To be carved... or not to be carved?

Great harvest collection. Maybe a few faces carved in there....lol.

Thanks! We will carve them soon.

' Not to be carved ' - sorry but I can't stand them after they've been messed up. I think they look daft. Better as they are .

lovely collection of all different shapes and sizes

I think they look great as they are 2 Hywel :) & if not cavered they go with Autumn &not just Hallowen so u can display them Longer which looks great from here Tasteyg:)

they're beautiful. If you do carve any, will you use them in a dish, or like me not know how to cook them?

Love them as they are Tastyg and they have their own settee! :o)

They Look Great as they are Tasteyg..

We do love to carve them up! Sorry Hywel...look away. We use those stencils that you tape to the pumpkin. Have any of you used them before? You poke small hole to mark off design then you remove the stencil and carefully cut out the pieces. They come out pretty nice. I have these adorable masks that I printed out last year, one is of a scary cat and the other is an owl. I tied the masks to my carved pumpkins and then the masks glow. Jeff will carve some up for the contest at work.
Jacque- True, they do last longer. We will have our fancy gourds that last quite a while.
Lovetrees- They usually rot on us before we make can make bread or soup.
Janey- My Tata made that settee for me. I love it dearly.
YDD- They do look great as they are..but we're going to carve some up for Halloween fun!
I'm wondering if I should not post pictures of the carved ones...? Sounds like some people might not enjoy those photos. We'll see.

OOOOooooooo do show the Cravings Tasteyg :) PLEZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz :D i know theyl look great2:)

Your Tata???? Lovely settee, I could do with a Tata! :o)

You can show photos of them after you've ruined them if you like. lol
but I won't say I like them.

Janey- Tata is grandfather in Italian.
Thanks Hywel, lol. Now you've got me thinking...How to impress Hywel with my pumpkin carving abilities???? I guess it's true what they say...that you can't please 'em all. :)

They do look Great as they are Tasteyg, But as there for Haloween they will Still look great with faces carved out and lit up, I just thought That was a Fab pic with the different shapes and Texture's, So either way they still Look Great hahah You know what i mean :)))

No worries YDD, I know what you mean :)

I'm confused Tastyeg, you say that tata means grandfather in Italian - what part of Italy? Nonno is the usual word for grandfather and tata is a nanny, as in childminder

Terry- It's funny that you ask that... I was just talking with my Tata on the telephone last night. I was asking him how to spell Cascia Bang, this is what you call the bench that he made for me above. My Nonna (grandma) was on the line as well and she was saying that Cascia Bang (in english sounds like Casha Banc) is not a 'real' italian word, that it was dialect or slang from Vallata, Italy. She's says from town to town people have a hard to understanding eachother, because each one has it's own dialect/slang. Interesting about the word Tata: minder of children. Maybe he was in charge of little ones in the old country. I'll have to ask him. Nice conversing w you on the subject :) I just remember something relating to this... A while back I heard the small neighbor boy, who is hispanic, calling his grandfather Tata. I thought that was very different. I thought that I was the only one w a Tata :) Did you say that were from northern Italy?

Yes Tasteyg you are perfectly right about dialects in different parts of Italy - this is because Italy hasn't been a united country for that long and each region used to be an individual and independent state - each with their own customs, traditions and of course language. Italians still find it very hard to adopt a "nationalistic" attitude (except of course for football matches !!). In fact you will find that when you ask an Italian living abroad where he is from - he will most likely specify that he is from Naples, or Tuscany or Rome and seldom say "Italy". One of the main reasons why Italy and its people are so colourful in nature and disposition is that they zealously cling to their traditions - there is also much rivalry between regions as to who makes the best cheese, the best wine, the best anything !!!!

Incidentally your bench is really called a cassapanca in Italian and of course each region modifies the pronunciation a little bit, just like your Neapolitan grandparents. Another thing is that quite a few regions in Italy were invaded way back by the Spanish - hence like you say, the similarity in of a lot dialectical words.

I shall stop now for fear of getting off-topic and boring the pants off everyone!!

PS I live in Rome throughout the year and move to a little place in the Sabine hills during the summer

i dont find this boring at all Terry, its very interesting .

Terry- Thanks you so much for your time and those wonderful bits of information. I will share this conversation with my grandparents and they will love it :-) The reason I wanted to spell cassapanca correctly is that I was trying to look it up on the internet and I couldn't find anything with the spelling that I had. With your help I did find some examples of cassapancas. The ones that I've found so far, are antiques and are very ornate compared to mine. Thanks again. Ciao!
Here are 2 examples of what I found:

http://www.westlandlondon.com/stock/latest/item/9381/summary.htm

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/5585168

This is a great pic Sis. This is in your front room with the chest TaTa made.....................nice lovely :)

I love pumpkins! Growing pumpkins was the motivating factor that started me gardening! LOL! The first seed I ever planted was a pumpkin, and I thought "They grow big, so I should plant them deep!" Needless to say, no pumpkins grew that year. I have learned so much about gardening since then! I have 8 beautiful pumpkins waiting to be carved this Thursday! I hope everyone who carves will put pictures up. Maybe we can have an area of the site dedicated to it (That way those who don't like Jock-O-Lanterns won't have to look)
cheers!

Hi Mom, thanks :)
NIce pumpkin storyTammielee. Can't wait to see your Jack-o-lanterns :)