Rainbows and cookbooks

We have rainbows on our walls, thanks to a set of prisms on the windows. Mom gave me the prisms in a Christmas stocking a year or two ago, but until we moved into the house, I had nowhere to put them, since all of our windows faced one direction, and none of them got the right kind of light. Now, there are 4 prisms in the front windows that get morning light, and one in the bedroom. Like rain-caused rainbows, these are fleeting - they only last as long as the sun is coming from a certain direction (of course) but they are nice while they last. And they always come back.

I succumbed to temptation yesterday at the bookstore and bought a new cookbook - Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. Not a baking cookbook, although there are some baking recipes in it. It does have a very simple applesauce recipe (not that applesauce is hard in any recipe) that I am considering for this afternoon or weekend...Mmm. According to my parents, there was a time when I was a toddler when I would only eat applesauce and yogurt. Add a good loaf of bread and a cup of tea, and it still sounds like a good meal to me!

Horse chestnut season

Although you would be hard pressed to determine the season by the weather - we are in the middle of a lovely stretch of warm weather -, it is Fall. And Fall means it is time to collect horse chestnuts. When I was very small, my parents and I would take annual trips to Volunteer Park in Seattle and fill great baskets full of the chestnuts (which are NOT edible, by the way). When I went away to college in Walla Walla and rediscovered them, I was so excited that I brought a large paper bag full when I came home on break. They are lovely and smooth, and somehow soothing to hold in your hand in your pocket as you walk around - sort of like those stress balls you are supposed to twirl around in your palm. They signify Fall, and I have missed them in Austin over the last six years. (Of course, Fall in general is something that I missed in Austin. Although October and November can be nice enough, no one who actually knows what Fall is like would describe Austin as having one...) Anyway, there are two horse chestnut trees on our street now, and I have started picking them up again.

Autumn (to change my term for the time of year) is a good time to take an early morning walk. The dew on the plants makes for interesting pictures (ask my dad, he had several slide trays full of dew drop pictures at one point). I took this one today. The morning was foggy, although most of the fog had burned off by the time I got out of the house (OK, so it wasn't that early of a morning walk, but the dew hadn't dried yet!). I know it would be more impressive in a bigger picture, but I don't really want to take up all my storage space. If you want a larger copy, let me know.

Bakers Anonymous

If there is such a thing, I think I should join. A support group that I could call whenever I feel like baking too much...I love baking desserts, breads, cookies. It is apple season, which means apple pie, apple bread, apple muffins. Soon it will be pumpkin time, which means pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cheesecake. It is always cookie time - chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, ginger snaps, sugar cookies with icing. And there is are all sorts of miscellaneous baked goods like spice cake, pound cake, gingerbread, and breads of all kinds. I want to make them all!

What is wrong with being a profligate baker you ask? For me, it is the fact that there are only two people in our house, and when I bake something, we have to eat it, all of it. Neither of us need the extra calories and fat that come from eating an entire cheesecake, nor do either of us really want to eat that much. And baking that much is expensive! Have you seen the price of good butter these days? What I need is a family of 10 to eat everything, or a small cafe! (Just after I typed this, I heard this story on NPR about professionals trading their jobs to become bakers.) No Mom, I can hear your thought right now, and am not going to open one. I will just have to continue to hold myself back, unless y'all want to come visit - then I will have an excuse!