Country Mouse...Tuesday: wrong seeds?!

This is making me feel a bit like a crazy person, so I'm turning to you for help.

Look at the photo at left. Does the actual physical pumpkin on the vine look anything at all like the one depicted on the front of that seed packet?

I didn't think so.

But just hearing from you that you see what I see -- that one of these things is really nothing like the other -- sure makes me feel a bit better.

All that excitement when I found these seeds, called Red Kuri (Hokkaido) but looking so much like the darling potimarron I fell in love with in France a year ago, all that care and devotion of the little starts set into their garden bed, all that well-water delivered by the irrigation system, and behold: 

I did not get what I wanted. And not remotely what I thought I planted.

I've been biding my time, waiting, hoping against hope that I was not seeing what I was seeing. But now it's incontrovertible.

Red Kuri ain't what I got. 

It's disappointing because I've been dreaming of that potimarron taste since last fall, and also so distressing because it really never occurred to me to consider that the seeds inside the packet might be there by mistake. This opens up whole new potential vistas of worry! ;>

It's also a bummer because I already fight against my own snark when it comes to everything heirloom, everything artisanal, everything bla-bla-bla. 

I want to believe.

I've written to Baker Creek seeds and sent them the photo. I wonder how they'll respond. I know what I'd do if it were me. I'd pick up the phone and say, We're so sorry! We know you had such high hopes for this food lovingly planted (and duly noted) on April 13, 2013! Please accept our apologies and this small token of our appreciation for your continued patronage.

We'll see what happens next.  Hopefully, it'll take less than 5 months from seed to fruit.

For sure I know what's not going to happen next. I'm setting aside my little dreamy dreams of cutting a potimarron in half, scooping out the seeds, throwing on some butter, and setting it in the oven to bake. I'm ditching my desire to cook it in a red curry. I'm making peace with what I got, big unknown pumpkins of questionable culinary usefulness perhaps suitable only as seasonal stoop decoration.

I'm making peace with what I got.  But it might be a while. 

XX