Let’s take a breather, shall we? I sat down to start typing and there are a million thoughts, and I couldn’t seem to find the focus to pick one. This is how my entire life feels right now.

This is when I start baking.

Even though I was only in Budapest for five days, I have about a thousand more things to say about it. I’m also going on another class trip this weekend, this time to Auschwitz. While the jet-setting life is one of the amazing perks of the program, it’s also crazy-inducing because unlike a semester abroad where everyone expects you to half-ass the academics because you’re busy exploring, this is graduate school. Back here on campus there are still papers and presentations and holy crap this month is terrifying.

And so it was time to breathe and stir. It was also time to bring a little bit of familiarity to this fall. The only thing missing from Paris in the fall? (And truly there is only one thing. I can’t even complain about my usual nemesis, the cold; when that chill is accompanied by fabulous coats and scarves and the fact that trees in Paris seem to have been made for the fall, you get over it.) The only thing missing for me is was pumpkin.

I forked over a little bit of money for canned pumpkin from The Real McCoy — a store that imports American products where they sell for about 4 or 5 times what they cost in the States. It’s a convenient resource, but you can only use it in desperate times. Or you know, the closest approximation to “desperate times” one can have where shelling out 10 Euro for “pumpkin pie spice” seems valid. #firstworldproblems #expatproblems

When I found this recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies I decided that I had reached “desperate times.”

This recipe gets ridiculous points for including the oven temperature conversion. My toaster oven and I thank you, friend.

Speaking of the toaster oven, it has made it a lot easier to play around with recipes, since I can’t bake more than 9 small cookies at a time, I can make adjustments. While there are some comments on the recipe about people removing sugar to make them healthier, I have chocolate shops all around me so it’s hard to convince me that less sugar is ever a good thing. That said, I ended up actually adding brown sugar and I have to say it was an awesome addition.

I also did not have any chopped walnuts, as the recipe suggests. (Yes, the French have those, I just forgot to buy them.) We’re already into November so I’m not sure if I’ll try this again this season (although they were delicious!) but if I do, I’ll have to make sure I give the walnuts a go.

Here is the recipe, with my adjustments:

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 cup white sugar
• ¼ cup brown sugar (this is a rough estimate of what I added — I didn’t measure.)
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• ½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. I didn’t add the brown sugar until the end, as I mentioned, though this is obviously where you should add it if you’re going to go that route (it was delicious, I promise.)

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

Add vanilla, chocolate chips, and walnuts if you’re using them.

Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

And then, of course, you eat.

As an added bonus, I had leftover pumpkin. Thanks to this recipe I get a few days of homemade pumpkin spice lattes. When I say “an added bonus” what I really mean is: “The unplanned best part of this entire delicious phenomenon.”

I don’t have an espresso machine, a blender, or the patience for measuring, so I did a bit of a variation on that, but the same basic premise. Put two cups of milk, two tablespoons of pumpkin, and two tablespoons of sugar in a sauce pan and cook on medium heat until steaming, stirring the whole time.

Take off heat and add one tablespoon of vanilla extract (the recipe calls for two, but I felt that it was overpowering) and one teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, and then whisk together really ridiculously well (the recipe suggests that you employ a blender here.) I filled my mugs about half-way with that mixture and then added the coffee on top.

Enjoy with delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

p.s. Klout recently informed me that I have new topics. It seems I am now influential in pumpkin. #success