Maple Nut-Apple Scones

As if it weren’t already painfully obvious: we have officially arrived at the “Seeeee, I told you fall was my favorite season” portion of the program. I know it’s been a full-on assault around here of apples, pumpkin, squash, potatoes and braises. But I simply can’t help myself. And today is no different: apples (again!), maple and toasty nuts. Yup, breakfast doesn’t get much more fall than these scones.

Fall, as a season, feels to me a little like lightning in a bottle. As the steamy summer winds down and the dog days have me at my wit’s end, I find myself trying to hurry fall along. But all too soon, it’s the end of October and I am holding on white-knuckled to the last days of this fleeting season. When it boils down to it, you really only get a few flawless fall days: sunshiney skies, warm golden light, tree limbs feathered with leaves that were once green and will soon be gone altogether, the scarf wrapped around your neck fluttering in the breeze.

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Headlong into Potato Season

Like it or not, we are plunging headlong into potato season. Even though potato season involves unmentionables like pasty skin, runny noses and bone-chilling winds, I still find myself in the “like it” category when it comes to tubers. I love all shapes and sizes (really, no two are exactly alike, no?), all colors and all preparations I’ve tried to date: mashed (especially my step-dad’s famous recipe, but since that’s also a secret recipe (no doubt because I’d balk at the amount of butter thrown into the mix) these will do in a pinch), baked (wrapped in crinkled foil and shut away in the oven for a good, long time), roasted (with just a slick of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and, if I’m feeling crazy, a sprig or two of rosemary), fried (duh), even boiled.

For all that, though, I’d never tried salt roasting. It’s a technique that I’ve wondered at for some time. It seemed novel and somehow scientific and it was on my to-do list. After hand picking 20 or so fingerlings from the market a couple weeks ago, I decided to give it a try.

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Trick-or-Treat

Until recently, the most Halloweenish things to happen to me this fall had been (1) a Sunday afternoon with a pumpkin that ended in gobs of roasty orange puree and quite a few baked goods and (2) an unfortunate walk home from the market after dark involving a jet black cat prancing across the sidewalk directly in front of us. Beyond that, I couldn’t get all that into the spirit. We had no costumes, no parties and, in our fourth floor condo, we’d surely have no trick-or-treaters.

But, then I got an e-mail from a few food blogging friends. They were planning a mini-Halloween event and wanted to know if I wanted in. Ever since, I’ve been dreaming up the perfect Halloween treat to bake (in the end, I settled on these iced pumpkin-walnut cookies, drizzled with cream cheese icing) and the Halloween spirit has taken hold.

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Do You Like My New Outfit?

Good morning!  I’ve got a “real” post lined up for you, but it won’t arrive until tonight.  In the meantime, though, I wanted to ask: do you like my new outfit?  After almost a year, I have undergone my first mini-blog makeover.  It’s simpler, brighter and more me.  I’ve got some more changes in the works and I really hope you’ll like those too.

Speaking of new and different, tonight’s post is my first-ever participation in a multi-blog event.  Stay tuned!  So, have a good day and I’ll see you back here in a few hours, okay?

Caramel-Glazed Apple Cake

Over the past several months, Sundays have come to mean one thing: our little neighborhood farmers’ market. Well, actually, Sunday also means a couple grocery stores, yogurt parfaits, baking extravaganzas and, more recently, Mad Men. And, sadly, this Sunday two of these things—the market and Mad Men—are coming to a close for the season. Whereas Mad Men has been building toward this final act for weeks now and will likely exit in highly dramatic fashion, the farmers’ market has just kind of petered out.

It’s funny, really, how the farmers’ market season unfolds. It debuts in the spring, when the patrons are desperate, but the crops are meager. I am practically moved to tears when the first verdant spears of asparagus appear. And by the time my misty eyes clear, strawberries, ramps, rhubarb and green garlic swoop in to really set my heart rate racing. Then, as if overnight, summer’s bounty sneaks up and we’re swimming in a rising tide of juicy tomatoes and fuzzy peaches and sweet corn. It’s difficult to remember, in the glut of July and August, that such delicacies won’t last forever.

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