Pete's Eats

Sitting in my kitchen, in one of the most southern of British south coast towns, I can sense the season shifting.

Horse chestnut leaves always seem to be the first to turn, and always earlier than the previous year although I suspect that this is not really the case and instead just a trick of the mind. Maybe next year I’ll return to this post and compare and discover the reality…

I also suspect that I’ve written this many, many times before here, but this is my favourite time of year in England. It signifies the very best of family life with the nights drawing in, excursions into the woods looking for mushrooms and later, chestnuts for roasting or as ingredients for other suitably warming and hearty dishes. Halloween, Guy Fawkes night, Christmas. Standing on the rugby field touchline every Saturday whilst my eldest does his best for inter-school relations with other southern English rugby-playing schools… Visits to the countryside, farms, festivals, fayres, and farmer’s markets. Cold but bright and superbly sunny mornings and dark but sociably pleasing evenings in the oh-so-many pubs with huge and core-warming open fires.

I’m reminded of Vernon Duke’s classic Jazz song, “It’s Autumn in New York” which goes:

It’s autumn in New York
It’s good to live it again

It’s easy to understand why the song is about New York, the East Coast of the US is a simply beautiful place to behold at this time of year of course (full lyrics). But with no trips to New York planned for the rest of this year as yet I will transpose the sentiment to England instead, because it’s Autumn in England too and it is most definitely good to live it once again.