Fall: A one-photo photo gallery

Yesterday was the most beautiful, balmy, blue-skied fall day.

It was the kind of day that made me want to stand on our deck, look out at the countryside and just take long, deep, cleansing, celebratory breaths.

Today? It looks overcast and kind of yucky.

Luckily, I'm having a two-person dinner party with my BFF today, after which we will watch a horrible chick flick, do crafts and gossip.

So the weather can bite me.

Mostly Wordless Thursday: PUMPKINS

('Cause I just couldn't get it together for Wednesday. Don't you judge me!)

This weekend, my bestie B and I busted out the steak knives (we'd have nothing of those much safer pumpkin carving kits that don't even have pointy ends -- bah!) and carved us up some bad boys, fresh from our neighbors' garden.

And yes, it's true that I A) broke one of said steak knives, and B) nearly decapitated my best friend in the process. But all that matters is that we ended up with some wicked-cool Jack-o'lanterns (or however you punctuate that word).

Yay!

Fall is yummy

There are 500,000 reasons why I love fall.

Bonfires.

Air so crisp and devoid of humidity that I feel like I can take my first full, deep breath since we left April behind.

Crunching leaves on sidewalks.

Apple cider.

And these:




Ohhhh, concord grapes. So unlike any other, inferior grapes, with their show-offy sweetness and seedlessness and easily-digestable skin, and being all, "Oh, look at me, I'm available all year!" You are sour and sweet and tart and gooshy, and you pop right out of your deep purple skin and leave behind hard little seeds that require awkward spitting into a napkin.

(OK, as I'm writing this, it's sounding less and less appetizing.)

Every fall, I scour our local farmer's markets for these little seasonal beauties, since the stupid national chain grocery stores are apparently too good to carry them. And from September to early November, I'm in heaven.

It's my secret dream to have a huge vineyard filled with nothing but concord grapes, and then eat all of them myself, fighting off anyone who tries to share my bounty.

Sigh.

Also, quick callback to an earlier post wherein I extolled the virtue of the Andes mint and vowed to try a few recipes including those little gems. 36x37 did indeed come through with some Andes mint brownies, and they were little chocolate squares of minty HEAVEN (thanks again, M!).

And, I created this at the office last week:

That's Swiss Miss hot chocolate with Andes mints crumbled on top. Slowly melting into the cocoa. Creating a smooth, creamy, mint-a-riffic chocolatey confectionery delight that I intend to recreate upon every opportunity. In other news: IT WAS REALLY, REALLY TASTY.

It almost made up for the return of football, and my subsequent Sunday-afternoon widowhood.