G’day! The last time I wrote to you was in the midst of our Australian winter, as the wind tippity-tapped tree-branch morse code on the windows and I tried to summon spring with the might of several tins of summer tomatoes and some inspiration from the Feast recipe archives.

Well, allegedly, our spring has sprung, though you wouldn’t be able to tell, seeing as one of the challenges – or joys – of living in Melbourne is that this city’s concept of “seasons” is a little more fluid than most. Blustery winds have kept the trees dancing, wreaking havoc on the darling buds of May – sorry, October – and sending enthusiastically woven “cobwebs” and other Halloween paraphernalia flying.

But I can guess which vegetable is going to be on your supermarket shelf, no matter which side of the international date line you are on: pumpkin! This is the time of year when European eaters are reaching for pumpkins to make soups and curries, while many across the Atlantic are mostly just carving them up. So, how to find more things to do with pumpkin than souping or sculpting? It helps to remember that pumpkin is also known as winter squash – and what’s summer squash? Courgettes or, as I say, zucchini. So anything courgettes were doing in the warmer days, pumpkins and butternut squash can do once the trees start dancing.

Georgina Hayden’s sun-drenched roast courgettes with preserved lemon (pictured below) could be swapped with roast chunks of pumpkin, treated in pretty much the same way and timed for closer to 30 to 40 minutes in the oven. Similarly, Tom Hunt’s summer squash scarpaccia, a crunchy, gluten-free option for pizza lovers that harnesses the power of polenta, can be pumped up with thinly sliced pumpkin instead.

Also works with pumpkin … Georgina Hayden’s roast courgettes with feta and preserved lemon. Photograph: Emma Guscott Photography/The Guardian

The moisture and sweetness in these seasonal squashes is what makes them such a fabulous addition to fritters and loaves. Between you and me, my pumpkin and chickpea fritters (pictured top) are a total riff on my chickpea and zucchini free-for-all fritters. And just imagine Yotam Ottolenghi’s courgette and tomato loaf made with grated pumpkin and jarred peppers instead. Delish!

I even love slipping pumpkin – and courgettes, for that matter – into sweet bakes. Thomasina Miers’s courgette, pistachio and lemon syrup cake, for instance, could easily be made with grated pumpkin instead. I find grating pumpkin on a box grater better for baking, because it breaks up more of the pumpkin’s cell structure and helps access more of its naturally sweet juiciness. You’ll have similar success with Ravneet Gill’s mini courgette and olive oil cakes, and they may even be a lovely alternative to offer trick or treaters … if you’re feeling generous enough to share, that is.

If you’ve always found pumpkin a little on the mushy side, treat it like a standing rib roast and leave it in a cool, dry place for a month or so to cure, dry out and intensify in sweetness; just remember to give it the odd turn every now and then, a tip I learned from Aussie chef Simon Bryant, one half of legendary The Cook & The Chef.

My week in food

Boo! Helen Goh’s forest floor cake. Photograph: Dan Jones/The Guardian

Dinner turns into lunch** | **I’ve just come home from Victoria’s Good Food Guide awards, which celebrate the state’s many fine restaurants and showcase some of the city’s best casual diners with little stalls out the front. Lulu’s Char Koay Teow was on the woks, tossing succulent flat rice noodles with salted egg yolk and crunchy pork crackling, topped with skewers of Aurum Poultry Co cockerel. This Malaysian hawker-style hole-in-the-wall is one of our family favourites on Melbourne’s Hardware Lane, so I couldn’t resist asking if they’d sneak me a bowl’s worth for my daughter’s school lunchbox the next day. Hopefully, that made up for missing her bedtime.

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***What I read *****| **I had the pleasure of catching up with London-based food writer and psychologist Helen Goh while she was in Australia, digging into crispy rice with pandan oil and mango makrut sorbet at Ace Hotel Sydney’s rooftop restaurant Kiln, and sharing the stage to discuss her new book Baking & the Meaning of Life. With such a lofty title, you’d expect not just profiteroles but profundity. Helen manages to explain what it takes to live a meaningful life with the same brevity and precision that we’ve come to expect from her recipes (such as her delicious-sounding Halloween forest floor cake, pictured above).

Bricking it** | **As I go into the final stretch on my next cookbook manuscript, I’ve had a productivity breakthrough that’s revolutionising my meal times: a Brick! It’s a physical device that you scan to switch off whatever parts of your phone you’d like to limit access to. Then you put it out of reach, forcing you to consider whether you really need to scroll right now. I’ve gained hours back and even find myself enjoying meal times. I’m probably nicer to be around, too.

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