth Place: Lavery Stingy Jack. A craft beer from the original home of US brewing, and our home, Pennsylvania.

The name is endearing and the label tells the story of how the Jack o’ Lantern came to be, but the contents of Stingy Jack isn’t as one would expect. This beer isn’t really even a pumpkin beer. Most pumpkin beers have obvious notes of pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and bring thoughts of falling leaves, warm fires, and pies. Stingy Jack has none of these flavors and doesn’t bring any of these thoughts.

At first I considered ranking this beer third, for reasons you will read below. But ultimately a “pumpkin beer” must taste like pumpkin, or at the very least, Fall. Stingy Jack fails here. It’s an ok beer but I can tell you it’s not for everyone. Gillian hated it, and thought it tasted like pondwater. Stingy Jack, you kept the flavor for yourself.

Third Place: Pumking. "Bewitched and brewed with pagan spirit" in the state of New York. 

Pumking professes to be King of Pumpkin beers. At first glance, it's certainly regally orange. When you drink it, Pumking will invade and occupy your taste buds like a despot ruler, whether you like it or not. I love heavy, hearty, flavorful beers and I think I will get Pumking again, but the flavor in this brew was very overpowering. This is coming from a guy who loves the flavors of deep European beer: If I can’t see through the beer I definitely need to try it. 

Despite the overpowering smell and taste, at least it tasted like a Pumpkin. While I can’t devote my service to Pumking and his court, I will probably venture back into his festive realm.

Second Place: Fegley’s Brewworks Devious Imperial Pumpkin. Another local PA brewery.

This beer is rather charming. It has a beautiful amber color and its sweetness coats your tongue. When you take your first sip you will find a balance of traditional spices that is just right.

Drinking this beer was a pleasure, as if a liquid fall candy or pumpkin pie had been poured into my glass. I could go on about this beer but I won’t, partly because the more I do the more I want one right now. I highly recommend this beer for Thanksgiving. Get a bottle and see what I mean; better yet, get two.

First Place: Long Trail BrewmasterSeries Imperial Pumpkin. From the northern state of Vermont, which produces some great brews and hard ciders.

This Imperial Pumpkin provides more bitterness and smokiness than Devious Imperial Pumpkin. Its spices are also a bit more subdued. This is refreshing, and unlike so many pumpkin beers which tend to leave behind a massive hoard of flavor taking over your mouth. 

Like Devious, this beer could be very enjoyable by itself. The yeast flavor makes it slightly more beery, so it would also be a great accompaniment to a seasonal meal. This beer will definitely have a place at my table for Thanksgiving … and probably several times before then.

*Honorable mention: The purpose of this post was to focus on lesser known brews, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the stalwart from Pumpkinshire itself, Sam Adams Pumpkin Ale, which is available in its fall series. Every year this is a must for me. It’s not as powerful or as flavorful as the other beers, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. It’s a nice autumn festive beer for your everyday needs.

However, there is one scoundrel out there that has evaded my taste buds. A much sought after scoundrel who, I was told, was sold out of the shop just a few days after it was released. But know this: Next year, Fat Jack, I will hunt you down and find you …

Thanks Mark, for your pumpkin beer expertise and opinion!

What's your favorite pumpkin beer? What has been missed from this list?

Remember, it's the Glad Blog Octoberfest all this month, so please send me your own Fall themed posts - I'd love to feature my favorites. Bonus points if you feature pumpkin related activities or products, local Fall Fests, or fun traditions I haven't heard of.

Millions of pumpkins, pumpkins for me

Every local farm and church seems to have their own fallfests filled to the brim with pumpkin fun. The farms run hayrides to their pumpkin patches, where you can wander, hidden amongst the corn, to find that perfect pumpkin to adorn your country porch.

obligatory hipster hayride shoe shot

choosing your pumpkin is a serious business, like choosing a Christmas tree

I TOLD YOU I'd go for the ones bigger than my head first

One fellow pumpkin-picker claimed that the reason the farms run hayrides to the pumpkin patches, which are nestled deep in the farm amongst the fields of corn, is to prevent wayward autumn revellers from stealing their produce. I'm sure it'd be a formidable, spooky place to visit at night - some places out here do offer night-time hayrides and scream events.

