Just in Time: Honey Lime Peach Tart

Every time I look at the calendar I have to blink a few times.  Is it really September already?  Summer certainly gets a speeding ticket.  It seems like yesterday when I was putting the finishing touches on the cookbook edits and summer was waiting in the wings.  Today I'm wearing socks and on my third cup of tea.  Fall is in the air, but I'm not too keen to rush into the sweaters and scarves and pumpkin pie just yet.  There are 6 months of that to come.  For me, it's still ice cream and all of the seasonal fruit that I love so much.  Peaches, nectarines, Concord grapes, strawberries.  I can't even look at a pumpkin as long as these are still around!  I wait all winter for summer to come, so you better believe I'll hold on as long as I can.  But, I'm no fool.  The smell of fall is wafting around, and the first golden leaves are falling.  I do like these end of summer days, and can certainly feel a transition happening.  Most of our lives are spent in transition.  The sweet passing moments between the moments; the rhythmic flows between the words.  Let's love the transitions like they're destinations.  Let's put all the worries and stress aside and just appreciate how nicely the sun goes down. And how tasty that ice cream is.  And how good it feels to have the hand of someone you love holding your own.    

Saucy Spiced Beef & Lentil Meatballs with Linguine

I've unpacked my luggage (thankful a bottle of wine didn't break!), done the laundry, resumed my routine and yet my 7 day excursion to Montréal still is at the forefront of my mind, and will be for a long time, I imagine.  There's so much to tell, I don't really know where to begin.  This could be a long post, so go make a cup of tea and grab a snack (leftover Halloween candy maybe?) and curl up with me for a bit.   I suppose I should begin at that moment when I first saw the city I left so long ago.  We descended over soccer fields and rows of brick houses; trees with amber leaves still clinging.  A friend met me at the airport - I hadn't seen her since 1998, when I was a nanny for her small children - now grown young men.  What a way to age oneself - seeing kids you once used to read Goodnight Moon to now in University writing essays and all that fun stuff.  That afternoon and the next we walked and walked, me finding the rhythm in my step I once had when I was a fresh-faced young art student living away from home for the first time.  I saw some old haunts (my first apartment!), and ate all the good stuff you eat while in Montréal - almond croissants, bagels (oh the bagels!) and smoked meat sandwiches.  It was totally glutinous, but I figured since I was walking so much, the calories didn't count.  Logical thinking, yes?