In a Pumpkin Paradise

As requested, on my last post, the weather has cooled slightly here in the desert. The nights and mornings are especially wonderful. There is no fall foliage or brisk breezes, as in other parts of the states, but compared to Dominica it's cool and Kyle and I are embracing it.

Our weekend started out with the Tour de Fat. It's a bike parade and beer festival held in Tempe by the Fat Tire Brewery. We borrowed my in-laws beach cruisers, since Russ is out of commission, and road our way, with some friends, through the streets of Tempe before parking and rewarding ourselves with a cold beer. This was our first year participating in this event and Kyle and I were both glad we did it. It may be a while before we're here to do it again. They do, however, have this Tour in many cities across the country. We'll have to look for it, wherever we may be.


I made more of an effort to embrace the spirit of the fall by making anything and everything with pumpkin. We started out football Sunday with some pumpkin spice pancakes, oh yummy, and finished the afternoon with some pumpkin butterscotch cookies. I got both these recipes from a cooking blog that I frequent, annies-eats.com, and Annie seems to have a love of pumpkin as much as I do. I'm even extending my pumpkin flavor to a main dish...pumpkin parmesan sauce with sausage and pasta (with fresh sage). We'll see how that goes. In other food news, some kind of wild rice dish is on the menu for the Minnesota vs. Chicago game on Monday.