Tag: Autumn

  • ODDS and ENDS: School’s Starting , Bigger Pants, and Goodbye Summer

    (It’s just a kiss away…)

    It just feels like Summer started, but next week, the kid starts up school again. These two months flew by, and though it still feels like Summer out there, the signs have started to show that we are slipping toward Autumn. At the start of the week, the kid refused to speak about the coming school year. Now, today, she told me she is excited and nervous to get back; Excited to see her friends, nervous about what the year could bring. I have been trying to remember what that felt like. The feeling of possibility, of the excitement of learning, the joy of friendships. Out of all of it, it is that feeling of excitement and wonder of learning rings the most true. Boy, if I could get that feeling back – maybe just for a few minutes, to experience looking at the world as brand new. That would be great.

    I had a good time this Summer. There was a big family wedding, and the kid went away for camp. As such, I lived it up. Drank a little too much, ate way too much, but I went to the gym once – you know, balance. When I think back on this season, I will refer to it as my “Sloth Summer.” As such, my pants and shorts have become rather snug around my belly. I don’t like this development, and I know what I need to do. Well, what I should do…not that I want to do it. Which brings me to why I am contemplating buying larger pants and shorts. NO, no, no… I need to watch what I eat, work out, cut down on alcohol, sleep better… But… you know… at some point the weight won’t come back off. At some point, I will need to buy the bigger pants, right? Am I just fight the tide?

    My least favorite season has started her exit from the stage. I said that up above, but it is true – Get Outta Here, Summer! It’s still sticky out, and will be for the rest of August, but it’s starting to get a little cooler at night. We had one day, though it was raining all day, that was in the low 70’s and it was like the best feeling in the world – it just not being really hot out. There are other signs too, like the “back to school” commercials on tv, and crossing guards are back out. Also, I look at empty store fronts, and I can imagine a Spirit Halloween store being there. Soon it will be cooler, and sweaters will be out, and leaves will change. Just one more month to go.

  • Nabemono – My New Food Fixation

    We are in the middle of Summer, and I am already thinking about Fall. Anticipating might be a better word. Fall is my favorite time of year, and I have the flannel and sweaters to prove it. There is the apple picking, leaves changing, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Autumn also means a switch to our menu at home, as we start eating heartier things due to the colder weather; soups, stews, and baked goods. While searching for new recipes for Fall, I came across nabemono, or Japanese hotpot cooking, which I have become fixated with.

    Nabemono is simple in concept, and complex in flavor and execution. It just means one pot meals, with a protean, vegetables, broth, noodles, and a dipping sauce. The pot is placed on the table, in some cases while on a heating plate, and people take what they want out of the pot and eat communally, or family style.

    I came across nabemono when I was looking up fast family meals from all over the world. I mean, America can’t be the only place where feeding a family quickly and cheaply is a major concern, and I was correct – seems to be a concern all over. If one doesn’t have a traditional nabe pot, a Dutch oven can be used as a substitute. And I have a Dutch oven! Also, nabemono has several different varieties – like shabu-shabu, chankonabe, and sukiyaki – as well as regional variations, which means that there are tons of different recipes out there to experiment with.

    I have been doing my research, and counting down the minutes until it is Autumn. I could give it a shot now, but it is like 90 degrees in NYC, and with 75% humidity so the thought of having a soup on a day like that doesn’t sound like the best idea. I need it to be like 65 outside, which is like late September. That’s a bit of a wait, but I can be patient.

    I’ll just keep searching for YouTube videos… like this…

  • The Pumpkin Blaze

    There is an annual Autumn/Halloween event that my family takes part in, which is The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Croton-on-Hudson. My wife was the one who found out about it, and when my parents came to visit back in 2017, she got tickets for all of us. It was perfect for everyone, as we were new parents with a one year old, and the pumpkins were just flashing lights to our daughter, and that captivated her attention. And for my folks, it was just enough walking, and also something rather unique that they didn’t have in Texas. After walking through the Blaze, we drove down to Tarrytown for dinner, and then showed my parents the real Sleepy Hollow, along with the bridge and the Old Dutch Church of Headless Horseman fame. Since then, we try to make it out to The Blaze every year.

    This year was no different. Got tickets, and made plans with another family to all go together. Like most years, things happened and we left late. Traffic was awful getting out of the city. We were all late getting to the restaurant, and had to eat quickly. Luckily, the kids were all in a good mood – no melt downs.

    And it was worth it. The kid is getting old enough now that none of the jack o’lantens are scary to her, and even some of the joke carved pumpkins she gets and finds funny. There is still enough innocent excitement with her there that makes the experience special, and also transforms Halloween into more than one night of fun, but a season of events. (We apple pick, and visit a pumpkin patch as part of our Halloween traditions as well.)

    For me, I enjoy this night of being close to Sleepy Hollow, and the historic location where The Blaze takes place. Something about driving home through the woods of Westchester county, knowing that somewhere out there the Horseman is supposed to ride, and like clockwork every year, the kid asks from the backseat if Ichabod was a real person who escaped from that ghost. And then there is the connection of The Blaze being an event my mom was able to do with my family. We only got three years with her, to do grandma things, and let her shower her youngest granddaughter with attention. The kid has virtually no memories left with her Mim, but I have this one. And though my daughter doesn’t remember doing it, she was one after all, but she knows that it happened. We just continue on the tradition.

  • An Autumn Music Break

    Bit of a Bisy Backson Day…

  • GOURDS!

    I bought gourds this morning at Trader Joe’s. You know, the Fall/Autumn/Halloween gourds that come out on October 1st, and are sold through Thanksgiving. Well, it was two tiny pumpkins and a gourd to be exact, but as I get deeper into the season, I will buy more of these. I wouldn’t call it a weakness, but it is the one seasonal decoration that I indulge.

    Soon, most likely this weekend, we’ll go to our storage space and get the box of Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations to put up. Most of what is in there are silly, kid-like things to put up. Also in that box, there is a collection of dollar store small glittery pumpkins. Soon our kitchen table will be a collection of both real and fake gourds. You know, how the Pilgrims intended.

    When the kid was little, two or three, she would paint the white pumpkins to add to the decorations. I don’t think she does that anymore. And I start to wonder how long we’ll keep decorating the apartment with these cartoonish and child-like decorations?

    My parents kept reusing all the old holiday decorations until I went away to college. With me, the final child was out of the house, so my mom decided that it was time to have more grown up decorations for all the holidays. Gone were the doe-eyed cats and bats, to be replaced with wreaths of fake orange leaves and gourds. (But her gourds were plastic and ceramic.) Christmas even got more mature with an all-white lights on an all-white tree. You get the idea…

    I have a feeling we’ll do the same thing when our kid heads out of here, to college or where ever.

    But I like my gourds.