What's to cheer except weather? Indigenous Peoples Day coming along when many (most?) students are free from school (perhaps not the best way to put it).
The season also breeds more interest in cooking, with the dark creeping in stealthily and earlier each day. This affliction of mine - a hobby, you might say - takes over when I must face the fact it is really addiction. The reasons why I cling NYTimes Cooking so much are many but doubtless in this 'older age' (when doesn't the term apply?) I am reminded of the importance of pleasure in a fulfilling life. Of the need to be distracted (lest the body speak up with an uncertainty), sure of at least one routine: following a well researched recipe, (NYT is tops at this for sure) - a sense of security there I think, though no certainty I will have good results. I simply am not patient enough, and unwilling to think about the importance of proportions. Dividing the usual four person amount so that just one is satisfied: resistance to having an extra step and the sure thing I will then feel cheated. Oh how deep can I go with this subject: the practice/hobby/whatever forces a person to concentrate and thereby less prone to mindless wandering.
Plus, at least with NYT, so much learning is involved and sometimes stretching of the mental muscles brought about by reading a well written formula just like reading a deceptively simple aggregation of knowledge (the NYT both digital and print) and intelligent use of language.
