At least we have pumpkins

So, it almost goes without saying that without our cozy spot in the Valley we were not producers of food this season. There is a heavy weight on my heart that comes with this realization--mostly that someone else was enjoying my raspberries and blueberries and such. I also really missed having our own pumpkin patch. We spend a good weekend or two prepping and processing pumpkins each year and I was unwilling to give that up. So we put on our 'kid hats' and headed out to the corn maze/pumpkin patch/petting zoo.

I forgot how much I like pretending to be a kid--but I did remember to allow the kids up front when looking at the piglets and petting the donkeys and such.

We had some folks over for pumpkin carving and shenanigans--I hope the results don't get smashed on the street, because they're quite fun.

I'm especially nostalgic for fall things--apples, pumpkins, cider and so on--as I travel between the valley and the high desert each week and prepare for my journey into the cloud forest (39 days and counting)...

I'm also keen to prolong fall because the snow is nipping at my commute--I met this scene last Monday morning, which meant a beautiful, if slow journey across the mountains.

Food as 'high culture'

In the Sunday review (online early I surmise), there was a cheeky op-ed about how we've traded foodie-ness for high culture. Rather than sit around and discuss the true authorship of Elizabethan plays or the new installation at the museum, we wax philosophical (and starry-eyed) over grass-fed beef and truffle oil.

I found some proof in the pudding, as it were....I have had long concern at 'good food' being taken up as a fad and thus made into something that is for a select few. And remember, this is FOOD we're talking about here.

And perhaps it is true, as the author points out:

“A good risotto is a fine thing, but it isn’t going to give you insight into other people, allow you to see the world in a new way, or force you to take an inventory of your soul.”

Perhaps not, which signals that our concern with food has gone off the wrong end…
That said, here are some foods—oranges perhaps, or lettuce, or coffee—which should make people pause, if not ‘take inventory…’