Same same... but different. (Pumpkin edition)

So, last year in China, I really wanted pumpkin.  Pumpkin anything.  Pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes.

The difficulty was that (as far as I could find) Changchun is not exactly full of cans of pumpkin waiting to be used.  Solution: I bought a small pumpkin, hacked it open with one of my multiple cleaver style knives, baked it like crazy and smashed it up into glorious pumpkin puree.

This was a fairly easy and relatively painless process (i.e. I did not drop the pumpkin on my toe or put my hand in the way of the large knife.)  So this year, I said, "Hey!  Let's get a pumpkin!  I want to make pumpkin things."

We got a pumpkin.

It sat on the counter for... um... three weeks?  Something like that.

Please understand, this is not because I lost interest in turning it into pumpkin puree.  I had just underestimated the importance of the tool that I used last year.  Somehow, the paring knife just... wasn't cutting it.  I tried stabbing it and the knife sort of wobbled but barely even left a mark on the rind.

Seriously.  This pumpkin was like a rock.  An orange, pumpkin shaped rock.

Today I decided that the time had come because I really wanted to cross "pumpkin" off my to-do list.  So I pulled out my sturdy pocket knife, thinking that surely its thicker blade, which locks into place, would be undaunted by this tough pumpkin.

Wrong.

Granted, the knife looked less like it was planning to crumple, but I also just couldn't get it into the pumpkin.  Sort of like all the knights other than Arthur in reverse -- only with a pumpkin and pocket knife rather than a sword and a stone.  At least both sets are alliterative!

So I muddled about the apartment for a while, thinking stabby thing, stabby thing, stabby thing... hmm!  Screwdriver!

I'm very pleased to report that the screwdriver worked like a charm as I punched it into the pumpkin.

The less pleasurable part of that report is that it took a set of pliers (I'm not joking) to get the screwdriver back out of the pumpkin, although that may be because my screwdriver is the interchangeable sort, and the pumpkin was much more dedicated to holding onto the head than the body of the screwdriver was.

Anyway, having been properly punctured for ventilation, the pumpkin is now in the oven, hopefully roasting.