Photo by Charlotte Melrose

It's pumpkin time! These next few weeks, pumpkins will be everywhere you look. And not just on doorsteps and at hay-strew corner pumpkin patches; there are pumpkin spice lattes at every Peet's, divine pumpkin ice cream at Mitchell's Ice Cream in the Mission, pumpkin bread and pumpkin cupcakes in every bakery.

Maybe it comes from having a birthday in October, but I'm a sucker for anything pumpkin-y. Which means I'm doing a lot of pumpkin-themed cooking this time of year--pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, curried pumpkin-and-apple soup, and more.

My secret? I don't actually use pumpkin, not even those cute little made-for-baking sugar pies or baby-bear pumpkins. Instead, I like to range through the goofy and gorgeous world of winter squash. Every squash-selling farmstand has dozens on offer right now, and I'd bake with just about any of them. (For me, squash season is also heralded by the arrival of many orphaned squash on my doorstep, dropped off by friends with CSA boxes and a guilty glut of butternuts and delicatas.)

Donna Noeller and David. Photo by Charlotte Melrose

Since I'm up in Marin this weekend, I'm getting my squash from organic Noeller Farms, who sell at the tiny but fun Marinwood Community Farmers' Market.

Marinwood market sign. Photo by Charlotte Melrose

They sell lots of big pumpkins--mostly for carving and roasting the seeds, since pumpkins raised for size can be pretty fibrous, although tasty if you puree them or put them through a Vitamix. But my favorite is the dense and chestnutty kabocha (or kabota), a Japanese variety that's extra-sweet and good for baking.

Kabocha squash (between the chestnuts and the pomegranates) commonly called Japanese pumpkin

Yes, the easy way out is to open up a can of Libby's. There's nothing wrong with plain old canned pumpkin. But this time of year, the fresh squashes are so cute, and I'd rather put my money directly into the pockets of the hard-working farmers who are willing to grow the quirky varieties, like the bright-orange sunshine kabocha, that I love.

They smell sweet and autumnal as they bake, and your backyard chickens will treat the stringy innards and seeds like Halloween candy.

To prepare, just slice in half, scrape out the fibrous string and seeds, and bake face down in a 350°F oven for 30-45 minutes, until squash is very tender. Turn face up and let cool. Scrape flesh into a colander and let drain for a few hours. Mash into a puree; you can also crank the squash through a food mill for extra smoothness.

Everyone seems to have a favorite recipe for pumpkin quick bread. This yeasted version is a little more unusual. It makes a great base for turkey sandwiches slathered with mayonnaise and cranberry sauce; it's also wonderful for breakfast toasted and spread with apple butter.

Yeasted Pumpkin Bread
You can go sweet or savory with this bread. Reduce or remove the brown sugar altogether and leave out the spices for a more savory bread; add sweet autumn-y spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves to make it more of a breakfast or teatime treat. Cinnamon can be a little overwhelming, so try experimenting with just a couple, like nutmeg and cloves. Pregrated nutmeg quickly loses its punch, so try grating a fresh whole nutmeg using the fine holes of a box grater or microplane. The flavor difference is quite amazing.

Makes: 2 loaves or 2 dozen rolls

Ingredients:
1/4 cup warm water
1 package (2 1/4 tsps) active dry yeast
2 cups roasted, mashed pumpkin or other winter squash
2 tablespoons pumpkin-seed, walnut, or other vegetable oil
1/2 cup warm milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, or a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and/or cloves, optional
1/2 cup cornmeal
3 cups whole-wheat flour
3-4 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup hulled pumpkin seeds
Egg glaze: 1 egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp water

Preparation
1. In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast over water. Let stand for a few minutes, then whisk to dissolve.

2. Mix pumpkin, oil, milk, eggs, brown sugar, salt, spices if using, cornmeal, and whole-wheat flour into yeast mixture. Beat with a wooden spoon to make a thick batter.

3. One cup at a time, add white flour, stopping when you have a soft but manageable dough. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface.

4. Wash, dry, and lightly oil the bowl you were just using. Now, knead the dough with gusto for 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle over small amounts of remaining flour as needed; dough will tend to be sticky. Use patience and a dough scraper, and resist the temptation to dump in a whole bunch of flour to make it behave one and for all.

5. When dough has become smooth and elastic, return the dough to the oiled bowl. Swish around and turn over to make sure the whole ball of dough is lightly coated with oil. Cover bowl with a clean dishtowel and let rise in a warmish place until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.

6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Pat into a large, flat rectangle. Sprinkle with dried cranberries and 3/4 cup pumpkin seeds. Roll up dough, rolling and kneading gently to distribute cranberries and seeds throughout dough.

7. Divide dough in half, and shape each half into a round or rectangular loaf. You can also shape dough into small round rolls.

8. Place loaves or rolls on a parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheet. Let rise until nearly double in size, about 1 hour.

9. Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush loaves or rolls with egg glaze. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds. Bake for 20-25 minutes for rolls, 30-35 minutes for loaves. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack.

