Fall in New England, Part I: Food

Only it's turning into winter before my eyes.

A friend told me that when people move, like, move their families and all, they do it by their mid-forties and back to their roots. So this may not be true for everyone but there was something visceral tugging at me to move back home.

I love this time of year, it really hits me in my core. I love the changing of the seasons -- the light is so different now, colder, bluer, less of it. Days are shorter, of course. Air is colder. Everything is buckling down for a good sleep. The leaves aren't entirely off the trees but a lot are. We see lots of nut shells around, beech, I think we have, as well as acorns, and someone is eating lots of them.

The urgency of impending fall started in me as school was starting and I started cooking and freezing just after Labor Day. I now have a freezer full of several half gallon bags of strawberries and peach quarters, five pounds of wild blueberries, and a couple of bags of raspberries. That's the fruit. All homepicked and prepared, of course, except the blueberries, which I bought from our CSA.

I also made around eight quarts of applesauce, eight of tomato soup (just add cream), three half gallons of tomato sauce (for lasagna) and maybe 15 quarts of tomato sauce just for sauce. Dave made several bags of pesto ice cubes, and we froze basil, cilantro and dill by grinding it up with olive oil and putting it into a ziplock baggie, flattening it out, and sticking it in the freezer. When it comes time to put it in your soup you just break off a piece and throw it in. My only fear is we only have one sheet of each. But live and learn.

I went to Hatfield Beef, a local wholesaler who sells meat from Amish country in Pennsylvania to retail customers too, and got 10 pounds of wings, tips, ribs, stuff like that. I separate it into baggies and freeze it for a meal. That I can do any time but it's nice that the freezer is stocked. Not sure this is the place for healthy meat but I think so, and I really like the prices. We also buy local meat from the coop and our CSA.

We also have lots of single serving soups and stews that Dave and I can take for lunch, but we often do that with leftovers. That's not a fall thing, except that we now have soups and stews to freeze. We are eating heavier food now, with a little more meat. Even the greens are heaver, more kale, and spinach, that sort of thing. We could do one more bout of applesauce but it's supposed to rain and snow all weekend so I doubt that will happen. Who knows.