Out martha-ing martha

After a friday night of Strongbow fueled debauchery at Prosperity, I went to visit the family in Erie Co.

Dad got a smoker from my uncle and has been obsessed with cooking the perfect smoked turkey. As usual, it was amazing. Got-up-at-five-a.m.-and-started-the-process amazing.
And since it's that wonderful time between summer and fall harvests, we had the best of both along with dinner.

Sunday, I spent the day gathering the final tomatoes, zucchini, seckel pears from my grandmother's garden; but the lion's share of the time was spent gathering and husking chestnuts.

These aren't the kind that fell prey to the early 20th century blight, but they are edible and now represent my favorite part of fall.

We go out to the trees in turn, each coming back with a full half-peck basket. They're so plentiful that we sell them at a stand up the road, which is good, since I got gourds and pumpkins gratis.

I came home with a basket full of goodies, and spent this evening making concord grape sorbet and chocolate ice cream infused with chocolate mint.

I roasted chestnuts last evening on my neighbor's grill... v. good, but we left them too long with the chatting and the beer.

Throughout this weekend, I spent my free time knitting because after 3 attempts, I seem to finally get it.

So as long as I live within walking distance of downtown, I'll maintain my rural side. And I'm sure if I moved to a rural area, I'd become hyper-metropolitan.

So for now, I imagine my grandmother's as the country house and my apartment in Tremont as my pied de terre.