Melanie's recipe for pumpkin chili

In the week following the Halloween chili feed, I have received 6,795,351.82 angry emails and twice that many phone calls from irate readers, all demanding to know why I had not posted Melanie's pumpkin chili recipe. At first, it was just an annoyance, but lately these missives have begun to get threatening. Readers say if I don't post the recipe right away, they will abandon this blog and return no more.

It's not fair to me, because I am horribly sick and am coughing like crazy, wondering if I will die before the night ends, but if I lost that many readers, I would only have three left. I need to keep at least four readers, just to sustain my will to keep on blogging. So, as difficult as this is for me, I now post Melanie's pumpkin chili recipe:

1 Sugar pumpkin, about 2 lbs.

1 T. vegetable oil

1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped

2 T. chili powder

1 T. curry powder

2 t. cumin

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

6 plum tomatoes, chopped

2 1/2 cooked bulgar

1 can kidney or pinto beans (drained and rinsed)

1/2 c. toasted (green) pumpkin seeds

1/2 c. chopped cilantro leaves and stems

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375. Cut the pumpkin in half with a large cleaver, ulu, or pocket knife, depending on what is convenient.

Scoop out the seeds, remove the stringy innards and feed them to the dog (I am not certain how Melanie accomplished this step, since she has two cats and no dog). Rinse the seeds in a colander to remove fleshy bits. Lay the seeds out on a paper towel to dry. Place the pumpkin open side down and bake until the flesh is soft, about 50 minutes to one hour. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and put it aside to cool. Sprinkle rinsed and dried pumpkin seeds on a baking sheet, sprinkle with some salt, and toast in the oven until they are nicely browned and crisp, about ten minutes. Set seeds aside.

In a large saucepan or stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, as well as the spices. Stir often for about five minutes, or until the onions turn soft. Add the tomatoes and bulgar (just what is bulgar, anyway? I meant to ask, but Melanie's out doing some work in Dillingham and can't be bothered with such questions) and about 2 cups of water. Bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, spoon the flesh from the pumpkin and add it to the simmering chili along with the beans. Cook the the chili for about 20 minutes, adding more water if necessary to attain desired chili consistency. Right before serving, add the toasted pumpkin seeds and the cilantro. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve hot.

Melanie forgot to include this part, so I now take it upon myself to do so. Although this is a vegetarian dish, one that my Hindu relatives in India could eat with clear conscience, if you would like to add a special Alaskan touch to it, one that your visitors from the Far North will greatly appreciate, then serve it with a side of seal oil, to be applied at the discretion of your guests. 

Corn bread is also recommended. You can dip this in the seal oil, too.

As should be obvious to everyone, the picture is of Melanie and Charlie, who took my picture as I took theirs'. This kind of thing seems to happen all the time, anymore. In this case, it all happened before I got sick, before Melanie went to Dillingham.

As I am posting this two days ahead of its actual scheduled appearance on the net, maybe Melanie will be back by the time you read this. Maybe I will be feeling better. Maybe we will all be eating pumpkin chili.

A wild reading of Dr. Seuss gives way to even wilder antics

Here is Kalib, the night before I got sick, before his mom fell and hurt herself in a minor but painful way, practicing his WWE professional wrestling moves upon his dad. Yet, this photo session did not begin in so wild a fashion.

Well, verbally the beginning was pretty wild, for it took place here, with dad reading Dr. Seuss to little Kalib. It was a real tongue-twister, and for awhile Kalib was quite absorbed.

Kalib decided that he wanted to take a more active role in the story.

Now he uses his dad for a diving platform.

Off he dives!

The dive turns into a full-fledged somersault!

Whew!

Oops! Mom is out of the shower. Time for the acrobatics to end; time for a tiny boy - who was a baby such a short time ago - to go to bed.

Kalib gets a kiss from his mom.

He has a bedtime snack. As he lay there, a CD of children's music softly played and one of the songs was Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. It reminded me of a dream that I had, back when Jacob was a teenager. In the dream, he was a small, small, boy - a little older than Kalib is right now, but not much.

The dream was accompanied by a song sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, but the words were different, though precisely what they were I cannot remember now, although I believe that I wrote them in my journal. They were something like, "where is Jacob, where is Fred?" Jacob's middle name is "Frederick."

In the dream, Jacob was dressed in the same kind of PJ's that Kalib wears here. He stood on the floor, a slightly grumpy look on his face, and he reached out and upward.

I awoke, devasted, feeling a sense of terrible loss, because that tiny boy that I had seen in my dream no longer existed and I could not ever spend even a single second with him again. I hadn't been with him enough when he had been that age. Always on the go. But even if one is a 100 percent, stay-at-home, parent, it is impossible to ever spend enough time with your young children. I wondered about the God who made life this way, to bestow treasures upon us but to impose severe limits on the time that we are allowed to hold on to them.

And yet, here he is, that little boy, in front of me all over again. Now I see that it all just keeps recycling itself.

I still wonder, though. Kalib won't be little long. Yet, another little person will soon come along. And soon I will be old and dead and gone. But damn, I am enjoying this little boy right now!

