Em-i-lis' Apple, Bacon, Caramelized Red Onion Sandwich with Arugula-Thyme Spread. Fantastic photograph by James Ransom of Food52.

Friends, I am delighted to see that my Apple, Bacon, Caramelized Red Onion Sandwich with Arugula-Thyme Spread was chosen as a Community Pick on Food52. I thought it was good, but one never knows. So, thank you!

If you only know me here, online, you might think I'd been on cooking strike as of late. In short, I have not. Just busy, busy -did I tell you we have a squirrel family in our attic? a presumed cannibal fish?- and keeping things simple. And yet, isn't that often the best kind of cooking?

Applesauce, pan upon pan of roasted fall vegetables, chili verde...hearty comfort food to the max.

roasted fennel is soo good. so are roasted parsnips.

roasted celery root and romanesco broccoli with a little pimento

I already miss peaches and good tomatoes, but this stuff is pretty delicious too. Hope y'all are eating well.

With our blackberries from this morning I made a huge jar of straight-up blackberry jam for Jack as it's his very favorite ever; with the rest I made blackberry-sage jam which is divine. Blackberries just really groove on the herbalness of sage. I'm still tasting that blackberry-peach-sage crisp I made last month! Mamma mia! I mean, just LOOK at this color!

T and I had an afternoon date -thank you babysitter- at the gym, hardware store, grocery and to deal with the fact that Percy had escaped, made himself at home in a lovely family's yard about 18 feet from ours, been identified via the easy lure of turkey (then she could read his tag) and then found by the kids and babysitter who were likely racing around the neighborhood yelling "Percy" at the tops of their lungs.

It is always something!

Around 5p, a plum tart started siren-calling me, and so I made one. Actually, I was still jamming so made T make the crust and then finished it off. He's a very good cook though he loooves to cut corners which sometimes works and sometimes definitely doesn't. In any case, while that was cooking, I: roasted some celery root and this time did NOT drop the damn pan; made a fab-o raw kale salad with dried cherries, toasted walnuts and an assertively garlic dressing; and cooked the sirloin that T had just rubbed with salt, pepper and rosemary (I bought it this morning at the FM). T also got fancy and made a garlic soy sauce for it. Very '80s but good. We lit candles, sat and ate outside, Coravin'd two glasses of excellent Cabernet and may call it a day soon. Sunday, Sunday, the last of August. When did that happen?