Yesterday I finally found three pumpkins that weren’t chopped up into pieces and were a decent shape for jack-o-lanterns. This is great because after not being able to find any pumpkins at all last year, and so far this year only seeing those long skinny ones, I was just about to entertain Emirhan’s Plan B of trying to make a jack-o-lantern out of a watermelon.
I nearly panicked yesterday when I told the guy which pumpkins I wanted and then I stopped paying attention while I thought he was bagging them up, and I turned back around to discover him with a huge butcher knife, getting ready to attack my pumpkins. I screamed “NOOOOOOO!”, which stopped him just in time. I told him I wanted the pumpkins whole. He wrinkled his face at me and said, “but you’ll never be able to carry them home like that, just let me chop them up into more manageable pieces and bag them for you.” I had to scream at him again to get him to stop, and explained that if he cut the pumpkins they would be useless to me and I wouldn’t pay for them. I had brought my gigantic backpack, so I’d put one in there and he could bag the other two and I’d carry one in each hand. I only live a block away, it’s not going to kill me to carry them. I really had to fight him on this issue, and to begin with he kept trying to get me to take these other phallus-shaped pumpkins because he said that the ones I chose were the most flavourless of the bunch. I tried several times to explain that I wasn’t planning on eating them anyway, but it was lost on him. He really thought I was completely crazy.
No one here has ever heard of Halloween. It’s my favourite holiday.
Anyway, I rescued the only three suitable jack-o-lantern pumpkins in all of Antalya. Go me.
Well, I thought they were the only three, but then Emirhan surprised me yesterday by bringing home a fourth one. Four pumpkins + four people = one jack-o-lantern each. I’ve been roped in to teach pumpkin carving class— finally something I’m qualified to do! We’ll probably carve on Monday or Tuesday. I spent some of my time this morning looking at flickr’s collection of jack-o-lanterns and trying to get ideas. I’m really looking forward to taking photos of the finished products.
You guys doing anything special for All Hallow’s Eve?
October 26th, 2007 at 17:03 pm
that’s a cool story, Melissa. I hope you guys have fun. Me and the mrs probably arent doing anything special, but now you’ve inspired me to carve a pumpkin with her. Have a good weekend.
October 26th, 2007 at 17:17 pm
Those look interesting to work with. have a great weekend giving carving lessons. Will wait to see the photos
October 26th, 2007 at 18:38 pm
@Osolage: if you send me a photo of the resulting jack-o-lantern, I will definitely include it here so everyone can see.
October 26th, 2007 at 18:44 pm
@Kapil: I can’t wait! I’ll try to hold off until Tuesday, because I don’t want them to rot prematurely in the warm weather.
October 26th, 2007 at 21:07 pm
Ya know…I went pumpkin shopping too. Halloween is catching on here in Denmark. This year they have the pumpkins actually in black packaging with a long handle and instructions about where and how to make the Jack-O. Only problem is that they are like $8. Aren’t pumpkins supposed to be like $3 or $4?
It’s like turkeys here. In 2005 I paid around $80 for a turkey. A whole frozen one. That was the last turkey I bought here.
October 26th, 2007 at 21:21 pm
Yay! Bringing Halloween to Turkey!
Have fun with the jack-o-lantern patterns. . .there are so many creative ones out there. It’s amazing!! I’m probably going to a friend’s Halloween party. . .which means I need to come up with a costume lickety-split! Any ideas? Anyway. . .have fun!!
October 28th, 2007 at 13:21 pm
@JB: pumpkins are expensive here, also, and we don’t get the cool packaging.
$80 for a turkey, that’s crazy. Here turkeys are pretty easy to find because it gives people another alternative to pork.
October 28th, 2007 at 13:22 pm
@Jen: I always think scary is a better idea than cute as far as costumes are concerned. Definitely let us know what you come up with!