Last weekend's fat harvest moon flipped a switch, and all of a sudden, it's fall. Tomatoes still shine in the garden, but now's the time to gorge on (or can) what's ripe, and accept that what's green now will still be green at Thanksgiving. At the farmers' market, grapes, figs, pomegranates, and winter squash are muscling out the last peaches and melons of the season.

If you're a Northeast transplant like me, you can't cross off the first week in October without craving the first bite of a snappy fresh apple, all crunch and tang. And any apple is better when you've picked it yourself right off the tree, blue sky painted between the branches and the promise of hot cider and fresh cider doughnuts to come.

As a kid, every autumn held a sunny October weekend where my mom would toss my sisters and I into the back of the Volvo (ah, the jouncing-around, sister-jabbing joys of the pre-carseat era!) and head out to the country to go apple picking. This was the Garden State in the 70s, and there was still a lot of working farmland around. Even my hometown, an otherwise drab suburb whose last exciting moment happened in 1780, had a small farm smack in the middle of it, right across the street from my elementary school.

It didn't take long to shake loose from the strip malls and find a place where we could run through the trees, getting stung by yellowjackets drunk on fermenting fallen fruit, and filling bag after bag with Winesaps and Macouns. Always next to the dusty parking lot was a little farm market selling cloudy, fresh-pressed apple cider, boxed apple pies and best of all, cider doughnuts. They were popped fresh out of a greasy, batter-spattered contraption that moved rings of batter along a conveyor belt of bubbling oil, flipping, frying, and finally spitting them down a chute to be sugared and sold.

What's a cider doughnut, you ask? Oh, you poor deprived child, you. Yes, here in California you had sunshine and skateboarding, while we had slush and mittens, but the doughnuts, and the snow days, were worth it. Cider doughnuts are nothing more than cake doughnuts made with apple cider in the dough, usually rolled in cinnamon sugar and best served minutes from the fryer. For East Coast kids, though, they have a mythical connection to autumn, all part of the memory of deep blue skies and the crunch of leaves underfoot, geese flying in V's overhead and the first smell of woodsmoke after dinner.

Recreating this experience on the West Coast can take a little doing. For the full sticky-fingered, apple-and-doughnut experience, you need to hit the road and head up to the gold country northeast of Sacramento, near Placerville. To Apple Hill, to be exact, where the foothills of the Sierras offer the warm days, chilly nights, and colder winters that apples like. Apple fritters, hayrides, cider and u-picks abound, although the varieties of apples lean more towards Galas and Fujis-- sweeter, milder apples that don't need as many below-freezing winter chill hours as their hardier East Coast cousins. Most likely to scratch that East-Coast itch is the charming Rainbow Orchards, in Camino, which offers excellent fresh-pressed cider and hot cider doughnuts in their barn, along with sprawling acres of apple trees, live bluegrass music, and lots of room for picnicking.

Closer to home, you can take a meandering drive on the back roads west of Petaluma to the Chileno Valley Ranch. Here, between folded hills still lion-colored from summer's long dry days, are sprig-headed quail skittering across the road while hawks ride the rising air currents overhead. Herds of black Holsteins and buff Jerseys drowse beneath the oak trees.

You can see the small organic orchard as you drive up, planted on a gentle slope running down to the barn. Nearby are chicken coops, some vigorously baah-ing goats and sheep, and a lavish flower garden brimming with roses. Sally Gale, who owns the ranch with her husband Mike (the ranch property has been in her family since 1856), is usually on hand to walk pickers through the trees, pointing out green, grapefruit-sized Mutsus (great for baking) and dainty lunchbox-sized Pink Ladies and Pinovas, along with Molly's Delicious and fat, late-ripening Arkansas Black Twigs. In the barn, where you go to pay for your haul ($2/lb) is a small table with some of the ranch's other products, which might include eggs, tomatoes, red pears, dried beans, and the ranch's own grass-fed local beef.

If the scene at Chileno Valley is a little low-key for your taste, then don't miss the signs for the Peter Pumpkin Patch on your way back. Follow the (naturally) pumpkin-shaped signs to Spring Hill Road, where the otherwise cow-centric Spring Hill Cheese Company dairy is decked out in full haybale-and-pumpkin drag through the end of October. There is an acres-wide field dotted with fat orange jack-o-lanterns on the vine, each more carve-worthy than the last. And then there are stacks of edible winter squash in all sizes and shapes (carnival, acorn, rouge vif d'etampes, munchkin, banana, and more); pyramids of hay to climb and jump from; a tractor-pulled wagon; even a very patient cow to milk. The air, it's true, is tangy with the smell of cow pat (a scent that always made a rancher friend breathe deep and exhale with satisfaction, saying, "Ah, the smell of money!"), but there are plenty of picnic tables nonetheless.

What's actually the most fun, though, is the dig-your-own-potato patch. The appeal isn't immediately apparent--walk across the road from the pumpkins, and you'll find yourself in a field of scrubby weeds. Pick up one of the long gardening forks provided, however, and look for a dried-out stalk, remnants of what was once a green and growing potato plant. Jab the fork in about 8 inches from the stalk, dig, wiggle, and lift, and voila! Buried treasure, in the shape of silky-skinned Yukon Golds. It is oddly satisfying and hard to stop, not quite this kind of gold, but a lot easier to find, and only $1/lb.