And, just because I'm British and I have to mention it, the weather has been impressively warm over the past couple of weeks. Slowly but surely it's becoming crisper by night and day, but I can still feel the heat of the sun, and it's surprisingly bright. While I do miss the lush greenness of Scotland, I don't miss the short gray days of autumn and winter. Plus the brightness here is dream light to photograph.

It's about a year since I got my camera and taught myself to use it (with a little help from my friends - thanks). Most of the shots I've taken here and blogged, since moving to the US, have been manual snapshots, and not overly staged. It's a fantastic hobby, and I enjoy it a lot. Moving somewhere new has given me the excuse to be a real shutterbug too. At some point I'd like to take the chance to challenge myself again to learn some new photo-skills.

Pumpkin Spice Flavored Pets

Since I heard the local radio went pumpkin-flavored, and every thing else under the October sun is seasoned with this festive mix of pumpkin spices, I'd like to announce that our English Bulldog has joined the fray:

An homage to the rural posters and leaflets advertising local Fall Fests

She's such a pumpkin butt, with Dracula teeth.

Incidentally, if you Google Image search "pumpkin bulldog" you get some amusing results.

Tomorrow I'll be back with tales of hay rides and pumpkin patches. Will the pumpkin madness never end?

Remember, it's the Glad Blog Octoberfest all this month, so please send me your own Fall themed posts - I'd love to feature my favorites. Bonus points if you feature pumpkin related activities or products, local Fall Fests, or fun traditions I haven't heard of.

Wafers Spiced and all things nice: The tale of a controversial autumn cookie

As a recent expat sometimes it's for me hard to know what is really a 'thing' - a custom, tradition, cultural trend - or what is just my American family's own way of life.

Pumpkin Spice is definitely a 'thing'. And by now maybe you think I'm obsessed with it. I am, but only because at this time of year America is obsessed with it too. The other day a local radio station proudly announced that it was "Officially Pumpkin Flavored".

US TV cook and potential-maybe-future-first-lady Sandra Lee introduced me to all sorts of bizarre pumpkin spice concoctions, including pumpkin spice cocktails and pumpkin spice jello shots. The varieties of ways this country can push a simple spice blend is pretty impressive. I don't think half of these products have even seen an actual pumpkin.

This brings me to 'spiced wafers'. Recently we had to drive across the county to one specific store that sold a specific brand of these things. Apparently this was necessary to get the true taste of October. I was told no local supermarket sells the 'right kind' of spiced wafer.

The 'right kind' I'm talking about is Ivin's Spiced Wafers, which are not at all a wafer. They look deceptively like ginger snap cookies, but instead they have that clovey pumpkin spice taste I currently can't escape. And yes, they're good.

You can only get them in Acme supermarkets within the greater Philadelphia region of Pennsylvania, during the months of Fall.  On a side note, Acme supermarkets only exist in Northeast USA. They should not be confused with the fictional Acme Corporation from Looney Tunes, although I like to pretend that I could pick up my seasonal spiced wafers and a large anvil in just one shopping trip.

So these little cookies are almost exclusively a Pennsylvanian October thing. And a tasty Pennsylvanian October thing at that, especially when washed down with a refreshing pumpkin or Octoberfest beer (more on those later). But would it were that simple…

There's another local spiced wafer rival, Sweetzels, made in the little local Christmas town of Skippack, PA. And the brand you prefer could reflect greatly on your character. There is more than one Sweetzel v Ivins Throwdown available online, comparing the spice and crunch of each respective biscuit.

Moreover, there's a small level of outrage to be found online that Ivins may not be made as locally as Sweetzels, and may actually be shipped over each Autumn from (shock!) Minnesota. Acme, a Pennsylvania chain, is owned by SuperValu, a Minnesota chain. It gets complicated.

There's also another online conspiracy that Ivin's cookies are actually made by (shock!) Sweetzels. Some consumers find their packaging, and the shape and size of the biscuits themselves, to be too strikingly similar to have possibly been produced by two different companies.

