Fall Happenings
- Me
The dark days are upon us. The days are short and weather is cold.
Riddle’s winter coat is growing thicker by the day. She’s working on that floof.
The days are so short the sun doesn’t come up until I am on the train.
For two months The Avenue was decorated with scarecrows made by local children.
(I still worried they will come to life at night and kill us all)
Not to mention I now come home from work at midnight. (Okay, it's not midnight, but it sure feels like it.) That first week after Daylight Saving Time ends is always the hardest.
I'm still waffling these days about social media. Obviously Shipwrecked & Comatose will remain as my essay and long-form life updates blog and The Essential Rhubarb Pie will remain as my space for food essays, recipes, and restaurant reviews, but how do I want to do my microblogs and observations? Should I keep collecting them in one long post here on S&C? Should I give in to the lure of Facebook, or should I find another medium? Twitter (sorry, X) is out of the question these days, but I'm considering Threads. Food for thought. Is it better to brag about what's going on in my life in one place where people have to endure a long read, or do I assume people actually want to know what's going on and post updates on Facebook?
###
So about those life updates, what has been happening in the fall season? Did I manage to beat back the SAD as the days grew painfully short and the cold and rain engulfed me? Did I get any relief driving through the countryside, shaking my fist out the open window of my car screaming, "CURSE YOU APPLE PICKERS"? Did I manage to maintain my pacifistic nature when yet another person said the air was "crisp"?
In truth, it has been a busy season and I have been having a lot of fun.
###
I started the season (well, if you want to be picky, it was the last day of summer and not the first day of fall) at The Bronx Zoo. Mom and I made our annual trip. This year's trip was extra special because I purchased an Animal Encounter for her as a birthday gift earlier this year.
The Animal Encounter is a a program at the zoo where keepers bring guests to a Meet and Greet with one of the "Ambassador Animals". Guests can touch them, take photos, and ask the keepers any and all questions about them. Mom wanted to see a sloth up close, so I gave her a Sloth Encounter.
We met a sloth named Callisto. She hung on a fake branch and ate grapes while people petted her, took photos with her, and received a talk on both the lives of sloths and the life of Callisto in particular.
(I was exposed to COVID earlier that week so I masked up for everyone's protection. Fortunately I wasn't infected.)
The also brought out a bonus animal, an armadillo.
I would definitely do this again. They have plenty of interesting animals to meet. They also have "celebrity" encounters with the keepers featured on The Zoo.
We also did the normal zoo stuff like visit our other favorites like the gorillas, elephants, lions, tigers, and giraffes.
You can't forget my personal favorite, the red panda.
###
In early October Kevin and I celebrated our twenty-second anniversary. We decided to try a new restaurant in town, Alessia's Trattoria, which sits in the building that once housed the site of our first date, Chef Antonio. If you haven't read about that, I reviewed the restaurant on my food blog.
###
The next day we took a long drive to New Jersey for a special birthday party. My SIL's niece Valerie was turning 30 and her parents threw her a big birthday party. It was a mixed bag of a day. We enjoyed seeing the extended family, but I felt sorry for the organizers. They had twenty people walk in who never RSVP'd. They didn't have enough food. The first few people in the buffet line ravaged the food supply (was I a bit guilty of that?). Valerie's father had to go out to get a few pizzas and a large burrito kit from Bubbakoo's. On the bright side, it was good to see so many people come out to celebrate Valerie. The dance floor was active all afternoon. Her friends seem to be having the time of their lives.
Some photos with her big sister, her mother and her favorite aunt, and and both her parents.
###
You know what else I hate about fall? The Bellvale Creamery closes for the season at the end of October. I made Kevin take me there one last time for an ice cream lunch. I squished two of their signature flavors (Great White Way and Bellvale Bog) into one of their delicious homemade waffle cones. It was also my chance to enjoy the view with the beautiful changing leaves.
###
We closed out October with another special birthday party. Our grandniece Elle turned one year old at the end of October. Although we had hoped to meet her sooner than this, it was too difficult to make travel arrangements convenient for everyone. Malcolm and Steffanie made it easier by having a special first birthday party for her. My whole family was invited.
It was one of those days that started out as a disaster. We thought we gave ourselves plenty of time to arrive, but we hit some huge pockets of traffic in Connecticut and the trip took close to six hours. In fact, the rest of my family came a different route and arrived long before we did. That didn't put us in much of a party mood. However, once we arrived, the stress of the drive was gone. We were so happy to be with our family and Elle was adorable. She was so chill with large numbers of people walking around her house and coming up to her.
