When Joel Holland started growing pumpkins, it was meant to be just a fun activity with his children. Thirty-five years later, Joel holds the record for the heaviest pumpkin ever grown in North America, at 2,363 pounds.

Holland came to New York City from his home in Sumner, Wash. last weekend, along with other giant pumpkin growers, to showcase his pumpkin at the New York Botanical Garden.

The botanical garden’s annual Giant Pumpkin Weekend featured giant pumpkins, squash and gourds from around the world last Saturday and Sunday.

On display was Holland’s pumpkin. It is heaviest in the world this year, and the heaviest pumpkin ever grown in North America, said Gayle Snible, the botanical garden’s public relations director. The event also featured the longest gourd grown in the United States, at 143.75 inches and the heaviest squash in the world, weighing 2,118 pounds.

Holland, a retired firefighter, grew his record-breaking pumpkin at his home in Washington. A former long distance runner and National Senior Games swimmer, he said, “It’s about doing your best to be the best at whatever sport you do.”

Holland’s fellow growers describe him as a “legend.” “He won’t say that – he’s too humble. But he’s a legend,” said Ken Desrosiers, a software engineer and giant-pumpkin grower from East Windsor, Conn.

Desrosiers said he came to New York for the weekend to support his friends in the giant pumpkin growing community. “We’ve all gotten to know each other since we first started doing this,” he said.

The growers harvested seeds from their pumpkins at the Giant Pumpkin Weekend in a live display for visitors. Desrosiers said the type of seed is what allows the pumpkins to grow so large. “We pick specific seeds and pollinate the plants by hand,” he said.

The growers will use some of the seeds to grow their pumpkins in future years. They will give the rest to pumpkin-growing clubs, which auction off the seeds for funding, said Stuart Paton, a grower from Southampton, England.

Paton said the seeds are worth around $50 when they first come out of the pumpkin. He said their value could skyrocket, though, if they are proven to grow world record-size pumpkins. Referring to Holland’s pumpkin, he said, “Next year, the seeds could be worth $600-700 each.”

Paton and his brother were awarded “Grower of the Year” this year by the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth for growing the three heaviest pumpkins by combined weight. Their heaviest pumpkin, at 2,269 pounds, is the second largest in the world and was on display at the botanical garden.

Paton, a professional florist, said he helps visitors to his greenhouse in Southampton grow their own giant pumpkins. “You just need some soil and seeds, and you can grow a 500-pound pumpkin,” he said. Paton said the pumpkins can grow at a rate of up to 50 pounds per day. Pointing at several children sitting on top of Holland’s pumpkin, he said, “The best thing is seeing the kids take pictures with them.”

TableFest, a new app described by its co-creator as the “Airbnb for food,” seeks to tap into the sharing economy while avoiding regulation that has plagued similar companies.

The app, which launched on Oct. 4, was designed by New York University junior Gyan Kandhari and his brother Amar Kandhari, and allows users to book “dining experiences” at hosts’ homes in New York City.

Kandhari said that his company takes a unique approach to avoid the legal challenges that similar companies have faced. “A lot of startups like EatWith and Feastly are facing red tape regulations due to the fact that theirs is solely a come-and-eat service,” he said. “It’s the experience part that we’re charging for, and in that way we can totally negate the red tape.”

“It’s gonna be not only food, but socializing, and being able to listen to authentic music,” he said.

Kandhari was inspired to create the app because he missed eating home-cooked meals while at college. He said he began working with developers in Pakistan to create the app while studying abroad at NYU Prague last semester, using $20,000 provided by his brother. The app launched on the Apple App Store six months later.

Kandhari said he is now focusing on marketing the app to both customers and hosts. “We’re really trying to source the highest quality hosts we can.”

Patricia Williams, the executive chef at Smoked Jazz and Supper Club on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said she decided to become a host on the app after Kandhari invited her to test it out. “Gyan found me, and I enjoyed our conversation. He’s interested in promoting his app, and I really liked that,” she said.

Williams said she has been running a home-dining business for the past six years and regularly hosts meals for paying customers. “I’m trying to promote this because I want to be able to open up my dinners to more people,” she said.

Carol Ann Ransaw, a private chef and host on the app, said, “It seems like an easy way to connect with people.”

“People like to have parties, but they don’t want to prepare everything. This is the best of both worlds,” Ransaw said.

During his junior year at UC Berkeley, Charles Yan, an underground rapper under the moniker Chow Mane, had to research about his family business history for a class. As one of the only second-generation Asian-Americans in his predominately white class, Yan tried to weasel his way out of the assignment, explaining to his white classmates, who had longer backgrounds in the US, that he did not have a family business history.

But after failing to excuse himself out of the assignment, Yan was surprised to discover more about his family history not only as business owners, but also as refugees.