Sometimes, the best of intentions go awry. Fortunately, there's always frozen puff pastry.

Emergency desserts during the summer are easy -- who needs to gild perfect berries? -- but as autumn settles in, it's more of a challenge to impress VIP guests, say, eight culinary experts called for a special meeting. And you're supposed to make dessert. No pressure.

When your beautiful pears are still hard and you don't have a single hour more to ripen them in that handy paper bag, it's time for poaching.

Make a simple syrup by mixing together in a saucepan 1 part water, 1 part sugar, ribbons of lemon peel, and a few knobs of ginger. Crush the ginger to relieve stress and release flavor.

Peel your pears and cut them in half. Use a small spoon or melon baller to scoop out the core, and then plop the fruit into the poaching liquid.

Bring to a simmer over medium-high, and then lower the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Press a round of parchment up against the pears to keep them moist all around and to help cook them evenly. (Remember this tip for matzo balls and red-cooked pork, too.) Make the round just a tad bit smaller than the diameter of the pan, and cut a venting hole at the center. If you don't have parchment paper, use a smaller pot lid or a flat saucer to keep the pears immersed, but be careful not to press dents into the softening fruit.

They're ready when the tip of a paring knife cuts easily to the center, 20 minutes for some pears, 40 for others.

For tiny tartlets that will be served on a buffet, cut the pears in quarters and then slice thinly. If you're making one big tart for friends or family, just make parallel slices almost to the stem ends and then fan open each pear half.

Make a frangipane filling by throwing a cup of blanched or slivered almonds into your food processor. (If you don't have a food processor, buy almond meal from the nut vendors at the farmers market or visit the baking aisle at your local Trader Joe's.) Follow with a couple of eggs, 3/4 stick of soft butter (though I've been known to use the cold, hard stuff) and 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar. Flavor with a pinch of salt and a good dash of vanilla. Buzz until a smooth, thick but spreadable mixture forms. Set this aside.

Now for the crust...

Dufour is my favorite, but Trader Joe's also sells a good all-butter puff pastry that's worth keeping in your freezer.

Thaw the pastry as directed on the package label. Most call for a few hours in the refrigerator, followed by a few minutes at room temperature. You'll need to work quickly to prevent the butter layers from melting into each other, so gather all your cutters, pans, fillings and glazes before you take the pastry out of the refrigerator.

Make an egg wash by mixing together 1 egg and 1 tablespoon water just until foam begins to form.

For small tartlets, you'll need to roll the pastry pretty thin, say 1/8 inch. If you're making one large tart, you can stop at 1/4 inch, but don't leave it too thick, or your layers will rise so high they'll deform and spill your filling. Those who were good at Tetris should be able to squeeze 18 to 24 tartlets, each 1-1/2 inch across, out of one sheet of puff pastry.

Be sure to use a sharp knife or pastry round to cut cleanly through the dough. Pressing the rim of a glass or a dull, plastic cutter into your pastry will simply seal together all those lovely layers. Use a small amount of flour as need to prevent sticking, but don't overdo it. Fastidious bakers will keep a soft brush handy to flick away excess flour.

Cut twice as many rounds as you'll need. Switch to a smaller cutter to punch out the centers of half of the rounds to form rings. Brush the bases lightly but evenly with egg wash, then press the ring onto each large round to make a lip for the filling.

If you don't have pastry rounds, cut small squares with a sharp knife, then cut thin strips to press around the edges. Square tarts are easy, yet look très elegant.

Prick the bottom crust once or twice with a fork.

If you have time, freeze the crusts for 15 to 30 minutes before baking. Preheat the oven to 425 F (or whatever the package says) and bake the crusts for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on their size. Remove them when they are puffed but do not let them take on color. Reduce the oven to 375 F.

Spread a thin layer of the nut filling into the center of the crusts. Top with the sliced fruit. I like to arrange the fruit with a bit of height for some drama on the buffet.

Bake the tartlet's again for about 20 minutes, or until the filling is golden brown.

For a more casual affair, one big tart is fine. It'll need to be baked for a longer amount of time, say 30 to 40 minutes, but it's a lot less fuss upfront.

Let the tarts cool on a rack for maximum crispness. For this batch of tartlets, I reduced the poaching liquid to a thick syrup, and then brushed the pear slices with it for a nice, finishing sheen. You can melt a clear, pale jelly such as apple or white wine-thyme. Or you can just use honey.

The tarts can be frozen at several points: after rolling and cutting, after the first baking and before filling, or after baking completely. Like with roasting chickens, it doesn't that much more time to make two rather than one, so go ahead and make extra. Frozen tartlets take only 15 minutes at 275 F to warm up.

Extra poached pears make an excellent topping for pancakes, waffles or French toast. Slice and rewarm in butter and brown sugar.

Finally, just as doughnut holes are among my favorite treats, the centers of the tartlet rounds end up becoming even more fun to eat then the tarts themselves. Brush with egg wash, sprinkle with fleur de sel and cumin seeds, bake for 10 minutes, and enjoy while still warm with a slice of cheese, a glass of wine and a huge sigh of relief.