Despite the heat wave last week in Berkeley, it’s fall!
Fall always feels like a time of transition for me, and even moreso this year. We just had Baby K’s four month pediatrician appointment, our oldest is over a month into middle school, and I’m making the transition back to full-time work. So many changes!
With the change of seasons, I often find myself feeling more tired that usual. Maybe it’s our mammalian desire to get cozy and hunker down for the winter. Although I grew up on the East Coast where there are four distinct seasons, and also much prefer the beautiful year-round Bay Area weather, I do miss the ambient markers of the seasonal change.
I remember listening to an Edit Your Life podcast episode a few years back where Christine Koh and Asha Dornfest (podcast hosts) shared a few of her fall delights. I loved this episode because it was a great reminder that we can be intentional about seasonal delights, and these little joys can help us make these transitions more gracefully. Here are some of my fall delights so far.
Seasonal decor
Last week, it just felt right to pull out our small collection of fall decor — not much, just a few crochet pumpkins I made a few year back, some Trader Joe’s pine cones, a few ornamental gourds…
I also spent an evening feeling unreasonably stressed out that no one seemed interested in helping me decide what Baby K was going to be for Halloween. How would I decide between all the cute animal costumes we could possibly put her in? A moment of joy and relief came when Naveed pointed out that we really didn’t have to limit ourselves to one outfit. Who says costumes and cute cozy onesies are just for Halloween?
Soon we’ll find a good time for pumpkin carving and roasting pumpkin seeds.
Comfort foods
Fall and winter are when I suddenly want to bring out the dutch oven or instant pot and let some soups simmer.
Comfort foods for me are usually warm Asian soups or noodles. Some recent recipes I’ve enjoyed:
oyakodon - chicken and egg over rice, yum
chow mein - Alina ate about 8 servings of this in one night. Their teenage appetite has arrived.
curry chicken salad - ok this is not warm, but it was very delicious with S&B curry powder
pasta bake - I don’t know if I followed a recipe, but I used a pound of ground beef, cooked rigatoni, a bottle of Rao’s, spinach, and various shredded cheeses we had in the fridge
Neighborhood walking
Just a few months ago, I was lamenting that our house isn’t that walkable. It’s not just around the corner from a downtown area or fun bakeries or coffee shops.
When my brother’s family visited over the summer, I was shocked that they were walking 20-30 minutes from the hotel to our house rather than driving, with three young kids. This is when I realized that our house is indeed walkable, I am just lazy (and was pregnant this past year as well).
Once I wrapped my head around the new perspective that our house is actually walkable if I’m willing to walk more than 10 minutes, I’ve been walking with the stroller lots of places — the local library, the original Berkeley Bowl, a chai cafe downtown, even the small Target in Berkeley!
Walking almost daily in the neighborhood has made me more observant of the smaller seasonal changes. The plums that once littered the sidewalk are now gone, now replaced by figs. The passionfruit are slowly darkening and getting ready to be picked. The wild fennel is starting to dry out on the stalk.
In our own yard, the massive gingko tree is starting to drop its stinky fruit, and I can see the abundant fruit on the tree starting to turn orange.
Seasonal produce
Although Berkeley weather doesn’t vary quite that much over the year, you can see the seasons through the piles of fruit on display outside Berkeley Bowl.
On the two weekdays when I take care of Baby K, I walk her in the stroller to Berkeley Bowl and we pick up some produce and fresh ingredients. Our haul is conveniently limited to what can fit in her stroller basket.
End of summer produce is still abundant, with huge watermelons and other melon varieties. Berries are still in season. The dry-farmed early girl tomatoes are still available too. Our neighbor just dropped off a container of homemade peach ice cream, with what I imagine are some of the last peaches of the season.
Soon it’ll be citrus season and the satsuma and sumo citrus will be available.
Mid-Autumn festival
Our neighbor, who is Alina’s mandarin teacher, organized a neighborhood potluck for mid-autumn festival. I helped the kids put little LED lights in their lanterns, and they paraded down the block and back.
We weren’t sure at first how many people would attend, but soon the block was full with 30-40 people and the potluck table was covered with “round” foods to celebrate the moon, some more culturally relevant than others — BBQ pork buns, Oreos, Taiwanese tea eggs, moon cakes, pizza, chocolate chip cookies, and ritz crackers with salami.
My cultural contribution was peeling a pomelo and making a pomelo hat with the peel. I was delighted to see the little kids line up to take a photo with the pomelo hat on their heads.
The election
November is fast approaching. I’ve always found getting involved with elections to be something I feel like I should be doing more of. I always see other people doing things, and I think to myself, I should do things too. And then I don’t quite know where to start, and then before I know it, I’ve voted, and the election is over. Next time, I tell myself, I’ll do more.
This year, I let myself do what I felt drawn to do. I also really appreciated Asha Dornfest’s high-impact, low-stress, high-joy action plan, which helped me feel ok just doing stuff, even if it wasn’t the perfect plan of action. A local Buy Nothing group neighbor portioned out packs of 25 postcards for neighbors to write and send out. This felt easy, so I picked up a few bundles. We wrote them with friends and kids and are waiting to send them out in late October. I picked up a few more from neighbors and ordered some online as well to contribute to the Get Out the Vote effort.
I’m going to another postcard writing event tomorrow with a local creative moms community I’m a member of.
Maybe next time, I’ll be the one ordering thousands of postcards, separating them out into bundles, and leaving them on my porch for neighbors.
I can’t believe it’s almost October. This has been an immense year for transitions in my personal life, and letting myself find joyful moments like these has been so helpful in navigating the many transitions. I hope that whatever you’re going through, you can find some fall delights in your life as well.
Feel free to leave a comment with one of your fall delights!
I also live in a neighborhood that either is or is not walkable, depending on perspective! My own perspective on walkability shifted during the pandemic, and it was fun to read about how that happened for someone else. It’s so great once you realize it’s possible!
So lovely to read about your Berkeley life. It took me right back to living in the US. Here in England - it’s very similar, walking, cycling and exploring the countryside. In Bath we have the canal, river, and many hills (7 in fact surrounding the town - giving our local ‘7 Hills’ Music festival its name). And food of course - beef stews, coq au vin, soups, chicken stock, stewed apples from the garden, and lots of root veg. The biggest food shift is probably from overnight oats back to porridge - starting the day with something warm for the kids cycle up the hill to school. This autumn we sent our eldest off to Manchester for college so we are making extra effort to spend quality time with our other two (who, at 13 and 17 very much have there own lives going on!). Yesterday we drove for 40mins to get to Cheddar Gorge, a great hike up with dramatic views over the Mendips and SW England. We ended the day by stopping in Cheddar to buy the only cheddar cheese still made there (cheddaring is actually a process that involves folding and stacking the cheese as it sets). Thank you again for sharing your Fall Berkeley stories.