Seasonal Quotes

“It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

“Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run. And what it did to Northern forests can hardly be described, considering that it iced the branches of the sycamores on Chrystie Street and swept them back and forth until they rang like ranks of bells.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood—
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.”
― Bliss Carman

“Spring is the fountain of love for thirsty winter”
― Munia Khan

“The Steadfast Love of the Lord is not Seasonal; His Mercies do not have winter or summer days... They are new every now and then.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“... 'But Gold was not all. The other kings bring Frank Innocence and Mirth.' | Darcourt was startled, then delighted. 'That is very fine, Yerko; is it your own?' | 'No, it is in the story. I saw it in New York. The kings say, We bring you Gold, Frank Innocence, and Mirth.' | 'Sancta simplicitas,' said Darcourt, raising his eyes to mine. 'If only there were more Mirth in the message He has left to us. We miss it sadly, in the world we have made. And Frank Innocence. Oh, Yerko, you dear man.' ...”
― Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels

“People came from far and wide to see the Italian Gardens and buy a honeycomb or damson jam in the farm shop. The wool from the sheep and the cheese from the goats drew buyers in a queue the day they were ready for purchase. In June, the pick-your-own strawberry fields were filled with children carrying baskets of berries, their lips stained red with sweet juice. In August, the dahlia fields were so flush with color that the cloudy days seemed brighter, and in autumn the apple and pear orchards were woven through with ladders and littered with overflowing bushels.”
― Ellen Herrick, The Forbidden Garden

“The fruit alone inspired him. In the heat of summer there were mirabelles from Alsace: small and golden cherries, speckled with red. And Reine Claude from Moissac, sweet thin-skinned plums the color of lettuce touched with gold. In August, green hazelnuts and then green walnuts, delicate, milky and fresh. And of course, for just a moment in early fall, pêches de vigne, a rare subtle peach so remarkable that a shipment was often priced at a year's wages. And right before winter, Chasselas de Moissac grapes: small, pearlescent, and so graceful that they grow in Baroque clusters, as if part of a Caravaggio still life.”
― N.M. Kelby, White Truffles in Winter

“Helen found ways to sneak summer into the dark months of the year, canning and freezing the fruit off their trees in July and August and using it extravagantly throughout the winter- apple chutney with the Thanksgiving turkey, raspberry sauce across the top of a December pound cake, blueberries in January pancakes.”
― Erica Bauermeister, The School of Essential Ingredients

“Chikako and Ben's lives are inexorably linked linked to an ever-expanding list of seasonal tasks. In summer, they work through the garden bounty, drying and pickling the fruits and vegetables at peak ripeness. Fall brings chestnuts to pick, chili paste to make, mushrooms to hunt. Come winter, Noto's seas are flush with the finest sea creatures, which means pickling fish for hinezushi and salting squid guts for ishiri. In the spring, after picking mountain vegetables and harvesting seaweed, they plant the garden and begin the cycle that will feed them, their family, and their guests in the year ahead.”
― Matt Goulding, Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture

“The only point that everyone I spoke with in Rome agrees upon is that Armando al Pantheon is one of the city's last true trattorie.
Given the location, Claudio and his family could have gone the way of the rest of the neighborhood a long time ago and mailed it in with a handful of fresh mozzarella and prosciutto. But he's chosen the opposite path, an unwavering dedication to the details- the extra steps that make the oxtail more succulent, the pasta more perfectly toothsome, the artichokes and favas and squash blossoms more poetic in their expression of the Roman seasons.
"I experiment in my own small ways. I want to make something new, but I also want my guests to think of their mothers and grandmothers. I want them to taste their infancy, to taste their memories. Like that great scene in Ratatouille."
I didn't grow up on amatriciana and offal, but when I eat them here, they taste like a memory I never knew I had. I keep coming back. For the cacio e pepe, which sings that salty-spicy duet with unrivaled clarity, thanks to the depth charge of toasted Malaysian peppercorns Claudio employs. For his coda alla vaccinara, as Roman as the Colosseum, a masterpiece of quinto quarto cookery: the oxtail cooked to the point of collapse, bathed in a tomato sauce with a gentle green undertow of celery, one of Rome's unsung heroes. For the vegetables: one day a crostini of stewed favas and pork cheek, the next a tumble of bitter puntarelle greens bound in a bracing anchovy vinaigrette. And always the artichokes. If Roman artichokes are drugs, Claudio's are pure poppy, a vegetable so deeply addictive that I find myself thinking about it at the most inappropriate times. Whether fried into a crisp, juicy flower or braised into tender, melting submission, it makes you wonder what the rest of the world is doing with their thistles.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“Go light, light, light, said the pastry chef. Not too hard, the touch. So I simmered the fruit with sugar. Eased together a batter, barely stirring. The shortcakes came whispering from the oven, pale mounds, uncompromised. I slipped fingers into their heat. Outside the grass was scant and dead and below my pane of mountain sky, smog clung to the lowlands like scum on stock, one unending gray season. But on my tongue it was summer and it was spring and seasons flourished and vines ran high. Butter and fruit: my mouth an orchard in the sun.”
― C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

