Fall, Food, Friends, Family and Fun

 I think it probably goes without saying, but because it is the topic for today's post, I'm going to say it anyway. When family and friends gather together, it is usually around our favorite foods.  Not that we don't eat a lot at other times of the year but when the air becomes skin temperature and somewhat smokey, when a simple walk around the block fills my basket with apples, plums and blackberries, and when the farmer's market is bursting with people and peaches, corn and tomatoes.  Then we eat better, healthier and for close to free at times.
 Our favorite foods are probably healthier before we load them with the smokey flavor of the grill, but we love that taste of the outdoors and the faint hint of the prehistoric past.

 Chicken and pineapple skewered and grilled with sweet, sun ripened corn

 Spaghetti made with fresh tomatoes, peppers and onions, garlic and more garlic and a bit more garlic, mushrooms, fresh basil and fresh oregano.

 neither home-made or low fat, but french toast loaded with bananas and berries and whipped cream

 There is something about good people that calls for great food, and about great food that brings about long, leisurely visits with the people we love the most.

 A nutella, banana, strawberry crepe on the Pier in San Francisco.  I could resist the first time, but then I had to go back. Oh My, Yes.

 I love Fall, but sometimes I find it depressing.  There is that whole knowledge that the perfect temperatures and the warm light and the abundant food is slipping into the colder darker season when baskets of fresh food become canned and frozen and warming soups.  But for now, all is in balance and the world is good.

 Blackberry custard pie for now and blackberry jam for lunch on those dark days, when the warm smell of blackberry and redwood scented air has given away to the nose biting cold of a crisp winter.

 My apple tree fell so long ago, and now the berries invade but the fallen tree still valiantly produces the best apples.

 The babies once gathered at my table are now the young adults, and I'm in denial about what that makes me.

 but playing with our food seems to be something we never outgrow.

 My kids make more beautiful cheesecakes than this, but it made me think of them and smile.

 a dim sum restaurant in Chinatown

 Candy.  Health food?

 Something about gathering around a table together that lingers in out memory and keeps us feeling close even when there are miles between us.  This was the good-by meal before the first try-mester of college, and yet those smiles are with me every moment.

 Moon Festival in China meant Mooncakes, and still does though I haven't been in Beijing since 1987

 My oldest son is an excellent fisherman, and caught a couple big salmon, so we had a tiny portion of his catch with more friends and family and a fresh garden salad.

 That high chair had hung in the garage for 15 years, so it needed a lot of scrubbing before this little angel could use it.

See, I told you, the kids are masters of cheesecake creations, and masters of my heart.

So fall surrounds us now, and laughter and memories linger even as new memories are being formed.  May you all have an abundant group of friends and family and many treats to linger over with them.