At last autumn is upon us. I know Sir is wildly bemoaning this phenomenon as he always goes into a bit of a downward spiral the minute the clocks go back.
And doesn’t that particular day drive me demented? I know it all technically means an hour’s more sleep on that Sunday morning, but in all practicality what it means to me is that I wake up an hour earlier than I need to.
Having had such a whirlwind October, where I was waking earlier than normal anyway, it resulted in my being wide awake, bright eyed, bushy tailed and wanting my coffee and crossword puzzle at 4 a.m. I used to be a champion going back to sleeper, but not so now. I forced myself to squidge my eyes closed for a whole extra hour – big deal, says I – and finally gave up and got up at 5 a.m.
Funnily enough, the paper had not yet arrived. So when the clocks go back in November, all it means to me is that I will face the longest day ever known to man.
I think we’ve really been blessed with autumn colors this year. I wonder if it’s due to all the rain we’ve had – but regardless of the cause, I’ve loved it. I want my entire garden planted with something called a “burning bush” as it turns the most brilliant scarlet in fall, and some brand of maple tree which is a pure delight.
But then autumn brings the leaves to fall, and fall they have all over the neighborhood, except for our backyard. Our sweet gums and Bradford pear are staunchly refusing to shed, for which I’m quite grateful as they’re so pretty to look at.
The oak tree across the street seemed to dump its entire load in one fell swoop and with the southerly winds we’ve had, guess what? Our front yard has been buried under our non-leaf-picking-up neighbor’s entire stock of oak leaves, with his yard being completely and utterly leafless. I smell a bit of a rat here and suspect a bit of clandestine leaf blowing activity has been taking place.
And autumn means I can put away the salad bowl for a while. All very nice, a good salad, but I am so bored with them I could scream. Autumn means comfort foods, happy baking smells emanating from the kitchen, and cooked (cover your ears, my darling Sir) vegetables.
Have you ever faffed around with pastry? My mother was a very good, most innovative, cook, but I remember her breaking out into a cold sweat when it came to pastry, her only muttered words being “can’t make this when it’s humid.” And Sydney is humid. And so is Kansas City.
So I’ve learned my lesson, and I only every attempt pastry in the cooler weather, and only of the Filo variety.
I’ve tried puff, and it plops; I’ve tried shortcrust, and I end up with long crust – well, if truth be told, long, thick and wide. Not to mention that fact I end up with a glutinous mass – or mess – and flour up to my eyeballs.
With cooler weather on us, despite the fact it was 72 that day, one’s thoughts turned to comfort food, and nothing quite says comfort like a good pot pie. Now we Aussies have a version of a pot pie, called a “meat pie,” or a “chicken pie” – we are not ones to mince words, let me tell you – but they’re different from those in the States. Aussie ones are self contained, so that even at the footy (i.e. football) or at the cricket, you can munch happily away with your pie in one hand and a cold “tinnie” in the other, that being a can of beer.
Pot pies here are a bit of a disappointment, to be frank. You can’t take it out of its container as its bum drops out and you end up holding only the top, with the contents in your lap and the bottom firmly entrenched in its little foil dish.
This leads to colorful language and the threat of a lawsuit as the 900 degree gravy scalds ones’ thighs. A cup of McDonalds’ hot coffee in the nether regions has nothing on 900 degree gravy, let me tell you.
So there I was determined to fling a chicken and mushroom strudel together – as you simply cannot make a pot pie out of filo pastry – heeding the warning on the box to have everything ready to en-fling as the pastry will dry out and become like 800 year old parchment paper disintegrating if you even dared look at it.
I ended up making something which might possibly in an awfully Christian sort of way been called a ‘strudel’. Truth of it was it looked like a dog’s breakfast by the time I’d finished with it, and no amount of tizzying up with interesting shaped bits of the aforementioned parchment paper was going to improve its looks.
Flavor was OK, but needs some work. I think Sir vaguely enjoyed it and was ever so kind to make lip smacking type noises, but no, it definitely needs work.
It’s obvious I have to get back into comfort food mode PDQ as I spotted the forecast and there’s some mention of snow next Tuesday, and I’m pretty sure Sir won’t fall over himself with gratitude if I offer him a comfort Brussels sprout.
