Tonight feels somewhere between summer and fall. The past few days have been glorious, weather-wise. I went home to the farm in Maryland and it was like a postcard advertising autumn: The tips of the trees are tinged in russet red and vermillion and orange. The hills are covered in green grass, but the fields of corn and soybeans are slowly turning a dusty tan, like they've been baked too long in the hot summer sun.
Read moreTOASTED CASHEW + MARZIPAN BLONDIES
A crowd of people stand waiting at the corner of West Houston Street for the light to turn green. I've just emerged from the subway. It's only 6:30 but the evening sky is already quickly turning inky and black. I walked a block in the cold air to the Citibike station and inserted my key, waiting for the welcome ping! as the light turns green and the bike unlocks, releasing the front tire. I hop on and cycle slowly to the edge of the street, pausing with the throngs of commuters.
Read moreCOOK'S ILLUSTRATED BLONDIES
It's Sunday night. The weather has been stubborn all day, as angsty as a frustrated teenager. I woke up to dark gray skies. The trees lining our street bent and shivered in the heavy gusts of winds coming off the bay. The rain thudded against the windows. When I padded downstairs in slippers and pajamas, the kitchen skylight was being pelted with water: a persistent tap-tap-tap of heavy raindrops.
Read morePerfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
A few things I love lately are surprising, and others wholly unsurprising. I hope they brighten up your October in some unexpected way. I hope something here makes you smile, or feel a pang of the good kind of nostalgia, or gives you a little shiver of comfort. The sort of comfort that makes you sink into yourself: The same sensation you get when it's chilly outside and you wrap a sweater tightly around yourself, or when you're cold and you step into a warm storefront, or when you smell the aroma of garlic and olive oil cooking on the stove.
Read moreFRENCH APPLE CAKE
Fall is arriving, reaching in and out teasingly with its chill. A crispness has returned to the early mornings, but by the afternoons the saturated heat of summer returns, heavily soaking the low hours in the depth of the day in syrupy sunlight. The leaves are changing; I stepped onto my stoop last Thursday to a single fallen maple leaf, crimson around the edges with a vivid yellow center and a bright vermillion in between.
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