Wholesome Autumn

Autumn. Believe it or not, it's my most favourite season of the year. Yes, I love summer, of course. It's hot, full of energy, lush and green. I love spring too because it signifies the end of winter and the coming of summer. It's warm, colourful and fresh. I have to say, i'm not a big fan of winter, but the season does have its beauty especially when it's a real snowy one. It's white, clean and crisp.

I don't know if the fact that i was born in the fall has anything to do with that but in my mind, fall is the most special season of them all. When we are lucky to have a nice fall like we do this year here in Switzerland, the season is breathtakingly beautiful. It's full of colour, more deep and intense than the colours of spring. It's warm, like spring, but it has a calmness to it and a sense of wholesomeness. The distant sound of the farmers' tractors collecting the last of the summer hay, the faint smell of firewood burning in people's backyards while they prepare fruit and vegetable conserves for winter, the herds of cows, all decorated with beautiful flower wreaths on their horns coming down from the mountain, all of that contributes to the creation of that feeling of wholesomeness, peace and serenity in the air.

My Husband, The Baker

Autumn is the season for baking all kinds of pies from the fruits of the autumn season such as apples, pears, plums, all kinds of berries. Now, as much as i love to eat those pies, i could, unfortunately, never bake one myself. My husband, on the other had, can and very well too. He's also a big fan of the fresh autumn fruit pies and his favourite one is the one made with plums. So the other day, he decided to bake one such pie himself. It only took a few minutes to knead out the dough for the crust, wash and cut the fruit and place it on the crust, sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar on top since plums can be a touch on the sour side sometimes and in the oven it went. Only about 20 min later, it was done! Easy, breezy, right?! I helped too. I washed the fruit. And at the end, when we discovered there was a tiny square of the crust left uncovered (we were about two or three plums short), i had the brilliant idea to cut up a kiwi and use it instead. Ha! The plum pie was truly delicious!

Wild Game Season

For about 3 weeks during fall, opens the wild game season. Enthusiastic hunters, including my boss who was absent from the office all week last week so he can go hunting, gather up their gear and head up in the mountains to stake out and shoot down some wild game which includes deer, chammois, and elk. In the meantime, every single restaurant around begins offering their wild game menu. That only lasts about a month or two before the supply of wild game meat is used up. Some restaurants freeze some of it and continue offering it during the winter but "wild time" is over for most by the end of November. My husband and I are big fans of the wild game menu and use this two month window in the fall to go out and eat as much of it as we can. You can also buy in from the butcher shops but it needs special preparation in order to achieve tender and flavourful results. Neither of us is trained in the art of cooking wild game, so we leave that to the professionals.

Last night was our first "wild" night and our friend, Nicola, joined us. She is Canadian and only in her second year here in Switzerland, so it was the first time for her trying wild game. She loved it. I don't blame her. We all had the chammois. The meat was prepared in such a way that it literally melted on the tongue and it came with a very flavourful sauce, an assortment of fall vegetables, chestnuts and baked pears with berry confiture. A bottle of full bodied Syrah from the Swiss wine region of Wallis rounded up the perfect meal. Bad Nicola twisted my arm really, really hard and we got desert after :) Hers came in flames and drowned in alcohol....of course. I'm happy to say, she'll be joining us again for round two.

My favourite season of the year has officially begun. We opened it last weekend with our blueberry picking and we are planning to enjoy all it has to offer to the fullest because we all know what follows afterrrrrr.............