Yes. It really did snow on Saturday. The abnormal weather in a year of freakish weather continues, so why not snow in October? I don’t even think they were forecasting any snow here in the city – and the brunt of it was up north where over a foot of snow fell and millions of people lost power – but the flakes started coming down late morning. When we woke up Sunday, however, it was pretty much gone.

Back as you were, October.

…in a house in Tarrytown New York, right next to the Hudson River called “Sunnyside”. It seems fitting on a fine Sunday in October to spend the day around the towns that the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle was set, on the grounds where the author who wrote these stories lived. The house is completely intact and furnished as it was since the mid-19th century. I couldn’t take photos of the interior of the house during the tour (led by women in costume waiting for you in the various rooms – okay that was a little bit creepy to walk up to a room and see someone in period dress sitting alone in a rocking chair), but Mia found the house particularly fascinating.

There is no better place to experience Fall than the Northeast, especially in charming river towns by the Hudson. You can argue with me all you want, but it’s true. The leaves are a little late in peeking this year up in the Hudson Valley as of last Sunday and it’s slow to trickle down here in the city too. Which just means that we have a few more weeks of Fall color to look forward to before the trees bare their branches.

Lucked out this year with the costumes as the girls picked things that were easy to assemble. Claudine decided that she was going to be a cat, which is what Mia was last year and Mia is going to be a vampire bat so we’re recycling the bat wings I made for her a few years ago with the perfect black velvet goth dress that we just got as a hand me down from a friend. Just in time too as Halloween in the city really lasts for 2 weeks since there are at least a dozen events each weekend day around town leading up to Halloween itself. Since December is so crazy for us and we don’t have time to participate in any holiday merrymaking then (sucks, huh?), we try to front load all the Fall activities as much as possible. Good thing there’s so much going on. The Northeast was made for Fall!

A recent trip to our local farmer’s market. All Fall goodness. I hear there is snow in some parts of the country already. The transitional seasons always seem so short. It’s still been mild here, but I hear in a few days time we are going to drop to the mid-50s – it is the end of October after all. I’ve been very busy the last 10 days totally immersed in this project with a new client. Dare I say…design has become fun again.

Nah, it’s not really that short. It’s just pulled back, but sometimes I wonder if I should cut it short like this and then I remember how much maintenance it took all the times I had short hair, and I’ve had short hair probably half my life. I usually end up only getting a haircut twice a year. Making haircut appointments are about as painful as making dental appointments in the same way that both get pushed aside when I’m too busy, but I’m going to try and be better about that, particularly since I found a new stylist thanks to Anna (basically I’m just going to do whatever Anna tells me to do).

The haircut actually looks like this:

About 10 years ago when I was still writing my Asian American webzine, we had a whole issue devoted to hair. I wrote an article titled “A Lifetime of Hair Angst” that kind of went viral in the way that things went viral 10 years ago (meaning not like today with blogs, twitter and facebook, so maybe 50 people read it instead of 5000). The article was about my life-long struggles with finding the right haircut for my thick Asian hair, and it also talked at great length the perceived differences in the way men treated me depending on if I had short or long hair (so the piece wasn’t all fluff). I think in all of my years I may have had almost every kind of hairstyle and length you could think of, from a 2 inch pixie cut to hair down to my butt, big 80s perms and a mop of hair inspired by Robert Smith and the Reid Brothers from the Jesus and Mary Chain. I used to chop off my hair every 18 months whenever I’d get too comfortable hiding behind my hair as sort of a lesson in letting it go, but I dunno…since I’ve had kids it’s just been stuck in a rut because pony tail hair is easy hair right?

So what do you do when you’ve reached a certain uh, “mature” age and you’re trying not to have mom hair (’cause god forbid I actually look like a mom, haha!)? Tell me when you find the answer, ok? Especially since my hair has now gone wavy post pregnancy instead of straight and I now have freckles. Aging sure is weird.

