In Which, If You Make Soup, Autumn Will Come

So October started off the same hot, disgusting way the summer had proceeded--with record high temperatures (102 on Oct. 1, 101 on Oct. 2). I was starting to despair of  autumn every arriving. Where are you fall? Why are you being coy and hiding?  Will it ever be 70 degrees again? (said with howl of despair)

Ahh, autumn, with its crisp, crunchy leaves (which we don't have here). Ahh, autumn, with the donning of light sweaters and corduroy clothes (you can still wear sandals and shorts here through New Year's holiday). Ahh, autumn, with the smell of burning fireplaces and crisp nights (these we do have here, and if you close your eyes, you can pretend it's really fall). Ahh, autumn, when my metabolic clock thinks "Eh? Winter approaching? Uh oh, better pack on some pounds to fortify her against the long, cold, dark winter with its scarcity of food to come." My metabolic clock still thinks I'm a hunter/gatherer from 20,000 years ago, but so be it.

So I rashly decided to make soup on Sunday for my workday lunches. My crazy metabolism and personal stomach preferences mean I love soup any time of the year, though, hot or cold (weather or soup), so this wasn't a stretch. Ahh, Taste of Home has a recipe for sausage and kale soup with chickpeas. I have a turkey sausage in the freezer, check. No kale at the grocery store (strange, as they normally do and I like kale), but I have a half a bag of spinach, so check. I don't really like chickpeas unless they and garlic and olive oil are made into hummus, but I have a can of nothern beans and they're the same color, so check. The rest of the ingredients I also have, so check, check, and check. I'm set.  Let's cook!

I grabbed my trusty stock pot and my knife and set about the task.

Step 1: Onions, garlic, potatoes, and spinach in olive oil.

Step 2 One can of chopped tomatoes

Step 3. One turkey sausage.

Step 4. One box of vegetable or chicken stock, followed by beans.

Step 5. Cook till hot and then ladle into pretty bowl (the last of my Ikea soup bowls, sob; it's 20 years old and starting to develop a crack in the bottom. Will I ever find soup bowls as pretty to replace this set?) and eat, slurping away if no one but cats and dogs can hear you. Pretend there are leaves falling lazily outside your window, and that the pumpkins will not rot two days after you set them on your doorstep, and that you could wear a sweater to work anyway (especially since the air conditioning is still on and the boys in the office like it set to arctic). Remember jumping in freshly raked piles of leaves, the leafless tree limbs jutting against the early sunset sky, the flocks of geese flying overhead, trying to outrace winter behind them.

 

And guess what? The temperatures started dropping. Yesterday it was below 90 degrees. Last night it was supposed to be 59 degrees. Shy autumn has finally arrived.

I'm not sure my soup had anything to do with it, and the timing could just be coincidental. I'm just saying...