Tinges of Autumn

And aren’t they grand! Who knew (or remembered) that cool morning air could feel so good.

Our weekend commenced with a Friday morning trip to the downtown farmers’ market. Such color! Such hubbub! We contented ourselves with a few spectacular tomatoes, two long and massive leeks, a huge clump of kale, and a cardboard tray of oversized zucchini and summer squash.

One teenaged kid was unloading ears of corn from the back of a pickup truck by the armload onto his table.

“Think you’re going to sell all that?” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied blasély, and went back to work.

I asked the guy with the zucchini if he’d do a three-for-ten deal. “No. I work too hard,” he replied.

We had a few friends over for a late afternoon meal on the deck consisting of kale salad and a simplified version of cassoulet in which the duck and sausage are replaced by a few slices of bacon to go along with the chicken, cannellini beans, squash, and leeks.

Almost by chance, we kept to the southern French theme with the wines: a Saint-Véran, a Vacqueyras, and an obscure white from the Costiéres-de-Nîme.  

The air was cool, the dappled evening light was beautiful coming in through the trees, and the chipmunks were plunking. One red-eyed vireo passed by and lingered to examine the white berries on the dogwood shrubs along the deck. For a moment we thought it might be a warbler heading south!

The next morning, hardly fazed by the food and wine, we loaded our bikes on the car and drove up to Elm Creek Regional Park, which has the finest bike trails in the metro area—at least for the kind of recreational biking we do. It’s a nice mix of hills and flats, woods and fields, marshes and lakes, with relatively few cyclists and nary a dwelling in sight along its 20-mile length.

Another thing I like about it: there are so many twists and turns and so few recognizable landmarks that you seldom know quite where you are or how far you still have to go.

Catbirds meowed and squawked from the woods, peewees pined, goldfinches chuckled. We passed fields of goldenrod and black-eyed Susans. The sumac is not quite turning red, but a few plums are ripening on the trees.

Back home, Hilary diced a few of our market tomatoes and raided the garden for a handful of basil to put together a topping for bruschetta. She added some drizzled olive oil, salt, a minced clove of garlic, or two; that’s all it takes.

The tomatoes were moist and red and absolutely flavorless. The vine-on tomatoes at Trader Joe’s are far better. But the ensemble tasted good heaped onto pieces of toast. The mild afternoon heat was already on the wane.

 And one of our resident owls started to hoot again. Everyone likes it cool.