The warm and sweet nature of pumpkin makes it one of the most delightful comfort foods to be enjoyed roasted, steamed and smeared with butter, or blended into soups in the cooler months.

Did you know that pumpkins are not vegetables but fruits? They come in a multitude of shapes, sizes and colours. There are yellow, red, green, white, blue and even multi-coloured striped pumpkins. They can be huge, tiny, flat, short, tall, round, pear-shaped, long-necked, smooth, ribbed and even warty. Pumpkins are amazing for culinary uses. Inside the hard orange or yellow skin, the bright orange flesh is soft, sweet, smooth and honeyed. They are a good source of fiber, as well as providing a range of vitamins and minerals.

Pumpkin & Chickpea Soup

I have been recently invited to be a guest lecture at Exeter University. It is the third year I have been asked to do it and it is always an amazing experience to share points of view with a bunch of enthusiastic students keen on changing the way the world is set up.

After the workshop, a student approached me and asked about how did I discover my vocation, my passion, how I knew what I really, really wanted to do with my life.

The question really left me in shock, as I have never thought I had it clear at all. He told me that I looked like a person that has her goals very clear, her mind set, and her objectives in mind. That left me even more shocked.