Pumpkin Season
Fall is the perfect time of year to put into practice the "everything but the oink" adage — the season's portly pumpkins go from seed to porch to pot to soil. Once you've picked the ideal gourd from market, use its meat for pies, its seeds for roasting and snacking (or planting), its emptied shell for Jack-o'-Lanterning, and if it can survive Halloween pranksters, deposit the pumpkin into your soil beds or compost heap for your garden's trick-or-treat. You can find patches in nearly every parish and pumpkins in a range of colors in markets through the fall. Look for its seasonal squash cousins, like the cushaw, a crook-necked, Cajun country favorite, for a hearty cold-weather soup.
