Schools are back in session. The nests have emptied. I have seen a hint of bronze edging along the green in the dogwood leaves. The autumn clematis has swept over the mailbox in a wave of white blossoms. It is still summer, technically, until Tuesday, at 8:05 PM, EDT, but I think we can embrace the notion that fall might be around the corner. It’s cooler in the mornings. The zinnias have given up. Certainly if the towers of Christmas decorations stacked at Costco are any indication of the relentless advance of shameless commerce, then happy 2027 to you!
I bought a new wool sweater last week, but it is hanging unworn in my closet, forlorn, because I haven’t turned off the A/C yet. It’s cool in the morning, and hot in the afternoon – the autumnal equinox conundrum. I am hoping that I can persuade Mr. Sanders to continue at his post as grill master on the back porch for another few weeks. Not that we will be consuming hamburger anytime soon, but he does flip a delicious pork chop. It will help us usher in fall if we have pork chops, cole slaw and apple sauce for dinner. I’ll slice and dice the cabbage, and add a pinch of atmospheric cinnamon to some jarred applesauce: it will be a good home cooked meal that June Cleaver could have served.
Apples and cider are homely aromas and textures from childhood. “Comfort me with apples,” says the Song of Solomon. They are the stuff of long-buried childhood lunchroom memories. Sometime I can bite into a sweet, ripe apple, and the crunch and the smell bring me back to sitting at a lunch table in the Belltown School basement gymnasium, where we had lunches, book fairs, glee club practice, and is where we learned how to square dance with boys with sweaty palms. Proust’s nibbled madeleines are not half as evocative as gnawing on a honey crisp apple.
In case it rains this weekend and you can’t cook outside, here is an evocative pork sausage recipe. You might have to sign up for a free New York Times trial subscription to read it:
Sausages with Apples and Onions
Or you can try this: Grilled Sausages with Caramelized Onions and Apples
Or this: Seared Sausage with Cabbage and Pink Lady Apples
Or this: One Bowl, One Pan Sausage-Apple Cabbage Dinner
I love a recipe I can prepare with food items already tucked away in the kitchen. The less time I spend at the grocery store is good: there are books to read, and paintings to paint and falling autumnal leaves to await. I can’t wait for the weather to cool down. There is that new sweater, after all. And any day now the spring bulbs will be delivered – daffodils, tulips and grape hyacinths.
Food-wise we are ready to make the seasonal transition. We usually keep sausages in the freezer, we have a mountain of apples in the fruit bowl, and there are always onions. I’ll have to rummage further in the freezer for a baguette, and I am hopeful that there will be a potable bottle of red wine in the rack in the pantry – because why else do we belong to Costco? Yes, we enjoy having a lifetime supply of paper towels, but always having an inexpensive bottle of red wine on hand for when the weather turns cold? That is luxury indeed.
“It is the earliest apple, ripening in August. A fruit I think of not only as the herald of the apple season, with its Michaelmas Reds and Blenheim Oranges, its Cornish Honeypins and Ribston Pippins, but as the beginning of everything.”
― Nigel Slater
