october glory

October, a strange kingdom wherein I try to begin to care about the indoors–organizing, giving away, ordering shoes, check socks sizes. But the outdoors is still the most rewarding and wonderful. There has been weeks of drought here, so I took a chance and left the bedsheets on the line overnight. It rained for the first time in weeks!

a few things to share…

Homemade caramel sauce for apple dipping: I just I want to emphasize how easy and pleasant this is to make! It’s like making tea for yourself, waiting for it to steep, and then drinking it. We have been slicing up several apples and leaning in around the table, sharing this delicious treat. Alice notes: stir with a wooden spoon. It’s basically alchemy, magic with sugar and cream, but do stir with a wooden spoon.

Favorite easy recipe from Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food:

• Measure and set aside: 3/4 cup heavy cream
• Put 1 cup sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed sauce.
• Carefully pour in: 6 tablespoons water
• Cook over medium heat, without stirring, until the sugar starts to caramelize. Swirl the pan gently if the sugar is browning unevenly. When the caramel is uniformly golden brown, remove from the heat (this caramelizing takes about 6-10 minutes). Stand back from the pan and add 1/4 cup of the measured cream. Stir slowly with a wooden spoon, until combined. Add the rest of the cream and: 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.
• Let cool and strain if necessary. Serve warm or let cool and store in the refrigerator for up 2 weeks. Reheat gently over simmering water before serving.

To watch: My brother Wilson recommended the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher. Gorgeous ocean cinematography, absolutely startling storyline, and intimately relatable narrative. Put it on the list for this weekend.

In Lux’s opinion, Chris Colfer’s series Land of Stories is the only series on earth that rivals Harry Potter. He has a new book out this week.

The podcast search trick: Did you know you can search podcasts for specific names? So if you have someone you want to learn from, search for their name, and you’ll find all the interviews they’ve ever done on random podcasts, throughout time. For example, I wanted to find some interview with Yolanda Edwards and just you know, hear her talk about her life. Turns out she’s done tons of interviews. This works on Spotify and the native Apple podcast app. Lovely.