No One Has Ever Been Happier

November 1 was a gorgeous 80-degree day, spent working, tooling around in the car on errands all midday and eating two mozzarella sticks and a tangerine for lunch, then getting minor foot surgery I have needed for seven years (no, it does not hurt) and unflinchingly paying cash I had saved for that: so satisfying. Then at 4:00 p.m. at home serving myself my real lunch out on the Divine Porch, watching beautiful birds occupying the golden atmosphere, and after that, dessert. I had bought Golden Delicious apples because a recipe specified them. Compared with the cloying sweetness of Red Delicious apples, these are wonderfully tasty.

Apple slices with my day's cup of coffee, espresso, in the tiny hand-painted cup I brought home from Portugal after touring a ceramics factory in Coimbra and watching eight artists wielding pinpoint-tipped brushes to build amazing, entirely original designs on cups, plates, pitchers, and so on.

Sitting in the rocker, taking in the sunlight and scenery, breathing the delicious scent of coffee in this unique and pretty souvenir of a wonderful country, I thought that no one has ever been as happy as I was at that moment.

An Apple a Year

The Caramel Apple is a tradition with me. On a beautiful October afternoon I seat myself outdoors under the warm blue sky, and relish every bite of this annual seasonal treat. Nuggety crushed peanuts and pecans, thick sticky caramel, tart hard juicy red apple all in one bite -- on a stick -- the concept alone is sheer genius. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you can get a hold of, and make time to enjoy, a caramel apple (also known in the U.S. as "taffy apple"; in the U.K. as a "toffee apple"). With all their wealth and fame Cleopatra and Genghis Khan never tasted anything like it. And the gods of summer can only look on, envious and hungry, at this gift from the gods of autumn -- to their mortals.