There’s a little bit of a chill in the air today. It’s not jacket weather yet by any stretch, but it’s just cool enough that you can sense the change of seasons, feel it on your skin and smell it when the breeze blows. We’ve been seeing lots of geese flying overhead, and here and there a few maples are starting to turn orange. It gets dark much earlier in the evening so that lights are necessary almost immediately upon returning home from work.

We’re winding up the vegetable garden — the peppers are racing the first frost to the finish line, and I picked our first eggplant this past weekend. There’s one more about ready for picking, and if we’re lucky, we’ll have a few more zucchini before that plant, too, gives up the ghost. The tomatoes have been over and done with for a couple of weeks now, the last harvest being green ones we picked before the blight got them.

Inevitably, the end of summer and the first scent of crisp air makes me think of cold weather cooking. Instead of a quick pasta dish, I’m thinking of a pot of beautiful butternut squash soup. Instead of tossing a steak on the grill, I’m thinking of a slow-roasted chicken, perhaps accompanied by some equally slow-roasted root vegetables. I’m thinking pot roast instead of hamburgers, stews instead of salads. As the days get shorter, the pleasures of the kitchen and the dinner table beckon us indoors.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll mention it now: October is my favorite month of the year. One of the pleasures of living in New England is the change in pace wrought by each passing season. I can’t wait to switch gears.