Last week of October. Suddenly trying to cram as many Fall activities in on the weekends before it’s all over. After last year’s farm fail out in New Jersey, we stuck to pumpkin picking on Long Island. I think the trees are a bit confused by all the warm weather we had in September and October because the leaves are still fairly green. Mark and I turned to each other while we were driving in the car yesterday and said “the holidays really are around the corner, aren’t they?” Time to fasten your seatbelts…

Mark’s the kind of guy who randomly finds himself on TV (by comparison, I have never been on TV and I’ve lived in NYC most of my life). Within 3 months of moving here way back in the 90s, he was randomly videotaped by a news crew coming out the doors of the train, and one day he saw himself on a news story about subways. That clip got a lot of mileage because he saw that same clip on other Subway stories a few more times. During his time as a Pastry Chef, he did some cooking demos for news shows – you know, where you see a chef on TV cook a dish in under 3 minutes for the “lifestyle” segment or whatever. And then of course, there have been some other brief sightings for the few times our business has been featured on TV.

On tuesday night we tuned into the Cooking Channel’s United Tastes of America’s show about cookies not really knowing what kind of footage we’d see. Well, rather than the usual 30 second mention, they showed the host chatting with Mark at the Brooklyn Flea for quite a few minutes about the Massaman Curry Peanut Butter Sandwiches and the Chocolate Chili Cashew Biscotti. The clip was long enough for me to go get my camera and snap like a million screenshots. Of course Mark and I sort of watched with eyes half closed. You ever watch or hear yourself speaking? It’s nervewracking!!

So we’re doing a Fall sale on our Etsy store. You can use code FALLSALE to get 15% off your entire order. [edit: The Sale is now over. Thanks everyone!]

And lastly, I was interviewed on Donny Tsang’s Great Food Photos. Go check out the site and read about other great food photographers. This interview was particularly fun because for once, it wasn’t about cookies or parenting!

I don’t know why, but when we pick our own apples we don’t stop until we can’t possibly carry any more.  What is it about picking your own fruit that makes you feel like you are at an all-you-can-eat buffet?  Does any family really need 30 pounds of apples?  If you are trying to use up the apples you picked this year and are tired of making applesauce, here’s a tip.  Remember that apples can be very versatile, and can easily find their way into many dishes – and not just desserts.  Here, I added some tart apples (not sure what kind, the trees in the orchard were not labeled) to a standard butternut squash soup.  They added acidity and brightness to what can sometimes be a rather heavy dish.  Perfect for an early autumn day when the air is just starting to get a chill.

 

Butternut Squash Soup with Apples (Serves 4-6)

3 Tablespoons Butter

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

3 slices of fresh ginger

1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped

2-3 tart apples, peeled, seeded and chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

1 sprig of fresh rosemary

4 cups chicken stock

Salt and Pepper to taste

Melt the butter over medium heat in a large soup pot.  Add the onion and ginger, cook and stir for several minutes until the onion has softened.  Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, until the squash is fully cooked.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.  Remove the herb sprigs and ginger slices.  Puree the soup until completely smooth in the pot with a hand-held immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender or food processor).  Reheat the soup when ready to serve.

I’m not much of a wedding person and I really haven’t been to that many to be honest, but I will say that my cousin’s wedding a few weekends ago was fun, mainly because we got to hang out with all my cousins. The girls, on the other hand, were excited about the whole thing – from getting to wear their most fanciest dresses, to the cocktail buffet before dinner, and to the dancing. We didn’t stay for cake because it was a really long wedding and after awhile the girls complained that they were really tired. What is it about little girls and weddings? I really don’t recall being so interested in them when I was young. The girls aren’t obsessive about them at all or anything, but all the neighbor kids held a fake wedding the other day on the stoop. They’ve been talking about it forever and they got all dressed up and had a wedding. Who was the bride? Mia.

Just another Saturday in Dumbo visiting the new Jane’s carousel right on the waterfront. It’s a beauty, yes? You can read more about the restoration and installation here.