Lughnassah/Lammastide, around August 1st, usually signals the first hint of autumn for me, in the faintest of shifts of air and light. We just crossed equinox a week ago, and the season is now crisp.
Jim and I both had Saturday and Sunday off together for a change, so we planned a week's menu and shopped, and Chef James picked out a new recipe for me to cook this afternoon. Turned out to be easy, fun to do, and delicious.
It's from Cook's Country Lost Recipes 2010 Special Issue. It's called New England Boiled Dinner, corned beef with beets, red potatoes, carrots, pearl onions and cabbage.
I steamed the beet greens as a side, we added Boston brown bread, and we toasted each other—and the new season—with Samuel Adams Octoberfest.
Cheers!
Bright Crow
October's Bright Blue Weather
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;
When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;
When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;
When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;
When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;
When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.
O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.
