Once again, loving this time of year. It's full blown hot and heavy summer, then you can feel it. Autumn seems to arrive through the backdoor, the friendly kitchen door: quietly, refreshingly, not making a fuss. My welcomed guest. The season I want to invite to my party. My birthday season. And it all begins, for me, with that Majestic Harvest Moon. Of course this year I worked late and missed its orange splendor. By the time I was driving down off of the mountain this is how she shown down upon the bay. Beautiful in her own rite, but lacking my beloved vermillion.
Just knowing she was outside my bedroom window all night had me waking early and ready for a harvest morning. I grabbed my bucket, my camera, my sunhat and headed out to the rows and rows of blackberry brambles in my favorite little woods in all of Sonoma (I used to explore there with my kindergarteners). I walked down the road and I was the solitary human out there that morning.
I love cooking with bounty that has been gathered or picked by hands that I know. Hands from which I have felt love. Mine. My friend's and family's. So I just began picking. The berries plunked in my bucket at first and then they grew quiet from a softer landing. All I noticed were the birds singing and chattering. Allowing me into their territory. "Them sharing with me", I thought. It takes a heck of a long time to make a dent in the berry bucket.
But this year I have made jams and cobblers. Made them once, and then made them a couple of times over.
I've also spent time at a couple of local gardens, reaping their harvest into my grocery bag. One called Greenstrings was a co-sponsor of the first National Heirloom Seed Expo I attended last month. While it's pleasantly still just a little stand on the side of the highway, it is doing amazing things with public education and employment of yound interns in the sustainable farming movement. And with tomatoes only a buck a pound, I loaded up and got my fill of cold sliced tomatoes with a little shake of salt and pepper as well as a pretty tasty roasted tomato carrot soup recipe.
Along with the makings for the soup, you see a cup full of diced apples that have been ending up in some apple cookie bars. Another family hit.
The kale was rich and bright and added a good healthy touch to Brooke's Mexican Beer Bean recipe.
And then right here in Sonoma, just a couple of blocks off the main plaza, right adjacent to Touristville, is our own little piece of heaven. A place that surely takes you to another time. Sunday morning when the sun is shining is usually when I head down to The Patch. It is another little farm that has been there for at least 15 years, and very often (when Leo, the old Italian guy, is not there) works on the honor system: pick what you need, weigh it and drop your money in the old rusted metal cylinder with a slot in the top.
Sonoma is a beatiful, bountiful place to live. And everyday when I'm bustling to here or there I can look up and see something to be grateful for...
An old family friend recently moved to Sonoma, and between you and her, I WANT TO MOVE THERE!
Posted by: kim | October 07, 2011 at 06:53 PM
Sonoma truly is a beautiful place - i love the small town 'farmness' of it against the rolling hills. A blessed to live, indeed :-)
Posted by: tracey k in ohio | October 13, 2011 at 10:15 AM
sigh... I meant "a blessed PLACE to live, indeed." Lol.
Posted by: tracey k in ohio | October 13, 2011 at 10:16 AM
Your photography is so great!
Posted by: Nicole | October 29, 2011 at 10:52 PM