Lia Huber

My friend Karin and her 9-month old daughter Elsa came by for a visit the other day. (We hadn’t seen each other for over a year and were reconnected through a strange coincidence of filing cabinets and Craig’s List.) We played in the yard for a bit, but our chestnut tree is raining prickly green ‘sputniks’, so we moved to the safety of the garden in the back. Elsa was more than happy eating stones (yes, Karin and I were on high alert), but I was eyeing the last of the cherry tomatoes.

Karin’s parting gift of their Terra Sonoma VerJus—an unfermented juice of unripe wine grapes and an ancient pantry staple—cemented my idea for dinner. After they left, I grabbed my basket and stripped the rest of the cherry tomatoes, wrestled a zucchini the size of an elephant from its nest, and picked two hot cherry peppers and a fistful of basil.

In the kitchen, I pounded two chicken breasts flat and sautéed them, then the diced veggies, then deglazed the pan with a few generous splashes of VerJus and added the cherry toms. Delicious. The tomatoes popped into the sauce and the zucchini thickened it as it melted. With all the acidity of the tomatoes and heat of the peppers, vinegar would have been too harsh of a binder, and I was surprised at how well the VerJus complemented the flavors with its sweet tang.

So I leave you here with the recipe. Picture an adorable little rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed girl playing happily in this ‘terra Sonoma’ and you’ll enjoy it even more.

Last night the first rains began. My dreams were vivid and otherworldly and Christopher and I seemed cemented under the covers this morning listening to the patter and drips. It’s amazing to me how a season can shift so dramatically in one night.

I went outside this morning to turn off the irrigation (duh) and was stopped in my tracks at how totally and completely <i>different</i> everything smelled. What had grown into the neutral, dusty, weedy smell of summer had morphed overnight into <i>green</i> and <i>alive</i>, so vivid and sharp that it tickled my nose. Pine, some of the sweetness from our lemon marigolds, the almost chocolaty depth of the earth, and the strange dirty dog scent of wet cement lunged at me with their foreignness.

What I love about the seasons is that they are the perfect length. The magic of cucumbers and zucchini and tomatoes and grilling just begins to lose its luster and I start to long for braises and beans and kale and fire. Then the rains come just in time, and I stack the wood and get out the Le Creuset trusting that when stews become stifling, peas and artichokes and asparagus will appear. But for now, watching the drizzle drip down my beanpole, I’m more than content that autumn is here.

{ Here’s a recipe to welcome the season  . . . enjoy! }