Don't you just love autumn, with its colors toasted by the long summer sun, its air wafting with spice and earth . . .

I am very fond of autumn, at least what I think of as autumn. It signals the waning of the full ripening cycle of living and fruiting things on the earth, an anticipatory time when wind should be sweeping out old leaves and old habits and letting in the last cracked-open windows and doors an air of things to come. I’m having a little trouble getting my personal clock synchronized to believe it’s autumn right now, though. Sliding ever so gradually out of a blast-furnace summer so that temperatures in the middle of the night are still too warm for a coat and the roses and cosmos decide they can finally get into bloom–in October–contradicts my sense of logic when juxtaposed with being back in the school-and-concert season. And don’t get me started on the two-week “winter” thing!

I don’t dislike the virtually perpetual bathing in sunlight, no, you’re never going to hear a serious complaint from a SAD-sack like me about too much light, but I find the whole thing just a little confusing. I didn’t come from a land of perfectly defined, archetypal seasons, either, but there was a certain rhythm and temperature change that even in the temperate northwest tended to make me think seasonal thoughts with relative ease. So I could really get behind the whole logic of eating seasonally as well as locally. Up to a point. See, out there I had, admittedly, an overabundance of a whole range of foods available fresh and nearby for a bigger chunk of the calendar year than those living in more truly distinct seasonal climates could have. I might have to trade out one fish or vegetable for another, even one fruit for another, from month to month, but having a truckload of choices at all times spoils one for having to think very hard.

Here in Texas it seems there’s an even finer line between when you can and can’t get foods at their peak. So if I’m not getting clues from the outside temperature or the scent of the air, I’m having to rely more heavily on more artificial indicators of What It’s Time to Do, culinarily speaking. Frankly, it’s still picnic-and-popsicle weather around here when we’re practically hitting Midterms and the first big flurry of constant recitals and concerts of the year, and I feel, well, a little weird wearing sandals and short sleeves to attend those things. I’m almost grateful that most indoor events tend to be overenthusiastic with the air blowers so that the air conditioning requires my bundling up indoors, at least, even if I can’t do so outdoors yet.

Meanwhile, all of the food writers I love and all of the sitcoms and stores and advertisers are conspiring to tell me it’s long since time for pumpkins and braised lamb shanks and don’t forget, Talking Turkey, because as well all know, Thanksgiving has already happened in Canada and that means it’s headed our way! I just can’t quite reconcile the whole thing. It’s not that I don’t find pretty much everything not nailed down quite delicious regardless of time of day, month, or year if it’s available–sometimes it’s all about whether it seems right.

So I leaned ever so slightly off the summer chuckwagon when I made lunch the other day, because even if the weather refuses to cooperate with my sense of seasonal propriety, I’m darned well going to have a touch of autumn. I don’t suppose, when it comes right down to brass tacks, that there are limits to what tastes good at any given time, so if I can lay hands on it and it’s not so artificially shelf-stabilized as to have the half-life of radium, I guess I need to just make my own seasons here.

Duck breast with wine sauce, carrot chips and bok choy

I kept the preparation simple both because it’s my M.O. and because anything more demanding would’ve taken enough time to kill off my urge for something a tad autumnal, as I’d break a very unladylike sweat in these temperatures if I got the least bit hyperactive in the kitchen. Duck breast sous vide is, I must say, a dandy and handy fix. I figured if the maximum time recommended for medium-rare duck breast s-v was about eight hours, the same temperature for a lot longer could bring it to the edge of confit, and so it was. All that remained by the time I’d put together a dish of quick steamed bok choy in light ginger-lime-soy-sesame dressing and reduced a handful of blackberries, a cup of Merlot and a knob of butter to a syrup and strained it and sweetened it up with a spoonful of Texas red plum jam was to sear the duck skin and plate it all up. As usual I took an exceedingly casual approach to the latter action (as you can see above), which was just as well because those pieces of duck hadn’t a hope of staying in neat perky little slices by the time they’d been virtually melted. In that condition, they would in fact make pretty fabulous tender shredded duck tacos, the direction I suspect I’ll take next time I lay hands on el pato fantástico. If it looks like a taco and quacks like a taco . . . .

So at last I’ve started edging my way toward eating something that at least sounds more autumnal to me than all of the stuff I’ve felt right eating up to now. Perhaps feeding my sense of the season by the forkful will have a better chance of getting me in an autumn frame of mind than what the relentlessly summery weather has managed to do so far. Otherwise, I’ll wait too long and it’ll be winter I’m having to invent, so I’d best get moving on this or I’ll hardly have myself ready for all of the necessary delights awaiting me.

All seasons have their gifts . . .