For many, the start of fall means one thing: pumpkin season! Across the country, cafés are rolling out pumpkin coffees, pumpkin pastries, and even pumpkin candles. Unfortunately for some, though, love for pumpkin can become a full blown addiction. Below, Beth Tipton reveals her harrowing journey as a pumpkin addict.
We were estranged for so many years. I’m told that our love when I was an infant was unmatched. Gooey orange dribble dripped down my chin at every meal time — until my mother grew afraid of my unnatural attachment to orange squash and separated us.
This is when my prejudices grew. I was taught that there was something unnatural about a sweet vegetable. Surely, any veggie that tasted best with nutmeg and cinnamon must be “icky” as my mother so eloquently put it. So I turned from you, and from your friends. Butternut squash, yellow summer squash, even cooked carrots became too”icky” for me.
These were the dark years. Relegated to broccoli, spinach, and potatoes, my appetite floundered. The closest I ever came to the delights of your sweet, orange flesh was when I ate zucchinis. At least they were in the squash family.
Then came that fateful day when we were reunited once again. For the first time in my life, I decided to peel away from my own family and celebrate Thanksgiving with my friends. It wasn’t intentional, and I had no idea the day would have so much meaning. I was just broke. My post-grad internship still only paid me minimum wage and plane ticket prices were astronomical. It seemed savvier to invite my other friends stranded for the holiday in the big city over for a Thanksgiving potluck. All I needed to do was roast the turkey and buy the wine.
The night went fairly well. So ordinary, so blasé for a night that would come to mean so much. Conversation and friends and a giant singed, dry turkey. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just that single moment when my friend Kelsey turned to me and slyly said “You’re going to love what I brought for dessert.”
Later, when she brought me a slice of pie—yes! My first bite ever of pumpkin pie!—I became immediately entranced. What could be so perfectly creamy? With a zing of nutmeg and heap of cinnamon, and just a dash of cloves? What could be so deliciously, gratifyingly amazing? What could feel like coming home again, to those orange, dribbly chinned days?
It was you. Just you. My darling, my dear. My pumpkin.
That night I ate three slices of pie, pushing past the pain of my turkey-filled belly. Making up for lost time. And from that day forward, everything I ate or drank was pumpkin. Pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin bread, pumpkin scones, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin soup, pumpkin oatmeal, even pumpkin curry and pumpkin chili. Each thing tasted more delicious than the one that came before it.
The worst, though, was the pumpkin beer. My earlier love for alcohol joined with the tangy, sweet taste of my latest love pumpkin to create the perfect blend. I was cautious at first, trying to only indulge on Friday and Saturday nights. But Friday night so easily became Friday afternoon, which slid into Thursday and before I knew it I was sipping pumpkin beer with my pumpkin scone for breakfast on a Monday morning.
But then something strange started to happen. I grew lethargic, apathetic. I couldn’t sleep and I never had to pee any more. It was almost as if my exclusive diet of pumpkin (and specifically, of pumpkin-themed hot beverages) was dehydrating me. Or not providing enough nourishment. But I didn’t understand. I was in love. And it was difficult to see beyond the fact that I was living in sweatpants, since I had gained so much weight from the pumpkin baked goods. How could I be malnourished and dehydrated if I was twenty pounds heavier? And how could pumpkin be bad?
I hit rock bottom when I was fired from my internship. I left on a coffee run and was found, three hours later, passed out in a pile of pumpkin cream cheese filled muffins, all half eaten. After they took me to the hospital, my doctor told me that I was pre-diabetic from all of the sugar.
With the help of my friends, my family, and the turn around to new, seasonal, winter and spring foods, I was able to get clean. Until a few weeks ago when I was sitting in a Starbucks and a barista came up to me, innocently offering a free sample of pumpkin spice lattes to celebrate their ten year anniversary.
I went on a weekend-long bender, until my roommates found me in Times Square offering myself to a man in exchange for pumpkin pancakes. They dragged me home and luckily I’ve been clean ever since.
Plus, I just had my first apple cider. It’s like the juice, but hot and so much more magical and delicious. And apple’s all the rage right now…
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