Spiced Pumpkin Bread
Or: how to cope with a dreary and drizzly autumn
Well, it's thoroughly October. For us Chicagoans, that means the sky is whipping around an icy drizzle that likes to unhood every hapless, grocery-seeking pedestrian as they traipse through the unnaturally pitch-dark early evening. It means my landlord had to come over yesterday to light--with fire!--the gas heater embedded in my wall (as someone raised on radiators this is an entirely strange and new concept to me). And it means that no matter where you go, you'll be bombarded with pumpkin-themed imagery and pumpkin-flavored treats. 'Tis the season of giant orange gourds. There is no escape.
So, I thought, why not embrace it? It's not like it isn't delicious. There are few pies better than pumpkin pies, few muffins better than those glued together with the hollowed-out innards of Halloween fruit. It makes the process of settling into an icy wasteland of a city that much more bearable. So I braved the slushy eve and picked up the remaining ingredients needed for my very favorite dessert bread: that of the pumpkin persuasion.
