Brandywine Table: The Versatile Pumpkin
Far beyond the pie
Pumpkin season arrives with quiet fanfare. Suddenly local farm stands brim with sugar pie pumpkins, and even the most practical pantry has a can or two of this seasonal ingredient waiting its turn.
A happy, bright and versatile food, pumpkin stands ready to enhance many recipes. It grounds a dish with earthy depth, brings velvety texture to the mix and surprises us with easy shifts from savory to sweet. As a foodie with more of a salty tooth than a sweet one, I enjoy the savory side of pumpkin the most.
As I write my first Brandywine Table column, I’d like to share a bit more of my background. My path to the kitchen wasn’t linear, but it was inevitable from the moment I unwrapped my first Easy-Bake Oven and later graduated to slice-and-bake cookies.
I always was and will be a foodie, though I didn’t recognize food as my own art until I earned my culinary arts degree at the Art Institute of Seattle. After graduating, I launched Today’s Gourmet, my catering company, where feeding people was both craft and joy. Those experiences taught me the magic of bringing people together at the table and set me firmly on this path.
Years later, back home in Pennsylvania, my work evolved again. I spent two decades in the most important kitchen — in my own home. Feeding my family, learning the rhythms of home cooking, and proving daily that good food doesn’t need to be complicated to be meaningful helped me hone my craft. This was all while juggling work and life as a retail wine specialist. Wine may be my day job, but food has always been my compass, where curiosity, creativity and my stars align.
That’s why I’m delighted to join Brandywine Table after years of reading this column, admiring how it honors local farms, kitchens and traditions. Here, I’ll get to bring together the threads of my experience — food, storytelling and the shared table — right where they belong, in conversation with the people and flavors of our region.
So, when County Lines’ editor Jo Anne Durako suggested pumpkin as the theme for my first column, it felt like, well, coming home. Pumpkins are familiar yet full of surprises, just waiting for us to look past the expected pie. Roasted in simple cubes, enhancing a tartine, skewered with bacon and onions, or baked into bread for a seasonal tres leches dessert, pumpkin proves again and again that it’s more than a holiday cliché. It’s the taste of autumn itself — cheerful, nourishing and always ready for the table.
I look forward to celebrating the flavors and traditions of Chester County and our local region at Brandywine Table.