Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; conspiring with him to create 80+ degree weather that resists cooling down…

Vacaville 162

So, it’s October already, and do you know, there’s only two weeks of this month, after the weekend. How. Does. This. Keep. Happening.

October

by Helen Hunt Jackson

Bending above the spicy woods which blaze,
Arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun
Immeasurably far; the waters run
Too slow, so freighted are the river-ways
With gold of elms and birches from the maze
Of forests. Chestnuts, clicking one by one,
Escape from satin burs; her fringes done,
The gentian spreads them out in sunny days,
And, like late revelers at dawn, the chance
Of one sweet, mad, last hour, all things assail,
And conquering, flush and spin; while, to enhance
The spell, by sunset door, wrapped in a veil
Of red and purple mists, the summer, pale,
Steals back alone for one more song and dance.

Tomato Bisque Soup 2

So dark out now, when Niecelet goes whimpering to the ferry and comes home from the gym, when D. leaves for work at half-six, dark, dark, and nippier these last few days. Turkeys roam the streets in feral packs while wisps of fog steal over the hills. The change of seasons is upon us.

(Okay, at least one of those things happens pretty much year ’round, but you get the point.)(We’ll leave you to guess whether it’s the fog, or the feral turkeys.) Since the produce is exhausted and fairly terrible about now from both the garden and the farm box (with the exception of the last fat, round eggplant on the very sturdy and still flowering plant), and since the afternoons are overcast and hinting at rain that has yet to appear (pleasepleaseplease, this weekend, let it begin), T. keeps making soup, in the vain hope that soup is to clouds and cold weather as washing your car is to rain storms. So far, no dice. But lots of diced veggies — cumin, garlic, and carrots, exhausted kale, weary tomatoes. We added coconut “fat,” instead of butter, and half and half, instead of cream. All you need is a stick blender, and it all comes together.

And, eventually, so will the season; the start-stop of pseudo-summer will at last give way to the long season of mild, dark, and stormy. We’ll hear frogs again, and curse the wet leaves as they plaster themselves to our legs. We’ll slosh and splash through another winter — with perhaps some real rain this time — and enjoy many a savory cup of soup.

Tomato Bisque Soup 4

Cheers,

D&T


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