Thanks for Bringing The Paleo-Vegan-Grain-Free Pumpkin Spice Loaf to my Party!
Dear LeeAnn,
I wanted to thank you for coming to my party and also for the pumpkin spice loaf you brought to share with our friends! You were so thoughtful to make sure it was vegan so it would off-set the animal cruelty that almost definitely accompanied Tracy’s bacon wrapped scallops.
You know that with my degree in Anthropology, I’m a sucker for anything Paleo. It’s funny — from my 300 level class on the Paleolithic era, I remember that it was a period marked by the use of simple stone tools. And yet from your photos, I’m pretty sure you were using a Kitchenaid mixer and a Cuisinart chef’s knife, but whatev.
Speaking of Instagram, everyone else showed up at 5:30, which was the time I put on my ‘Fall Fun’ Evite. You didn’t, so I got worried and checked my phone. You started posting photos of yourself baking this loaf around 4pm. At first I was confused, but then I saw you putting it in the oven at two hundred degrees for two hours and I understood why you were late. A 2019 friend would have texted, but a caveman would just get there when he gets there.
Anyway, it was great when you finally showed up at 7pm with your hard little loaf delicately swaddled in saran wrap. We were a few cocktails deep and Tim was about to launch into his rant about how expensive it is to neuter dogs when you stepped in and interrupted to remind us of the evils of gluten.
We all know Cindy’s pumpernickel-cucumber sandwiches were just swimming in gluten. I can just imagine the judgement I would face were I to eat one of those sandwiches in front of a hairy dark cave man, squatting in his loincloth, banging a rock on a mammoth leg as he waited nearly two hours for his pumpkin loaf to bake in the oven.
At least you seemed happy when we stepped out onto the deck and I lit a small fire in my chiminea using ripped up credit card offers and chopsticks from all of the Chinese takeout I get during the week. Hopefully you and my imaginary caveman friend also approved of the mesh sack of firewood scraps I picked up for $14.99 at Whole Foods this week.
It felt authentic when everyone was coughing from the thick heavy smoke.
Anyway, it was thoughtful to leave your leftover pumpkin loaf with us when it you went home. I envy your refined manners — when I go to a party, I bring something I like to eat just in case there isn’t any other good food there. Then I go to town on it. At the end of the night, I am full, and it looks like what I brought was popular because my dish is empty.
Not you though. When you arrived, your paleo-pumpkin log was cut into 16 hard dry pieces. And at the end of the night, there were still 16 hard dry pieces left!
Luckily, Tracy drank too much and forgot to take her Tupperware container with her, so I slipped your bread right into it. So what if the container had traces of bacon in it — cavemen didn’t have dishwashers!
The next day, I took the container to work to share. I made sure put a sticky note saying it was grain-free, paleo, and vegan on it. I thought it would be a big hit. But that afternoon, corporate was sponsoring a Soup-and-Spa day, so when I stopped back in the break room on my way home, there were still 16 pieces of pumpkin bread.
Sixteen pieces of paleo pumpkin bread weigh quite a lot. I read an article about how real grown-ups don’t carry backpacks, so I carried it to and from work in this weird leather shoulder bag and it really messed up my left shoulder. But have a hot chiropractor, so it was a good chance for me to ogle him and also to pay him $85 to push on two spots on my back and make me cry like a baby, so thank you again for that!
I offered him some Paleo Pumpkin bread, but he said he was doing a month long fast so he declined.
The next weekend, I drove up to visit my parents and brought your bread to share with them. Even though it was a week old, it looked exactly the same as it did when you brought it!. My mom fried it up with some butter and brown sugar for breakfast.
I was grateful to you yet again, because I got to engage my dad, a history professor, in a long discussion about whether pumpkin bread could truly be considered a Paleo food.
Pumpkins, he pointed out, were grown in the Americas, and not until long after the cavemen had given way to our more refined ancestors.
Maybe it’s not what you talk about with your dad at breakfast, but it’s better than talking about the odds of Trump winning a second term in office!
Still though, there were 16 pieces of bread on the plate. I tossed them into the yard, hoping the hens might find happiness in them.
It turns out the chickens are Paleo too, because with all the butter and brown sugar, they didn’t even take one peck.
Winter came and went, and in the spring, when I visited my parents again, I noticed there were sixteen brown spots scattered around the yard. Blades of grass popped up every except for those sixteen rectangular spots.
It makes sense, because grass is a grain. And we all know how terrible grains are.
Anyway, thank you again for ‘Spicing’ up my party! I hope you can make it to my Spring Fling next month!
Sincerely,
Emily
