September

What a relief. The month of cooler days and beautiful light. September is here with its shortened days offering gorgeous ripe figs and the grapes which draw groups of people into the fields with harvesting shears. This is the perfect weather month with its cool nights and apple-and-pear-coloured aura. There are pomegranates, dark spinach, pale fennel and escarole greens, and sudden wild mushroom browns sprouting up everywhere after the first rains. Mushroom pickers keep their source a secret, but everyone is cooking mushrooms in one way or another.