“My grandparents escaped to the United States because there was a Catholic Church that sponsored them to come,” Yan, 22, said. “My grandparents worked in a restaurant for 10 years, and my grandfather was actually able to start his own Japanese restaurant.”

Yan, fascinated by his findings about his own family history, drove to his local studio to condense his family narrative into one three-minute rap.

Yan’s debut song Mooncakes is contextualized in times when dialogue concerning refugees and immigrants is a prevalent political talking point. But Yan holds onto the personal intention behind the song lost in the political interpretation.

“I kind of try not to look at my music as just talking about the Asian-American experience or the refugee immigrant experience,” Yan said. “So I’m just talking about my own experience.”

Yan started producing and writing music during the MySpace era in middle school over a cheap headset in his “studio”, or his parents’ garage, but wrote “nothing really concrete.” Throughout high school and college, he was constantly experimenting with improvised bars over makeshift beats.

“In my raps that I wrote since high school, I was touching more about generic rap topics,” Yan said. “After I found a little bit more about my background and family history, I started telling stories that are unique to myself.”

While Yan acknowledged how the song may sound politically charged within the current times, Yan was merely writing about the harsh reality behind his family history and his upbringing.

“I mean I’m influenced by the society we live in and what I see every day,” Yan said. “But it wasn’t explicitly political–it’s just about my story and how I feel.”

The first verse of Mooncakes explores Yan’s upbringing and his memories of his grandparents’ restaurant, while the second verse delves into the origin of his grandparents’ arrival to the States. As Yan was writing the song, he was more focused on the personal elements of the story, unaware of the personal overlaps with the political.

“I wanted to capture part of their backstory in a way that’s more sentimental,” Yan said. “I wrote Mooncakes to be nostalgic and to talk about something that means something to me.”

Despite Mooncakes’ release taking place amid the prevalent immigration debate, Yan does not claim to be a political spokesperson for the Asian-American community or the refugee immigrant community.

“I’m here just trying to talk about my own experience based on the Bay Area,” Yan said. “And that is something I knew enough to write music on.”

Painter John Vanderlyn’s dedication of Christopher Columbus landing in the West Indies. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Twenty-six out of 30 fifth graders in Manhattan’s P.S. 3 in the West Village, voted to ban Columbus Day yesterday. The 10 and 11-year-old students agreed that Christopher Columbus no longer deserves to be hailed as an American hero

The students gained their knowledge of the history of Christopher Columbus’s pillage into the “New World” through the progressive curriculum taught at the school. While this classroom chose to present more than just the bare-bones, name, date facts of Columbus’s 1492 sail into modern day America, many classrooms across the country do not do the same.

A recent study found that 33 out of 34 elementary school teachers’ curricula did not present multiple interpretations of Columbus’s voyage or engage in any detail outside of a minimal description of who Christopher Columbus was and why America celebrates him. Elementary school teachers spend less time on average teaching history and social studies than any other subject.

Hannah Sawyer, lead teacher in the fifth grade classroom, said that her own introduction to Christopher Columbus in elementary school was vague and uninformative. She now works to equip her students with a full and comprehensive knowledge of history.

“It is impossible to teach fifth graders to be critical thinkers without giving all the facts,” Sawyer said. “Especially when dealing with a culturally sensitive topic.”

Many young adults recall learning very little about Christopher Columbus’ practices in their elementary classrooms, suggesting that more comprehensive curricula have only recently begun to creep into schools nationwide. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/columbus-day-school-holiday/409984/

New York University student Chanel Seto said that her public elementary school in Rockville, Maryland, not only taught about Columbus in an altogether positive way, but continued to celebrate his actions well into the holiday season.

“My school celebrated him not only for Columbus Day, but for Thanksgiving, too,” Seto said. “The story we heard was that Christopher Columbus discovered America and we are here because of him.”

Saddleback College volleyball player Mandy Sides recalled that her California classroom taught her next to nothing about Columbus.

“It wasn’t until my last few years of high school that I actually found out how he brutally treated the native people already living here and stole their land,” Sides said. “It wasn’t even my high school that taught me. I researched it myself.”

The fifth grade students of P.S. 3 were given the option to develop their own opinions on the celebration of Columbus Day after being taught by Sawyer not only about Columbus’ sail into the New World but about the subsequent enslavement and murder of native peoples that occurred because of his voyage.

“I’m not just going to teach one side of the story,” Sawyer said. “That would be equivalent to teaching them nothing. They need to be informed.”

Following their Christopher Columbus lesson, the fifth graders were encouraged to articulate their stance on the controversial holiday.

“I don’t think we should celebrate Columbus Day anymore,” Ezra Silverberg said. “I know Christopher Columbus wasn’t a good person. He killed a lot of people and it’s just not right to celebrate that.”