In Tune with the Seasons

Something dramatic happened to me this year when we moved to day light savings. Up to that point, I was happily cooking, roasting, baking and making salads with the end-of-summer tomatoes, lettuces, and basil. And loving them. I just couldn’t get enough. And then it happened. Like someone threw a switch. I awoke on November 1 changed. I no longer wanted summer veggies. I wanted winter squash: butternut, delicata, kabocha. I wanted that warm mouth feel. The sweet full rich flavor even without maple syrup or brown sugar or butter. And I wanted Brussels sprouts and cranberries and hearty pastas. Baked apples. Bacon. Why this year, I ask myself. Why?

Maybe I have fully absorbed the messages urging me to be ecologically responsible, to eat seasonally and locally to decrease my carbon footprint. It’s true that when I walk to The Patch down the street to buy my fall vegetables, grown on the adjacent land, or stroll into my backyard to pick herbs and apples and watch persimmons, Meyer lemons and navel oranges ripening on the trees, I couldn’t get much more seasonal and local. And my awareness of eating as a political act has been growing for the last couple of years, thanks to Michael Pollan and others.

Or maybe I’ve been frequenting Farmers Markets more regularly and hence have seen the tomatoes dwindling and the squashes increasing week by week. Like the fashion in hems going up and down and up and down, perhaps the visual images of squashes have imprinted themselves on my brain. “You don’t want those old out-of-season tomatoes,” my brain says. “You want a nice juicy butternut.” It is true that over the last few years I have noticed seasonal changes with much more awareness and delight than in the past. Whether it’s asparagus in the spring or pomegranates in the fall.

Or maybe at this time of the year my body is done with acid and needs more carbohydrates to wrap me up for the cold times ahead. Like a bear preparing to hibernate, perhaps I am experiencing an ancient reality that calls for a layer of fat to stave off winter’s scarcity even though mine is not a scarce reality. I won’t freeze; I will have sufficient food. It is true, however, that my body seems to be demanding I eat what is in season. I want squash. I want cooked apples. I want stuff that is coming out of the dirt right now. And I  don’t want tomatoes.

There is an additional and very important piece: maybe my spirit needs these foods. Less and less daylight. More and more darkness. Sunset at 5:00pm today. I find myself a little vulnerable and depressed as I anticipate the cold and rain lasting until March. My spirit shivers in anticipation of the gray gloom of it all. I want comfort. I need comfort food. So I’ve been trying to provide it for myself. For lunch I ate some warm Apple Crisp. For dinner I’m having a pasta dish with Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and bacon. Butternut Squash Soup tomorrow night. These foods give my spirit what it desires most: nourishment, soft mushy warmth, and gentle sweetness.

Perhaps my awareness of the importance of seasonal cooking and eating has been on the increase for some time. Maybe I’ve been moving my way towards this new approach season by season, making all the above speculations accurate to some extent. The dramatic event on November 1, my seasonal epiphany, while stunning, was readying itself for some time. I had simply reached the tipping point. The real insight is this: I don’t just want to eat in tune with the seasons, I need to eat in tune with the seasons. My physical and spiritual well-being demands it.
What about you?