So, there is a distinct chill in the air, not properly cold, just an end of summer nip about the ears when you go outside.  Enough to make me think about lighting the fire and there being a subtle shift in what we eat.  I won’t stop putting salads of some kind on the table, nor will we have already had the last barbecue of the year, but when the leaves start to turn I can’t help thinking of butternut roasted until the edges caramelise, a proper apple and just picked blackberry crumble or tart.  Or of Chilli, warm spicy and seasonally orangey red, a suitable precursor to all those beloved stews of winter.  Of soup.

It is clever how, when the seasons change, our cravings do too.  I know a salad made from sunny garden tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella festooned with marjoram is absolutely delicious, it is just I don’t want it now.  Rather a robust salad of roasted beetroot, feta and rocket – still a salad but heartier somehow, if a salad can be such a thing.  A peach melba with a juicy ripe peach, fresh raspberry sauce and proper vanilla is a thing of beauty, but at this time of year I think I’d rather have hot chocolate sauce on my ice cream, going all gooey and chewy as the warm hits the cold.