That gramma pumpkin your Nana made into pie, JennieG, is called a crookneck squash in these parts. It's a winter squash like the Hubbard and butternut varieties, but less often seen in supermarkets. People who grow their own like them.

I have mixed feelings about so-called pumpkin spice, which is ubiquitous in September and October, thanks to Tim Horton's and every other pastry purveyor in these parts. A good pumpkin pie has ginger, clove and nutmeg in it as well as cinnamon, but I can't detect anything but cinnamon in the Tim's version. And it doesn't belong in coffee, except as a light dusting on the foam of a cappucino.

This morning, Himself whipped up a batch of bannock at zero dark thirty, so I emerged from the pit to the smell of frybread wafting through the house. Worse things happen at sea.