Pumpkin Cream Cheese Quickbread

I have a habit of not only doing things that no one else does, but also of doing the things that other people do in a crazy order, as though I took all the normal steps of life, jumbled them up and then picked one.

I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 14, then lived at home when I was 22.

I met and lived with a much older man, then I fell in love with the (also 24) Country Boy.

I moved to France, then I learned French.

In a way, my boarding school and college experiences seem to fit very well here, considering the fact that, at 15, I lived in a dorm on a campus and ate at a cafeteria, in old brick buildings that resemble so many New England college campuses, and then at 18, when most people I knew were getting their first taste of the quad and the bike stealing and the meals cobbled together from the salad bar, I was living in Toronto with my own kitchen, balancing my first university classes with my first recipes.

Sometimes I wonder if I missed out on something. My dream school, Columbia, was in the neighborhood I frequented in my New York stint last year, and I used to grab a to-go cup of coffee and wander around the grounds, still young enough to look like a student, and so I wondered what it would be like to be a student there, if everything had gone according to plan, if I had gotten everything I had wanted.

I love my experiences. They’ve led me to here, and I have no regrets. But if I had one thing to do again, it might be the typical college experience, if only for a year or two. Frat parties, college dorm life, hiding booze from RAs… they’re simple things and very trite, but some part of me wonders if I missed out on something.

Here in Paris, university, like it is in most of Europe, is still what it was created: a place of higher learning. People party on the weekends with friends, far away from the buildings where they spend their time learning and taking notes. There is no campus, no football team, no rival across town to play pranks on. The one exception to this rule is a place not too far from where I live, in the 15th: Cité Universitaire.

Cité Universitaire looks like a New England college campus, with its paths and old buildings and large, glass-paned windows. In reality, it provides cheap university housing for international students, as well as being home to one of several offices that we international students need to stop by with photocopies of our lives and passport photos every so often. I like to wander around and examine little details that make it foreign, reasons why this isn’t the New England college campus I never had, though it’s a very good replica, the Disney World version of Harvard.

In keeping with the theme of doing things out of order–and the theme of back-to-school–I offer you this quick bread recipe that’s been hanging out on my hard drive for a few weeks, an invention of my own with pumpkin and sweet potato and sweet, cream cheese filling. It screams autumn, but it’s just as delicious now, as long as you don’t mind doing things a bit out of order.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

1/2 cup pumpkin purée + 1/2 cup sweet potato purée (you can use all pumpkin or all sweet potato, if you like)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. four spice powder (cinnamon, ginger, cloves and black pepper)
1 pinch nutmeg

6 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin and oil well. Add the sugar and eggs, and mix well to combine. Without mixing, add the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Carefully fold the dry ingredients into the wet, and pour into the prepared loaf pan.

In another bowl, combine the cream cheese, sugar and egg until blended. Pour in a straight line down the center of the cake. Cover with foil.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool fully before slicing.