Oy! Picked up the Dining In, Dining Out section in the NYT today and was confronted by a whole feature about pumpkins from the brothers Lee. I was planning on making pumpkins - in all their culinary glory - the subject of my next Queens Alternative "Vittles" column. But, I refuse to follow the Times. That's just not my style. Besides, Matt and Ted Lee did a bang-up job, talking about pumpkin's various forms and cultivation techniques, along with interviews with top chefs about their use of those round, orange babies:
"Pumpkin is the perfect crystallization of seasonal cuisine," said Mario Batali, whose restaurants Babbo and Otto were among the early users this year. "Summer's flavors are light and ethereal. Pumpkin is intense, visceral, close to the soil. You can taste that the earth has changed." Mr. Batali garnishes an appetizer of rustic, housemade coppa (dry-cured pork shoulder) with crisp, barely blanched pumpkin cubes he has dressed with vinegar, powdered clove and chili. His ravioli moons, filled with a semisweet mash of pumpkin, Parmigiano-Reggiano, balsamic vinegar and nutmeg, is an Italian comfort-food classic, with an amaretto cookie grated on top.
But pumpkin's powerful magnetism for spice and its dangerously close association with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and allspice
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