Fall Feasting

Since New York's famed fall foliage hasn't busted loose yet, I decided to bring the seasonal colors myself. Red and yellow--the best hues for leaves, condiments, and outfits.

Also good colors for fresh farmer's market fruit.

In celebration of my improved health and all the great ingredients coming into season, I whipped up a fancy feast for our Sunday dinner. On the menu: Butternut squash and parmigiano ravioli in browned butter, garlic, and sage--

Focaccia bread with scallions, rosemary, and sea salt--
And a sweet pepper and cauliflower salad--
Dressing ingredients--

(Recipes from Tanis's "The Heart of the Artichoke.")

Morningside Weekend

Autumn is slowly creeping around the edges of things. The trees are still mostly green, but there are tinges of gold and red, and the breeze is brisk. This weekend we knocked around our little neighborhood after I taught my Saturday high school creative writing class, so I'm wearing my most pseudo-professorial attire. Riverside Park, where we spent most of the afternoon, is long and thin (rather like Manhattan), and is made up of many different levels and staircases as it gradates down to the Hudson.

Aside from Riverside Park, another of the jewels of Morningside Heights is the Hungarian Pastry Shop, right across the street from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I tried their strawberries and cream spongecake. It was fresh, light, and moist.

Our pastry-eating companion, one of the peacocks that lives on the grounds.

Quick State of the Cold update -- The real sign that I'm not sick anymore: Not only did I go grocery shopping, but I've started cooking again!
This weekend I made a menu from "The Heart of the Artichoke" by David Tanis, one of my favorite cookbook authors. On the plate: Peppery Oven-fried Chicken, Scalloped Corn (I made it with Greek yogurt and milk rather than half and half, and it was awesome), and Spicy Cabbage Slaw (which is simply purple cabbage, red onions, salt, pepper, lime juice, and jalapeño). Everything was really yummy. I'm cured!

Central Park in September

Late summer picnic in Central Park. Orange cherry tomatoes, peanut butter and apricot jam on seven grain bread, jalapeño jack on pumpernickel, tortilla chips, a striped miniature watermelon. Air like swimming through warm water--steamy grass and damp bark and living leaves, sunlight hot but diffused.The colors are combinations of purples and yellows, a bit of white, a lot of green. Squirrels, butterflies, spiders, bees, caterpillars, pigeons, ducks. Small hints of fall around the edges of things, a pink and ripening crab apple tree, berries in various stages of red and plum and black, tiny still-green acorns.