I had meant to come back and photograph Kalib after he had fallen asleep and the sippy cup had been taken away, but I got distracted. 

I fall ill; the world becomes strangely quiet

This is as bright as the day ever got for me.

Following a miserable night, I was awakened by Margie, who stood at the foot of the bed moving the blankets that covered my feet.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

She answered, but in a voice so quiet that I could not make out a single word.

"What?" I repeated.

Again, she spoke in the decibel of a whisper, although I knew she had not whispered. She had just spoken quietly. I was growing annoyed. Why was she doing this to me?

"I couldn't understand a word you said," I grumbled. "Speak louder."

She raised her voice until I could barely make it out. The blankets had slipped down onto her crutches. She had moved the blankets.

Although I had begun the day before feeling okay - just a bit of raspiness in my throat, irritated by all the glacier dust that the wind had whipped into the air, and some stuffiness in my sinuses that I attributed totally to the dust, I had gone to bed in a terrible state. My throat was so sore that it burned - it felt as though I had gargled with scalding-hot water. My nose was so plugged that I could breathe only through my mouth. Pain and congestion in my upper chest caused me to cough every now and then. When I coughed, it hurt.

It took me a long time to go to sleep and then I didn't sleep well. I wanted to sleep more and so I pulled the covers over my head. I then became aware that my heart beat sounded very strange - muffled, kind of squishy. I wondered what this meant. I went back to sleep and did not wake up until after 10:00 AM.

Now, I knew that it was not just the dust. I was sick. This was not going to be a good day.

I went into the living room and found Margie and Lavina. Yesterday, Lavina stepped on a splatter of water mixed with Muzzy slobber, her feet flew out from under her and she came down hard on her hips even as her head smacked against the wall. The baby in her is fine and she broke no bones, but she is very sore and will spend the rest of the week at home.

When Margie and Lavina greeted me, I could hardly hear them.

It was like I wore Boze headphones, turned on to quiet to filter out noise. Margie had not been speaking quietly, but my sinuses had completely filled up. I could hardly hear.

I fixed oatmeal with raisens, walnuts and a sprinkling of cinnamon for Lavina and me. Margie had already eaten.

Afterwards, I felt so sluggish, miserable and terrible that I could do nothing. I struggled on until 11:00 AM, then went back into the bedroom and laid back down on the bed, where I was joined by three cats. I dozed back off, and stayed in a state of dozing, punctuated by brief moments of semi-consciousness, until nearly 4:00 PM.

This is awful, because I have too much to do, but I knew that the only reason that I had collapsed like that is because my body needed to rest.

So, at 4:00 PM, I stepped outside for the first time. I climbed into the car and, having done nothing but sleep all day, took my coffee break, then sipped my brew as I drove down by Iona Grotto. It was overcast and dark. It was very strange, driving through the afternoon darkness, as if I was in some kind of utterly quiet, electronic vehicle.

I feel horrible. All I want to do is to lay back down and go back to sleep.

Where the hell is the snow? I want it to snow.

I was in the wrong place

...wish that I had been up there, instead of down here...

Moose poops on the run, Tequilla acts angry, I find three moose and the lakes finally freeze over

I set out on my walk a bit before noon and soon came upon this moose poop, scattered down the road. All I could conclude is that the moose who dropped these dozens of nuggets was running and pooping simultaneously. Why? A dog? Naughty children, throwing rocks?

Or was the moose just in a hurry to get somewhere and couldn't wait?

Maybe it was this dog - Tequilla. I don't think so. Tequilla lives too far away from where the moose poop was spread down the road. True, I walked the distance easy enough and she could have, too, but I doubt that she did.

On the upper marsh, I found this puddle frozen into a deep gouge left by someone on a four-wheeler.

I descended into the lower marsh, where I found a momma moose and her two yearling calves. Was it one of them who had ran, pooping, down the road?

Finally - Wasilla Lake has frozen over! Now, all we need is snow. On the other hand, the ice skaters will probably be glad if it doesn't snow for awhile. There are places near here where an ice-skater can go for miles and miles and miles, between freeze-up and the first snow.

I just heard the Anchorage forecast on the radio: zero to ten degrees (F) tonight, depending where in town one is. Tomorrow, even though it has taken so long to cool off this year, a warm front will move in already. El Niño. That's probably why. Temperatures will rise into the 30's and bring rain or snow, or snow and rain mixed.

During a cold snap, we tend to be markedly cooler out here than in Anchorage - just as we are hotter during a heat wave. I hope there is no rain, but only snow.

I did not go around to check all of the many lakes in this area, but, if Wasilla Lake froze, then you can be reasonably certain that all the lakes did.

Just in case you are wondering, I was on my coffee break here. Margie stayed home to watch "Countdown" and had me drop a couple of bill payments off and that is why I came into this part of town.

Closing view of Wasilla Lake, finally frozen over, at the beach I call "Wasilla Malibu" in honor of the bikini-clad gals who gather here in the summer to taunt the guys who want them.