End of summer thoughts

 

I always have a wobble about this time of year: around the late August Bank Holiday, with September on the horizon, when the days suddenly seem to get shorter, the feeling of pre-winter dread kicks in. In recent years, of course, worries about Covid have added to this, and this year we can throw in energy bill panic and fears of consequential societal collapse as well.

I am assuming Covid will be bad this winter, but then I thought we’d probably get a break from it this summer, and instead we had a massive peak, so what do I know? My husband got Covid, fortunately mildly, I somehow didn’t catch it from him. While I’m less scared of the medical consequences of Covid now, I think I am more worried by the sheer potential inconvenience of it. While we didn’t have to cancel anything too important, it brought home just how much havoc it could still cause, given that even with ongoing caution, mask wearing etc, we couldn’t avoid it.

It makes me very reluctant to plan much for the winter, which is a bit of a pain, as my normal/pre- Covid way of dealing with the winter dread is to book lots of things: theatre trips, gallery visits, nice long restaurant lunches… all of which require a level of commitment I don’t feel like making right now.

But I can plan food to cook at home. After a while of not really being interested in cooking (hence my absence from here – not unconnected to the fact that our dishwasher broke and we couldn’t get it fixed for ages because of husband’s covid, and our sink is not designed for washing up in),my  interest has returned, helped by some new cookbooks. (see below)

I’m hoping they’ll all continue to be good for the autumn and winter months (the salads one has a special chapter for wintery salads, and the tomato one lots of recipes for tinned toms. I’ve also Just got Olia Hercules Home Food and have ordered Ixta Belfage’s Mezcla.

Despite all these new books, my first ‘coming to terms with seasonal transition/reminding myself autumn isn’t all bad’ recipe was a tried and trusted friend, originally from a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall River Cottage book. (Veg Everyday, I think): Squash and mushroom salad with blue cheese. Making it is pleasingly easy: roast the squash, fry the mushrooms, add to salad (rocket for preference) add dressing (olive oil and balsamic) and add cheese. I always add nuts, usually walnuts, as I felt it needed an element of crunch.

Covid allowing (!), I am heading to Ghent in a couple of weeks – a last fling before the winter closedown (we only booked it because we had Eurostar vouchers nearing their expiry date…). Any recommendations welcome…