Fall is the best cooking season

It's delicata squash season

What a week, huh? A lot of very big news happened this week. I spent a lot of my time at my job covering all of that news. It’s all that’s been on many people’s minds.

But for this newsletter, I’m not gonna talk about the news at all. Instead, I’m going to talk about something fun that brings me joy: fall produce!

One of my hottest takes is that fall produce is, without a doubt, the best produce season. My definitive ranking of produce seasons is:

1. Fall

2. Summer

3. Winter

4. Spring

Why? Well, listen, I don’t need to spend a lot of words on spring and winter produce. Peas and asparagus and blood oranges are all flavorless and boring, sorry. Ramps are overrated (I am sure someone will reply and try to change my mind, but so far I have never found a ramp recipe I liked). Fiddleheads are awful. (I doubt anyone is going to reply to defend fiddleheads, I don’t know anyone who likes them).

And then there’s summer. Sure, I do love summer produce. Peaches, strawberries, plums, corn, tomatoes — summer is full of amazing produce! But summer’s not a cooking season. Summer tends to have the opposite effect for me: it makes me want to not cook. Why spend your time indoors cooking when you can be outside living? Who wants to turn on their oven and overheat their apartment when it’s 90 degrees out? The only things I want to eat in summer are things that involve no cooking: caprese salads, corn salads, slaws, fresh fruit.

But fall is different. Once it starts getting colder out, we start burrowing back into our apartments, preparing for the winter. We start craving warm recipes again, breaking out our instant pots and crockpots and feeling more inclined to turn on the oven to roast things and bake things. We’re indoors more, and thus have a lot more time on our hands to cook, too. And with fall comes so many new and delicious things to cook: sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, squash, pumpkin, apples… I love them all.

I particularly love squash. Butternut, delicata, kabocha, acorn, spaghetti, all of it. Squash is one of the most underrated vegetables. It can seem intimidating; they’re large and heavy and tough to cut through. But you don’t need to be afraid of them! With good, sharp knives you can do it easily (you need a paring knife and a good chef’s knife — I have this one and this one, both Wirecutter recommended). Chop them up, roast them, and it completely changes the texture and brings out all this hidden sweetness and flavor. And you can do so many things with them: grain bowls, salads, pair them with a sauce, put them in pastas or puree and blend them into soups.

Butternut squash gets all the glory, and yes, it’s great. I love butternut squash soups, roasted butternut squash, and using pureed butternut squash in pastas. But my favorite types of squash are delicata and kabocha. Delicata squash slices up into nice beautiful rings and tastes delicious simply roasted with olive oil and some warm spices, like nutmeg and cinnamon. Kabocha squash has this rich flavor that’s perfect sliced and roasted or pureed into a soup.

So in honor of fall produce season, I rounded up my favorite fall recipes that I’ve made over the last several years, and put them into a spreadsheet of recommendations for you (H/T to Girls Night In for the great idea). It’s heavy on tons of creative ways to use squash and sweet potatoes, and all stuff I’ve personally tried and loved — from instant pot sweet potato curry to butternut squash baked pasta to sweet potato chili and sweet potato fajitas and a pumpkin chickpea curry. I hope it gives you the fall cooking inspiration you need.

I’d love to hear about your favorite fall recipes, too! Please feel free to share your recommendations with me in the comments section of this post — I’m always looking for new ideas.

What I’m reading

The stages of gentrification, as told by restaurant openings, Eater. First come the cafes, then the Michelin starred restaurants, then the chains.

‘Am I The Asshole?’ reveals America’s sexist underbelly, Gen.

Celebrate the House Meal, the go-to dish when there’s no one to satisfy but yourself, Eater. My house meal is clean-out-the-fridge fried rice, with whatever vegetables are still in my fridge, and kimchi.

Mothers’ careers are at extraordinary risk right now, The Atlantic.

A TikTok house divided, Vox. I didn’t know much about TikTok stars or TikTok houses before, but after reading this piece, I feel like I understand that world a little better.

Tanqueray, Humans of New York star, brings in $2.5 million in donations, New York Times. It’s worth your time to read Tanqueray’s whole story on the HONY Instagram, too.

The lifestyle blog voter, Culture Study. A good piece on a group of Trump voters that’s often forgotten: middle class, bougie, lifestyle blog-reading white women who want to maintain the lifestyle they’ve achieved.

And if you hated this week’s presidential debate (who didn’t?), watch this to feel better.

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