Wednesday, September 13, 2006

haiku farm

There's something very wonderful about the turning of the seasons.

I must have mentioned the arrival of fall more than a few times on this blog by now, and that's because the season conjures so many immediate, mixed emotions: longing, home, dying, fire, solitude, family.... If I were to put it into haiku form, it would sound something like this:

leaves of september
fall like bitter apple winds.
warm, the hearth again.

It's a good thing I don't write haikus often.

Similar to the Greek physician Galen, I believe that seasons have corollary humors, though I've never drawn any medical significance from them.
I do know that I am not the same person in spring that I am in the fall, though.
Fall, according to Galen, is associated with the melancholic temperament.
It makes sense then that this is when I begin to long for silence, when I turn from hyperactive social butterfly back into studious, searching philosopher, cocooning myself in the confines of my miniscule apartment, accompanied only by my books and faithful laptop.

Oh- and my oven.

Fall is also a paramount time for cooking.
Our most gastronomically treasured holiday- Thanksgiving- takes place in autumn, and the ingredients the season offers are some of the most rewarding to work with.
There is nothing I recommend more than going out, if you are able, and actually procuring your own ingredients.

We human beings are born hunter-gatherers and there is nothing more satisfying than eating what you've collected, prepared, and cooked with your own hands.
Here in the northeast, for example, we have great apple and pumpkin farms, where you can pick what you like from the trees and fields and turn them into sumptuous baked goods.

Short of having direct access to farms, the next best thing is going to markets, of which there are a plenty nationwide.
Purchasing your produce straight from the hands that picked it and away from the sterile aisles of generic florescence gives a similar sense of connection to our primal natures. And it supports a lifestyle that we would do well to re-embrace in our modern age.

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