“He showed me how each wheel was stamped with the month and year, and then he cracked the first one open to reveal its pale cream-colored interior. He chipped off a hefty shard and handed it to me. I took a bite, and my mouth filled with the hopeful taste of fresh green grass and young field flowers welcoming the sun.
"That's the spring cheese." Sal was cracking the next wheel, which was stamped with an autumn date; he chipped off a little piece. The color was deeper, almost golden, the texture heavier and nubbier. When I put the cheese in my mouth it was richer, and if I let it linger on my tongue I could taste the lush fields of late summer, just as the light begins to die.
Sal sliced off a slab of winter cheese and put that into my mouth. It felt different on my tongue, smoother somehow, the flavor sharper. "It's like a different cheese." I was savoring it. I tasted again; there was a familiar flavor. "It tastes like hay!"
"Yes!" Sal was openly delighted. "I knew you were going to be able to taste how different this cheese is! Most Americans don't even notice, but that cheese is so different that, back in the old days, it was sold under a different name. The Parmesan made from December to March, when the cows were in the barn, was called 'invernengo'- winter cheese- because the flavor is so distinct.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Jasmine stopped at the entrance of Sutton Place Gourmet and sniffed. Pumpkin. She could smell the gourds from where she stood. A good start. Let's see. She sniffed again. A bit of thyme. Not sage. Thyme. Her brain stretched and shook the cobwebs away. Ummm, pumpkin braised until meltingly soft, mashed with mascarpone and spread between thin layers of fresh pasta... a delicate cream sauce infused with thyme. Would it work? A touch of very, very slowly cooked and mellow garlic. That would be the trick. Dash of nutmeg. Yes. Jasmine was salivating as she pushed her cart toward the vegetable section.
Freshly spritzed vegetables lay glistening in brightly colored rows. Cabbage of cobalt blue, fern-green fresh dill, and cut pumpkin the color of riotous caramel. Jasmine rubbed her hands together. Autumn was a favorite season for her. Most cooks preferred spring and summer, yearning for fresh bites of flavor after a dark, heavy winter. The fragrant tomatoes, the bright bursting berries, the new spring vegetables as lively and adorable as new lambs. But Jasmine yearned for the rich tastes of the earth. She was a glutton for root vegetables, simmered in stocks, enriched with butter and dark leafy herbs. She imagined them creamy, melting on her tongue, the nutrients of the rich soil infusing her blood.”
― Nina Killham, How to Cook a Tart

“Unlike the miso soup served in restaurants, however, which contains lots of little goodies, like seaweed and diced tofu, the miso soup served at a tea kaiseki usually features one central ingredient that breaks the soup's surface. Depending upon the season, you might encounter a square of bean curd, a ball of wheat gluten, or a wheel of daikon radish simmered in dashi until butterscotch sweet. These central ingredients are usually cooked separately before being placed in the soup bowl and crowned with a seasonal garnish, such as fall chestnut, peppery spring shoot, or fragrant summer herb.”
― Victoria Abbott Riccardi, Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

“Long-term goals are like planting a tree that will bear fruits only after a few years. These trees take a long time to grow but they provide lasting benefits. Unlike the seasonal crop that gives you benefits only once, the trees keep bearing fruits year after year without much effort. However, you have to constantly work for a couple of years even when no fruit is in sight. You must have faith and the motivation to be able to put in continuous effort for a long time.”
― Awdhesh Singh, 31 Ways to Happiness

