autumn

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It’s almost November. It smells like wood smoke outside, wood smoke and pungent saltwater and decay. Damp fog chills to the bone, fragile frost crystals gleam and break at first light. Yellow school buses squeal to a stop, whoosh, sigh, swallow children, move on.

It’s almost November. I bring out the boots, the throw blankets, the scratchy plaid scarf that was my grandmother’s. I order new books. At the supermarket, wooden crates overflow with carefully and somewhat precariously stacked apple varieties. There are squashes and ciders and pumpkins and ears of dried purple corn. At the coffee shop I drink a hot latte and eat a scone that tastes of orange, ricotta and spiced nutmeg.

It’s almost November, and before I know it, this wild riot of color will sleep beneath a blanket of gray and white.

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thai

in

I am on a Thai food kick lately. My favorite dishes so far are the red and panang curries, with a taro bubble tea on the side.

I love having variety in cuisine. I think this comes from my upbringing. My mother was a great cook, born and raised in the deep south. She loved making everything from Polish to Greek, Italian, Mexican, Cajun and Creole, and Chinese food, aside from traditional American dishes. She would often mix cuisines in one meal. One night we might have borscht with sauerkraut, and then baklava for dessert. Through her love for variety, I found the joy of experiencing new things and acquired a taste for many different spices and flavors.

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simplicity

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“The Japanese sense of beauty has long sharply differed from its Western counterpart: it has been dominated by a love of irregularity rather than symmetry, the impermanent rather than the eternal and the simple rather than the ornate. The reason owes nothing to climate or genetics, but is the result of the actions of writers, painters and theorists, who had actively shaped the sense of beauty of their nation.”
— Alain de Botton