She submitted to photos with her parents, great aunt and uncle, and both sets of grandparents (and a cousin).
She had her own small cake she could eat with her hands as she saw fit.
The weather could not have been more beautiful. The temps were over 80 degrees. I had to take a summer dress out of storage for this party. It was delightful to have summer back for a day.
We were also simply happy to be with family again. After the party we all had an intimate dinner together and hung out until close to bedtime (We stayed at a hotel for the night to avoid another long drive.) I hope we don't go another year before we see each other again.
###
Halloween arrived shortly after. I'm not a big Halloween person, but if someone holds a party, I won't be the pooper. My office did a celebration and I made sure to wear a costume.
F is for fall, F is for family. After Halloween my cousin Matt hosted a long overdue family dinner that included all the cousins and the aunt and uncle. We haven’t all been together like this since before Matt’s twins were born. Bad blood has been wiped away.
###
The family went out for Thanksgiving dinner. I want to host Christmas dinner, and I don't feel up to cooking two big family dinners so close to each other, so Mom took everyone out to the Old Homestead for dinner.
After years of being contrarian and shunning a traditional Thanksgiving dinner whenever I went out, I was starting to crave a good old-fashioned turkey dinner - so I had one.
###
We also did some redecorating. Our living room couch was looking long in the tooth. It was becoming worn out and uncomfortable. We couldn't merely reupholster this time. We needed to replace it. Besides, we have needed a new rug since the last time we reupholstered. We spent a day trying out couches and looking at rug samples with the designers at Country Willow. We wanted to stick with a local, independent business. Country Willow fit the bill in that department as well as having a broad range of styles. It took a while for delivery, but we have a beautiful and comfortable couch and rug.
We are going to be refinishing our floors eventually - something we waffled on all season. That’s going to be fun as we have to pack up the entire living room, bedroom and closet, and live somewhere else for a couple of days.
I also came to the conclusion that it's time to replace our dining room table. It served us well for the past 22.5 years, but it's a pedestal table and it's a pain to clean the floor around it. Once our floors are refinished, it will be better to have a table I don't have to move to clean under it.
###
I have to include a bit more stuff for the foodies. October and November provided many occasions for baking and cooking projects.
I learned a new way to serve chili. I tried serving it over cornbread waffles. Just make a basic waffle batter, but replace half the flour with cornmeal and use less sugar. I served my Vermont Chili over them.
The photo doesn’t look too appetizing, but it was great. I am serving chili over waffles more often. (Maybe I will make waffles from chickpea flour and flavor them with cardamom and coriander and serve my “Indian chili” over them).
I usually ask Kevin what kind of cake he wants for his birthday, but this year I decided to surprise him. He loves pecan pie. He loves my white chocolate cream pie and my coconut macadamia tart. He also loves coconut cake. I found a recipe that would put some of those elements together.
It was a coconut-pecan cake with brown sugar coconut filling. The cake layers were made with finely ground coconut and pecans and the filling was similar to German chocolate cake filling.
I wasn't crazy about it. I thought the filling was too sweet and the cake layers weren't sweet enough. They failed to balance each other. Kevin liked it, but I don't know if I'll make it again unless he requests it.
I can't let the fall season go by without making an apple pie. That was what I did with the remainder of Thanksgiving weekend. I made an apple pie for the two of us (even though we had apple pie at Thanksgiving dinner). Nothing the hubby loves more than having a dessert in the house he doesn't have to share.
I know I say it all the time, but I must reiterate how I love this method for making an all-butter crust. I can’t stop recommending it. I make sure to use three different apples varieties I buy at the farm market. (See, you don't need to go apple picking to make a pie from fresh, local, apples.)
Even though I only made it for us, we devoured it in three days.
My office had a Thanksgiving potluck after Thanksgiving. My coworkers "volunteered" me to make dessert. I made my apple crumb cake. This one is my recipe (sorry you have to scroll to the end of this post to find it), which has always been a favorite at my office when I make it.
I did so much baking this season, it began to feel like the height of the pandemic again when I felt like I single-handedly kept the butter industry in business.
###
Fall isn't over yet officially. We have three more weeks of it, but let's close out this post and call the next life update post a winter post.
Comments
Post a Comment