Have to say something about Harvey.

Right now there is catastrophic flooding all over the globe from Mumbai to Ireland to the Gulf Coast.
Please do what you can and let’s all try to be just a little kinder to each other, animals and the planet. It all helps.

And this because endless heat sucks.

All bets are off on predictable seasons anymore but that doesn’t mean you can’t anticipate and hope for an autumn. I loved the autumns of my northern latitude life (I will get back there some day).

Having only four seasons never felt right to me. Summer bathing suits to Fall sweaters doesn’t acknowledge the nuance of harvest time. Some days the air clears and blue skies aren’t hazy blue but crystalline cerulean and the light changes from blinding to a softer golden hue. Oh yeah you can still get frizzy hair, sweaty and sunburnt and the leaves show only occasional splotches of brilliant color and then a night will suddenly be crisp and you know autumn really will happen again this year.

Apples aren’t quite ripe but grapes and hops are. Zucchini and tomatoes are in a kind of hyperactive overdrive before their last gasp. Sunflowers that weren’t cut to brighten the kitchen table and are now a bit tired are hung on the fence to dry for the birds.

Harvest time. From now through that first surprise frost that blackens the basil because, oops, you didn’t get around to making that one last batch of pesto.

Harvest. Abundance. The fruits of your labor.

The idea of harvest in Italy caught my imagination. Grapes, wine, olive oil, herbs, nuts and always , always lemons. Sounds like a GiggleBake box to me!