seasonal transitioning

How do you make the switch from summer to fall?

For me, it starts with food, flowers and getting a bit more organized. Like many people, we take it easy during the summer. A memorable vacation (two this year: one to Italy and one to Florida), lots of al fresco dining and, in general, enjoying some much-needed down time.

Fall, however, inspires me to take stock of our home and garden and think about spiffing things up. Now that the cake contest is behind me (full report to come, I promise), I can concentrate on transitioning to one of my favorite seasons.

To get into the right frame of mind, I visited my local nirvana today: Emily Joubert Home & Garden. The amazingly talented Kim created the stunning floral arrangement above and I couldn’t wait to get home and start brainstorming fall menus and party ideas. Some people consult books and magazines, I confer with my style gurus at Emily Joubert.

As luck would have it, they had just unpacked something I’ve been coveting for about a year: a simple, elegant red wine decanter (below).

I bought the white wine version last year and hoped they would re-order so we could have a matching set. Aren’t they gorgeous? Hurry and get yours before they sell out again!

Next, I began playing with a table arrangement.

This inspired me to start thinking about fall menus with red, green and dark purple things: tomatoes (finally ripening in our garden!), apples (also ripe), figs (in the stores) and grapes (versatile). I’m thinking about a dressing up a classic marinara with a little extra onion and some Italian sausage and creating a salad that combines figs, apples, argula and possibly some walnuts and chevre. What do you think?

We visited Crate & Barrel after dinner at the Yard House to see about replacing our old classic-style pasta bowls (having broken our way down to three). After looking at an updated version of the over-sized, indented ones you see at many restaurants, I decided I wanted something a bit more modern to compliment our flat white dishes (which have no indents). So I selected the plain, wide ones shown above. I knew I had bigger ones for soups and stews and I thought these would be a smaller, pasta-oriented size.

Guess what? They are EXACTLY the same ones we already have! So they are going back to the store this weekend. What can I possibly get as a birthday gift instead? If you have any ideas, please let me know!

One last look before I head to the store to get dinner ingredients!