Fret not the end of Summer, bounty is on the horizon
or, now is the time to celebrate the best of what we just had, and the best of what's to come
I live in an old house that leaks occasionally. I know I should fix the leaks, but I don’t. Or at least I fix them a little bit but don’t really fix them properly. By the end of March each year I live in a house with bowls and plants and pots strategically positioned on windowsills, for that is where our leaks seem to insinuate themselves, and then, as if by magic, I find it’s September and all those bowls and plants and pots have been moved and put away because we haven’t had leaks for months, and then it rains, and you are reminded of our leaky house, of the repairs and jobs that we haven’t done, that we’ve neglected.
I know what you’re thinking, here comes cheery bollocks. Bare with me though, this one is hopeful, joyful even, I promise.
I’ve always had a complex relationship with the end of summer. As a child, summer is a whole lifetime in which to get lost and to play and discover and grow. I would start each summer as one person, and leave as entirely another. For me, quite literally as well as figuratively, as my birthday falls in August, so I am a whole year older come September, but I’m not the only one. I recall returning to school each year and finding my friends made anew, especially those who I hadn’t seen much of over the preceding eight weeks.
How many shifts in our lives can be traced to a summer? To a long sprawling space in time where one’s life seems to be let off the leash, before coming back very much changed, whilst also essentially the same. Perhaps as the excitement attached to getting older wanes the excitement of the passing of another summer wanes too? Turning ten having been nine, for instance, is a milestone every child relishes, the accrual of another year akin to the accrual of legitimacy, an unlocking of new experience, new opportunity. Yet at some point the scales tip and the ascent, the plus one year, the growing number is less exciting, you wish it away.
The Cook, I’ve come to realise, come to recognise in myself, rues not the passing of another summer as a negative thing, but celebrates instead the coming of good things, especially perhaps the overlapping of the last of what we’ve been enjoying with the first of what’s to come. This threshold between the end of summer and the beginning of Autumn is thus an exciting time, a hopeful time. My favourite time of each year.
So yes, the leaks return, but so do the leeks.
In the same way I start to notice that our plants and pots and little bowls have started to reappear here and there, so too have game and mushrooms and apples and pears and quince and fennel and chard. We’ve still got some of the bounties of summer, of course; late tomatoes, finally-ripened figs, lettuces that lean away from crips and peppery and start to arrive with their arresting bitterness and darker colour. I’ve been so blindsided by clinging to summer that I’ve failed to notice that game season has crept upon us. The glorious twelfth always blindsides me, it feels too early for gamey little birds, I’m still in the mindset of long summer evenings, cold drinks, a salad and something on the barbecue; but now, with evenings crisper and closing, why not grill some grouse and some grapes, marinade some quail and reach for a Moro cookbook?
Now is a wonderful time to eat in restaurants. A scan of menus across London captures the excitement of this season. At Café Deco Tomato, Cucumber, Melon & Mint Salad sits on the same menu currently as Roast Partridge with Braised Cabbage & Bacon, Deep-fried Pumpkin, Sage & Gorgonzola Sauce feels as fitting as Courgette & Tomato Rice, Sour Cream & Dill. At 40 Maltby Street, Smoked Haddock, Sweetcorn rice & Spring onion fritters talks to the end of summer, in the same breath Pigeon & Walnut terrine and Squash fritters talk to the coming of Autumn. At St John and Café Cecilia Damson, Plum and Quince grace the dessert menu, as do raspberries at all of the above.
Here’s my list of current excitements:
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