Final Harvest

Autumn is always a tough time of year for me. I’m a summer’s child; I love hot, sunny days in tank tops and cutoff shorts, and seemingly countless hours between dawn and dusk with just a breath of nighttime beyond. So when the leaves begin to turn and the sun is setting all too soon, I know I can look forward to months of cold temperatures and icy rain, and it makes me long for the first week of June.

I think I’ve been extra-reluctant to let go of summer this year, dragging my feet as I lag along with my garden. I only last week harvested the last of the produce (other than a few overwintering parsnip and carrots). And I was mainly motivated to do so because the first cold snap was on its way. So I came home with the last few beans, one of the parsnips, a smattering of tiny sweet potatoes, and one stubbornly large beet that had been overlooked and allowed to grow to the size of a small cantaloupe. These ended up in a roasting pan with the season’s last green peppers, an onion, and a few tomatoes threatening to wrinkle and go bad.

It was a good meal, to be sure. My style of cuisine can basically be summed up as “Okay, what needs to be eaten first before it goes bad?” So I took another trip through the pantry, pulling out some ham fat and greens for braising, and a packet of leek soup in need of saving before the use-by date. I sometimes feel like every one of these suppertime expeditions is a replaying of the movement from summer into autumn, a last hurrying and scurrying before the cold sets in and freezes out what remains. Don’t let the frostbite ruin the last of the crop; don’t let the last of the cereal go stale.

Not that I never work with fresh ingredients, of course. The evening after a trip to the farmer’s market is often a bacchanal of the best food I can get–squash and salmon, eggs and mushrooms, greens and honey. For me, cooking really is an art. I get the same sense of anticipation and potential when I shop for food as when I find a new batch of art supplies. It’s a sign that I really have grown to enjoy cooking, not just as a necessary skill but as an expression of taste (in more ways than one).

But just as there’s a difference between getting a brand new set of paints and squeezing out the last dregs from old paint tubes, the quality of the experience shifts between having fresh ingredients and saving the last ends and odds before they spoil. It’s not a matter of one being a better quality than the other; rather, it’s the nature of the quality that changes–new and shiny vs. desperate and scrimping.

And I think that’s how I’ve felt about the sunlight these last few weeks, and the final warmish days. I am preparing for months of cold hands and drawn curtains. Sure, I still go out to hike and I enjoy crisp, clear days in February. Nothing quite compares to these things when I am not trying to distract myself from how cold I am even under six layers of insulating fabrics.

Still, I have sunlight embodied in my pantry. There’s squash and onions and canned tomatoes that I’ve harvested. There are the few remaining perennials on the porch. And yes, the sun’s still there even if a bit farther away. And I’ll enjoy my quiet winter days when everyone stays home, and we pass around hot chocolate, and the extra blankets on the bed make all the difference.

And someday the sun will return, bringing with it a veil of June and the promise of warm soil and new paints.