Searching for Great Pumpkins Is a Family Affair

Less than a week before Halloween, the final push of the pumpkin season is on, and children, families and full-grown adults were taking advantage of the abnormally warm weather yesterday to hunt for the roundest and the plumpest of the pickings.

"It's getting towards the end of the season, so a lot of what we have are deformed--pumpkins with problems-- but there are plenty of good ones left," said Matt D. Bereira, an employee of Pemberton Farms, a Porter Square establishment and the second-largest pumpkin purveyor in the area.

Business has been good over the last week, Bereira said, and if the weather holds, he anticipates high sales this weekend.

In fact, his boss, Mark J. Saidnawey, said he will likely have to put in one last order for pumpkins this season.

"It's all a guessing game," he said. "You don't want to run out, but you also don't want to have any pumpkins left over."

For shoppers yesterday afternoon, the supply-side considerations of the pumpkin industry were a distant concern. More pressing matters included minimum feasible stem length and scary-face-conducive curvature.

"This here is about as short as it can get," Cambridge resident Larry Kotin said, pointing to a pumpkin with a stem slightly more than one inch long.

His son, Jack E. Kotin, added that the surface of the pumpkin was key. "It can't have too many bumps," he said.

The two were shopping for their family pumpkin and considered their outing "quality time" together. "Buying a pumpkin is absolutely a family bonding experience," the elder Kotin said.

Halloween itself won't be as much of a family experience since Jack will be going out with friends, Kotin said.

Shoppers' plans for their pumpkins varied, and as a result they had different ideals in mind.

"I'm using the pumpkin in a ritual involving the underworld this weekend, and I'm going to be carving the pumpkin with wood-carving tools, so it needs to be smooth and fairly small," said Katja T. Esser.

Five-year-old Nicholas R. Williams had slightly non-traditional ideas as well. "I like the shape. It's scary," he said as he pointed to a pumpkin with thick white scars crisscrossing its face.

"There are certainly enough warts," said his mother, Leah R. Williams.

The more traditional buyers planned to carve their pumpkins this weekend in preparation for the holiday. The standard routine involves a fearsome face and excavated and roasted seeds, with the possibility of pumpkin pie, Kotin said.

For some families with small children, though, the combination of sharp knives and wet smooth surfaces was a bit too dangerous.

"We used to carve, but this year we are going with stickers for each of the different parts of the face," said Miriam E. Adams.

The Adams-Edelman family's five pumpkin purchases weighed over 86 pounds and required a red wagon for transportation to the car.

For all of the heavy lifting, though, the purchases came with no assurances that they would last the next six days until they go out with the trash.

"I already had one pumpkin this season, but it got stolen," Kotin said. His was not the only pumpkin snatched in his Cambridge neighborhood, he said, constituting a full-blown crime wave.

"It must have been students at one of those other universities or colleges," Kotin said.