An L.A. way to feast on pumpkin

Fall can be a morose season for college students, especially as Halloween draws near. It’s the time of the year when students are reminded once again that they are now grown-ups.

Instead of romping through mounds of leaves and asking for candied apples, they are the ones raking in the leaves and paying for their own sweet treats

Students are also now smack in the middle of the school semester, weighed down by the responsibilities of schoolwork, exams and projects. Worse, come Oct. 31, they can no longer confidently strut from door to door, singing “Trick or treat!” with endearing, gap-toothed smiles. Prancing around dressed as Lady Gaga will no longer attract amused sighs of “awws” but will instead draw disapproving glares from conservative neighbors.

But that doesn’t mean college students should stay at home and wallow in discounted bags of seasonal Kit Kat bars. Besides the crisp and cool weather, fall breezes in with its own share of excitement and fun, such as the celebration of its most popular seasonal produce, pumpkin.

For the stressed out student, a break from studies and a descent into pumpkin cuisine might just be the remedy for fall blues. Find a weekend to leave behind your textbooks and go on a pumpkin-feasting trip.

Carpool with your roommates in the morning to the nearest IHOP and order the seasonal pumpkin pancakes: a stack of four orange, fluffy pancakes topped with a creamy dollop of whipped cream and cinnamon.

This sweet and satisfying breakfast is only $4.99, but if you don’t want to go all the way to a restaurant, you can also easily whip up your own in the kitchen. Mix together a cup of your favorite pancake mix, a half-cup of canned pumpkin purée, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a tablespoon of vegetable oil, a pinch of cinnamon and about a three-quarter cup of milk and cook according to box directions. Serve with Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter, its new pumpkin cream cheese or both.

For lunch, hit up Shojin in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo neighborhood. Although the Halloween menu is not out yet, Shojin is a macrobiotic vegetarian Japanese restaurant that has always celebrated pumpkin in uniquely delicious — and nutritious — ways.

Try the new Shojin roll, which is a sushi roll stuffed with kabocha pumpkin tempura, grilled shitake mushrooms, hijiki seaweed, fried tofu, Japanese mountain yam, cucumber and a Japanese herb called shiso. The sushi uses brown rice for added nutrients and fiber, which also adds a nice chew and earthiness to the roll.

Or dig into the pumpkin croquette, a savory mound of pumpkin mash coated in breadcrumbs before being fried. There is a surprising depth of umami flavor in the croquette, reminiscent of Mom’s chicken broth.

If you’re not feeling up for Japanese, how about Thai? Many Thai restaurants include pumpkin specials in their menu at this time of the year. Bulan Thai Vegetarian Kitchen on Melrose offers an excellent vegetarian dish called busara pumpkin — chunks of kabocha pumpkin sautéed with tofu cubes. The pumpkin is intensely sweet but is gently balanced out with a mildly spicy curry sauce perfumed with fresh basil.

Later, as the temperature climbs up and the mid-afternoon munchies hit, bike down to Jack in the Box and sip on its seasonal pumpkin pie milk shake.

Jamba Juice also offers its seasonal Pumpkin Smash smoothie, but Jack in the Box serves up a pretty decent shake cheaper at about $2.50 for its regular size. Sweet and milky, topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry, the pumpkin flavor is meek but distinctive, with a fragrant undertone of spices.

If you start feeling guilty about the calories in the shake and want something healthy to assuage the guilt, take a trip down to Koreatown for dinner and visit Bon Juk for its pumpkin porridge. The porridge is sweet like a dessert, thick like pudding and luscious and creamy with chewy rice dumpling balls and flecks of adzuki bean. The dish is so rich and satisfying that you’ll almost feel like you’re cheating on your diet.

But perhaps you’d rather continue with your day of indulgence. Take a short metro ride Downtown to Zucca. With a name that means “pumpkin” in Italian, Zucca knows how to cook pumpkin right.

Get the Zucca Pizza, a classic brick-oven pizza topped with roasted butternut squash, tangy goat cheese, onions and ham. The slightly caramelized squash, strange as it might sound on a pizza, actually marries deliciously well with the salty ham and savory onions, while giving an appetizing burst of color.

For something richer, try its signature tortelloni — plump dumplings filled with deep orange squash, served drizzled with sage-infused brown butter, crumbles of crisp amaretti cookie and sharp Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for both crunch and ooze.

Finally, finish off the day with Downtown Urth Caffé’s famous pumpkin pie. It’s almost $7 for a slice, but every penny is worth it. It is hard to find a pumpkin pie that does both the crust and the filling right, but Urth Caffé’s pie is a perfect package.

The crust is thick and crackly like a cookie with a zingy punch of ginger, and the filling comes with just the right amount of spice and sweetness — a perfect sweet ending to a pumpkin-filled day.

You might no longer believe in pumpkins turning into magical chariots, but it takes nothing more than a hardy appetite and a willingness to enjoy the present to let pumpkin whisk you away into a magical, if not delicious, autumn ball.

Sophia Lee is a sophomore majoring in print and digital journalism. Her column, “That’s What She Ate,” runs Mondays.