Through the autumn trees, I can see the horses on the neighboring farm move slowly. The leaves themselves are gold, russet, green, with bright red berries scattered throughout. The window is open, and the air is sharp, cold, and the clouds have been putting on such a show of shadowy grays that they must have their own hashtag. All day Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone has been open on my kitchen table like a bible. It is over seven-hundred loose-leaf sized pages, and every so often I look at it as I nibble on this and that. Here is how to prepare dozens of canapés; here is how to remove a baked tart shell from its panwithout it falling apart. Here is how I can take cream, saffron, pine nuts, and pasta, and create a dish fit for a royal feast.

Covid had taken away my cheery dreams of feasts, though ten people can still gather around a table at a time, preferably outdoors. I mostly eat alone, but largely well, unless sheer laziness drives me to crackers and cheese for dinner. Tonight, the election results in the US will roll in, and most everyone’s vote will get counted. If we are lucky, it will be a while to know the results, and sense will prevail. There will needed change. Four years ago, I went to bed early, confident that the vote would tirn out the way I wanted, only to be rudely awakened. I don’t know what will happen tonight. There’s an online election party hosted by a local art gallery I might tune into, and there is the Danish comedy I’m currently catching up on. There is a plate of honeynut coins I fried in olive oil (Vegetarian, p. 440) that might serve as a pizza topping with some sage leaves and crumbly gorgonzola, if I remembered to stock that cheese in the fridge. Every few seconds, I chase my cat off the counter; she doesn’t understand daylight savings time, off the counter, and wants to eat now, right now, omg, this second.

I have a birthday in a few days. One grey hair has found itself to my right eyebrow. I have fifty-nine tulip bulbs to plant this week, the same number as my age today.