Pumpkin Cream Cheese!

Must everything in this season be pumpkin-related? Though I wasn't particularly hungry when I pulled into the Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee yesterday morning, the sight of a bagel with pumpkin cream cheese snapped me to attention.  "Better give it a try," I thought, ordering the spread on a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel.  And it was Really Good: nice and creamy like a pumpkin pie pressed between two bagel slices.  I wonder if it would be better or worse given a different bagel type...

Harpoon Pumpkin Cider

I love pumpkin flavors and I love cider. So, put together we should get an exponential growth in the deliciousness factor, right?

Nope! After my first sip of Harpoon Pumpkin Cider, my smile turned to a grimace. Letting out an audible groan, my wife asked, "So, did you like it?" "It's awful," I said, passing it to her as if she would be thankful of the favor following my ringing endorsement. For the first time in my life, I foisted a cider onto another.

Frankly, and it pains me to say this, the beer is so cloyingly sweet that I have a hard time not gagging. When I tried it later I focused on the pumpkin versus cider flavors. When separating these out, the beer becomes an interesting exercise in flavor profiling. In that regard it actually tastes better drunk slowly and thoughtfully. But, please, don't try to pound this Meh concoction for fear of swearing off pumpkin forever.

Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin

For my mom's birthday, my wife, the original pumpkin beer lover, picked up a six-pack of Blue Moon's pumpkin offering.  As a relatively wussy beer drinker, I found this entry to be a bit too rich for my blood with a pretty bitter aftertaste.  The bigger problem: only a slight hint of pumpkin.  Why are so many beers claiming pumpkin taste then burying the lead with other bold flavors? If I wanted Mega-Hoppy Dark beer, that's what I'd be buying.  I left this one on the table for a while and, when I returned to sip my warm beer, I found that some of the intensity had vanished and the overall taste markedly improved.  So, an overall OK experience.

IHOP in Northborough, MA

I love breakfast food so very very much.  I also love lots of food for low prices.  If you could somehow combine these two loves, I'd be looking at one hour of bliss.  

As part of my day off, my son and I decided to start at the newly opened IHOP in Northborough, MA.  Our current closest IHOP is a bit older and run down with an open kitchen taking up most of the space.  Thus when I can convince my wife to join me for a Sunday breakfast there (or a breakfast for dinner) the place is completely crowded.  Fine when its just us, disaster with two small children.  So given an early morning on a Monday in a new location, I figured that there would be no way we'd have to wait for a table.

Rob's Day Off

Because Owen had a dentist's appointment in the middle of the day and work's too busy bastardizing my work to care if I'm there, I took the day off with my oldest son.  But, before the fun could begin, there was work to be done!