“After living an allergy free life, I developed seasonal allergies after having a CT X-Ray radiation scan of my lungs.”
― Steven Magee

“Compassion is not a seasonal feeling.
Every real human must show it at all times.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“Ambling through the market, I spot baskets of purple and orange cauliflower, bundles of Swiss chard and collard greens, and crates of Honeycrisp apples and Italian prune plums. The tables at the market always feel a little schizophrenic this time of year, as piles of fat summer tomatoes rub shoulders with apples and knobby winter squash. Just as the late-summer fruits and vegetables are celebrating their last hurrah, the autumn harvest makes its timid debut, competing for the attention of market-goers who may have tired of the surfeit of corn on the cob and tomato salad, but who may not be ready to commit to six months of gourds.”
― Dana Bate, The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs

“Four & Twenty is a seasonal bakeshop- it is Brooklyn, after all, where seasonal, local, and sustainable are the altars at which all foodies worship. The sisters aren't opposed to experimenting with off-season or foraged ingredients but prefer following the popular credo that just so happened to also be their grandma's philosophy: "It just feels better," Emily explains. "Local is so much better and tastier." While they constantly develop new recipes- honey rosemary shoofly, chocolate bourbon mint, strawberry kefir lime- there is one fan favorite that the Elsens make year round: the salted caramel apple pie. In a show of romanticism, Andrew and I decided to split a slice.
Apple pie takes many forms: chunky fruit or dainty slices, oozing with juices, laden with spices, crumbly tops, and moist middles. Without even taking a bite, I knew this was going to be special. The thinly sliced apple rings- visible from the side but obscured from above by thick, sugar-dusted latticework- were densely stacked. Along with a commitment to seasonal fruit and local ingredients, the sisters are hell-bent on having an all-butter crust. "A good crust is a mark of someone who's paid a lot of attention and who cares about what they're making," Emily insists. They don't use Crisco or lard, no margarine or hot oil- just pure butter with a titch of apple cider vinegar to add a little tang, tenderness, and the right flake.
Andrew let me take the first bite. The pie had a perfect amount of give. It was soft and juicy, but not soggy (the downfall of promising slices in lesser hands). Neither sweet nor tart, the salted caramel enrobed the fruit and added a note of savoriness. As promised, the crust was killer.”
― Amy Thomas, Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself

“Eugenians are proud of the regional bounty and were passionate about incorporating local, seasonal, and organic ingredients well before it was back in vogue. Anglers are kept busy in fresh waters, fishing for wild chinook salmon in the spring and steelhead in the summer, and sweet Dungeness crab is abundant in the estuaries year-round. Local farmers gather every Saturday downtown to sell homegrown organic produce and honey, foraged mushrooms, and wild berries. The general demographic is of hippies who protest Whole Foods in favor of local co-ops, wear Birkenstocks, weave hair wraps to sell at outdoor markets, and make their own nut butter. They are men with birth names like Herb and River and women called Forest and Aurora.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“ HEJ HEJ! CAFÉ MENU

RULLEKEBAB
Original (Rullekebab)----shaved seasoned beef, fresh flatbread, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, kebab sauce
Blue Kebab (Rullekebab med blåmögelost)----Original Rullekebab with blue cheese
Shroom Kebab (Rullekebab med champinjoner)----Original Rullekebab with mushrooms
Hej Hej! Special Rullekebab----Original Rullekebab with pineapple, blue cheese, jalapeños

HAMBURGARE
Hand-patted, local grass-fed beef, homemade buns

The Classic----beef, choice of cheese, bun
The Gettysburg----caramelized shallots, mushrooms, blue cheese, bacon, balsamic glaze
The Farfar----two patties, four slices of American cheese, four pieces of bacon
The Gruff Burger----goat cheese, fries (on top!), caramelized shallots, poutine gravy to dip
The Valedictorian----pepper-jack cheese, bacon, guacamole (from Rosa's)

POMMES FRITES
Fresh-cut fries

Plain----with cheese or gravy to dip
Loaded Kebab Fries----fresh-cut fries, chopped kebab meat, red and white kebab sauces, crumbled feta, diced jalapeños and tomatoes
Goat Cheese Poutine----fresh-cut fries, house-made gravy, goat cheese crumbles


