This being the season of mellow fruitfulness, it really should be better advertised. Except for college kids and leaf colour nerds, autumn is too often portrayed as the end of something rather than a thing in itself. Like New Brunswick, it's too often thought transitional - something to get through. Or maybe I mean to say that unlike New Brunswick, it shouldn't be just considered transitional...that's better.

So far this lengthened long weekend, these are the foody observations:

• Figs. Where have I been that fresh figs are not part of my annual ritual. Straight up, wrapped in thin lean prosciutto - lean not for calories so much as the fact that the unlean stuff leaves a challenge of biting through the stringy elastic fat.
• Lamb. The sausages I threw on the BBQ the other night had black pepper, rosemary and mint. Fabulously tasty animal flesh. It is now the local time for the butchering of lambs but it has been over ten years since I knew of a proudly proclaiming regular source of fresh local fall lamb. I need to one hunt out.
• The right tipples. We are moving from pale ale, sweet cinzano and gin season into the time of porter and olosoro sherry. Stouts, cream sherry and whisky are months off yet. If you need a hint, the beer blog has a series on Porter Season.
• Bread. Time to carb load. I have a pal, a poster hereabouts once in a while, who had the greatest line about life: "I run so I can eat pie." Well, I think I am doing sit-ups (200 yesterday) to eat bread and drink beer. We have at least four good and different bakeries in town and this week we found another, a source of remarkable bread sticks. I am not telling where.
• Garden vegetables. I still have tomatoes, basil, blue potatoes, beets, storage onions, collards and kale in the garden. Next year, more fall flowers and more fall food are getting planted as Easlakia has proven itself to have what a Maritimer would call "summer" from May to October.

Teaching the kids about real good food is one of the better aspects of being totally Dad. If June is the beginning of when you teach them river swimming, this is around the time when a whole new slice of good eating kicks in. And, yes, turkey tonight.