If there's one thing I love, it's baked goods mired in controversy -from the Magnolia cupcake lawsuit to the Jaffa Cake cookie tax court case. I'm very tempted to try to get to the bottom of these spiced wafer conspiracies, but I'm also concerned that would spoil the intrigue surrounding this seasonal bake. What do you think? Should I go on a mission to uncover the mystery or leave this spicy tale be?

P.S Sorry for the delay in this post. Here's an unrelated piece of advice: Don't eat hotdogs that are a month out of date/expired. You will get food poisoning.


Remember, it's the Glad Blog Octoberfest all this month, so please send me your own Fall themed posts - I'd love to feature my favorites. Bonus points if you feature pumpkin related activities or products, local Fall Fests, or fun traditions I haven't heard of.

How to catapult a pumpkin

Thanks to County Line for the opportunity to smash a pumpkin in style for charity. It was immensely satisfying.

Pumpkin Pie: A Canned History

It's the first week of October and I've already munched through my first pumpkin pie of the season. Why is the pumpkin pie so important to America? And why do I get disturbing flashbacks whenever I see a tin of Libby's? Read on, pumpkinheads, read on.

Pumpkin pie made with Libby's - homemade crust though

This strange, spicy, custardy dessert has a surprisingly long-standing place in US harvest tradition. The humble pumpkin is native to North America, and pumpkin pie recipes have been found dating back to before the USA itself existed.

Native Americans probably presented the pumpkin to settlers, which would help to prevent scurvy. Native Americans filled pumpkin with milk and spices and baked it on embers. I'm not sure if this is the first pumpkin pie or the first pumpkin spice latte, but the settlers were not keen on a pumpkin pie devoid of a crumbly, salty crust and many died of scurvy anyway.

In 1651 a Frenchman wrote a recipe that encased the pumpkin in pastry, and also called for the baker to "besprinkle" the pie with sugar. Can we please bring the word "besprinkle" back into use?

The French then introduced the pumpkin pie to Tudor England, allegedly in the form we still recognize today. But it did not become ingrained into the UK psyche like it did here in the US. The English tried to add raisins and apples to the pie mix which probably ruined it. The Brits decided to stick to adding fruit to meat and faux-meat pies, creating the tradition of the boozy mince pie instead.

According to Jack Staub, Members of the Church of England mockingly referred to Thanksgiving as "St.Pumpkin's Day". He also states that Boston was known as "pumpkinshire" before it became "beantown" and its residents were nicknamed "pumpkinheads". I love this factoid. Can we please rename Boston Pumpkinshire?

Before the USA came to being bakers were already adding the vital "pumpkin spice" flavor to the pie: cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. It's this simple mix of spices, and especially the clove taste, that characterizes this whole season. When you read "pumpkin spice" in all this crazy seasonal marketing, this is what you're scratching n' sniffing. The pie recipe and spices have barely changed at all since the first Thanksgiving.

In the past century, Americans found a way to preserve and can the humble pumpkin so it can easily be scooped into pre-made pie crust for an instant traditional dish. I'm not above making my mince pies with pre-made mincemeat, and not above making pumpkin pie from a tin either.

However, I still sometimes have involuntary twitches when I see the Libby's stacked on shelves. I start to sweat and flashback to a disturbingly tense moment in the history of the pumpkin.

Back in 2009 Libby's announced a pumpkin shortage. Panic ensued. Whether it was a marketing ploy or not, I'm still traumatized. Why? I was working in a boutique delicatessen in St.Andrews, Scotland, at the time. And the American University students did not cope well with the great pumpkin shortage of 2009. You can read about this here, and the following day here. And you really should. They are very funny posts. Trust me.

While I didn't understand back then, I admit I get it now. The pumpkin pie is an important emblem of US history, a vital slice of US tradition.  It should be the national fruit.

Despite my issues with Libby's canned Pumpkin, I have no issues eating pie.

Remember, it's the Glad Blog Octoberfest all this month, so please send me your own Fall themed posts - I'd love to feature my favorites. What's your favorite pumpkin pie recipe?