MUNKAR
Äpple Munk----fresh donut, cinnamon sugar, filled w/ apple and sweet cream
Bär Munk----fresh donut, sugar, seasonal berry jam, sweet cream
Munkhål----baby donuts (holes), cinnamon sugar
Special Munk----daily and seasonal specials


CUPCAKES
Vanilla Wedding Cake, Devil's Food, Lemon, Strawberry Cheesecake, Weekly Specials

SEASONAL TREATS
Homemade Apple Crisp à la Mode
Apple Fritters
Pumpamunk
Saffron Buns”
― Jared Reck, Donuts and Other Proclamations of Love

“I was surprised when I started to use light therapy in summertime 2020 that I had seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and was responding to the treatment.”
― Steven Magee

“The continuous all year long fatigue and depression is what separates Bright Light Adaptation Disease (BLAD) from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).”
― Steven Magee

“My allergies completely disappeared after moving to Hawaii. I had suspected Tucson was causing them, as much of the pollen is coming from cactus, which I know I have no genetic adaptation to. Numerous people report the development of seasonal allergies when they start living in Tucson. It is a known aspect of living there for many.”
― Steven Magee, Magee’s Disease

“Light therapy is associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which brings on depression symptoms in some people during wintertime and in others during summertime, called “Reverse SAD”. The treatment requires shining a really bright light (10,000 lux) onto the face and arms typically from 15 to 60 minutes in the morning. This is done as soon as the person wakes up.”
― Steven Magee, Magee’s Disease

“While most people turn to coffee for their daytime energy, using a Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) therapy light for fifteen minutes can have similar energy effects.”
― Steven Magee, Hypoxia, Mental Illness & Chronic Fatigue

“Sweetfish with pickled plum. I like it!"
"This is the season for pike conger, but since they're better down in Kyoto I decided instead to use sweetfish that was caught this morning in the Kano River."
"Wow, this one is such a pretty, light pink color. The flesh is smooth, and it has a nice, firm texture..."
"It's saltwater eel sashimi. Tastes rich."
"Lessee, then the last one is..."
"It's flyingfish sashimi from Sagami Bay. Please try it with the miso vinaigrette."
"Hmm... flyingfish has a strong taste that's probably too much for most people.
But this miso dressing gives it a nice, rich flavor.”
― Tetsu Kariya, Japanese Cuisine

“While they were in the hospital, the Egg Moon had slipped away, and the new Mother's Moon had arrived. After that, in June, would come the Rose Moon, what Ada McIntyre called the Strawberry Moon because strawberries, wild and domestic, ripened. After the strawberries came the mulberries and blackcap raspberries, then the blackberries, the blueberries, and finally, the cranberries.”
― Bonnie Jo Campbell, The Waters

“For spring and summer, Dina baked delicate and light pastries fragranced with rosewater, meskouta orange bundt cake, and delicate raspberry macarons. When strawberries were in season in early June, she made airy fraisier cake. For autumn and winter, Dina worked with heavier ingredients: thick, dark chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, gingerbread, and pumpkin. As the days grew colder and the light dimmed earlier and earlier, people started to crave that feeling of warmth and comfort. And Dina would give that to them, even if only for a short while. One special bake for this season was a ginger and persimmon cake, yellowed with saffron strands, which Dina had bought on her last trip to Morocco, and fresh vanilla pods, their sweet scent so potent that it wafted across the café.
This was in addition to all the regular pastries and cakes she had on offer, which were all recipes her mother had taught her to bake. The cake made with dark honey from the Atlas mountains was an all-time customer favorite. Dina had imbibed it with a very specific spell, a childhood memory of a time that she must have fallen asleep on a car ride home, and although she was a little too big to be carried, she remembered her father lifting her into his arms, her mother closing the car door softly so as not to wake her, then carrying her upstairs and tucking her into bed.
When she'd been fashioning the spell for the first time, it had occurred to Dina that one day your parents put you down and they never picked you up again, and so she'd made the honey cake to recreate that feeling of childhood comfort. That sensation of someone taking the utmost care of you, holding you close, was a feeling that many in the rushing city of London didn't experience often.
Sometimes she wondered if she was really in the business of café ownership, or if she was more of a fairy godmother in disguise. Undeniably, the magical pastries were great at keeping customers coming back for more, so that was a bonus on the businesswoman side of things.”
― Nadia El-Fassi, Best Hex Ever