“It
is a time when every cook wishes time could stand still and the bounty of the
fall last forever.” So says Max chef-owner Tony Gullace, and you’ll get no
argument from the dozens of food-loving friends who jumped to say what they
like best about food in the fall. Tony sees a time for the slow cooking of
meats: 7-hour leg of lamb, duck confit with plump white beans and sage,
Guinness-braised Waygu short rib with creamy polenta, veal osso buccu.
Freelance
arts reporter Isobel Neuberger concurs, saying, “the first hint of fall means
lamb stew. Always has, always will. Must be something about a return to slow
cooking: browning the meat, adding spices and herbs, and letting it get itself
together for a couple of hours in the oven.”
Foodie
Gordon Anderson sent an enormous list of fall loves which included “steaming
vats of choucroute” and slowly-braised short ribs. He also hit some of the
responders’ recurring themes: apples, fruit pies and tarts “fresh from the
oven,” and seasonal vegetables like beets.
“Hardly
had to think two seconds,” said Rev. Corey Keyes, a contributor to City‘s Family Valued. “My favorite
activity is taking the family to the Apple Farm in Victor; grabbing a few big
bags; climbing on the wagon and heading out into the orchards to pick a variety
of the freshest, crispest apples around; then coming home to cook apple sauce,
bake pies, and roast cored apples stuffed with brown sugar and raisins.”
“CIDER!”
says Karin Cross, one of the best cooks I know. “I’ve tried lots of recipes to
doctor up cider: mulling spices, adding cinnamon or cinnamon candies,
cranberry, maple, even hot buttered cider. Inevitably, I come back to cold
cider in its purest form, straight from the jug. My choice has always been
Schutts Farm Market in Webster. Bring your own jug, they fill it up!”
Transplanted
upstate choreographer Randee Paufvee “freaks out” at the Berkeley Bowl apple
selection. She tells me she “just ate a cold little red one with a Japanese
name, somewhere between a Gala and a Fuji. Then I nearly ruined my apple
happiness with a banana, stupid banana.”
From
hot Houston, my brother Nat welcomes a season “when outdoor cookery becomes
thinkable again.” He looks forward to local oysters, and wild dove breasts (if,
as he says, you know the right rednecks).
My
sister-in-law, Martha Terilli, has mixed emotions about the obligatory apple
farm trips. “Getting into the harvest spirit this way,” she explains, “can cost
you quite a bit; the mazes, wagon rides, and those irresistible fresh pies can
make for an expensive outing. Am I teaching my children that in order to
experience the harvest tide, one simply buys it for an afternoon?”
She
recounts a story of bringing her children and her mother on such an outing.
“When the pumpkins were loaded and the pie stowed safely away, I helped my
mother into the car, and sat back with a big sigh. I was sweaty, broke, and a
little cranky, having done the Western New York fall ritual yet again.”
“But
what stands out in my mind,” she goes on, “was our station wagon parked alone
in a beautiful apple orchard, glorious Red Delicious apples pressing against
the windshield. As I turned to point out the picture to my kids, I stopped
short. There sat my mother, patiently waiting, silver hair and crimson sweater
lovely against the green leaves and red apples. I vowed to remember that image
of her.”
City Newspaper contributor Craig Brownlie,
like many, got nostalgic, though in his slightly sarcastic way. “As the sun
heads south, I hearken back to the days of my youth and the county fair which
marks my personal autumn,” he writes. “Lo, these shortening days, I sip the
sweet bitterness of the Lemon Shake. Aye, we must not forgo the corndog — no
we must not, for it is an unknowable meat within a mostly cooked batter. I am
called home to eat these things and to see the 400 lb. pumpkin.”
At
Casa Wilcocki, fall is apples, munched copiously and turned into sauce by my
daughter, Iris. It’s the weekly roasting of beets, the cooking of richer
greens, and looking forward to the first freeze that brings the best Brussels
sprouts. It’s our favorite season, beautiful, slightly sad, and poetic.
And
so, summing up, an impromptu poem by my friend Sean Bahner-Guhin:
“Roadside produce stands
fresh soil sticking still
to the unwaxed skin of cucumbers
you smell uncut
Corn so sweet it qualifies as vegetable candy
No factory food this, but as it was for ages
No pricetags, just handwritten signs of “3 for $1”
and a payment box set on the corner
make your own change
honor systems that work
with those who live by the seasons.”
This article appears in Sep 21-27, 2005.
