I love to eat. And food is one of my favorite topics of discourse. While I enjoy chatting about Annie Proulx’ novels, the nesting habits of North American birds, and James Bond movies, I relish (my verb betrays me) talking and writing about food. Sushi, chili dogs, Kalamata olives, the perfect guacamole, Underwood deviled ham, exotic cheese, marzipan, Southern barbeque, reed thin fresh asparagus - I rhapsodize about it all. My fork. My pen. My passion.

ON SEPTEMBER ... Simple pleasures. A perfect blueberry, a slice of cherry pie, one succulent pork cheek, the taste of fresh mint in Bavarian cream, a sliver of manchego. Simple pleasures are everywhere. Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, found pleasure in rice:

It grew in the black mud.
It grew under the tiger's orange paws.
Its stems thinner than candles, and as straight.
Its leaves like the feathers of egrets, but green.
The grains cresting, wanting to burst.
Oh, blood of the tiger.

I don't want you just to sit down at the table.
I don't want you just to eat, and be content.
I want you to walk out into the fields
where the water is shining, and the rice has risen.
I want you to stand there, far from the white tablecloth.
I want you to fill your hands with the mud, like a blessing.

As I sit here in my kitchen this evening, the smell of last night's dinner still lingering, I'm focusing on the simple edible pleasures in my life - like this Australian stem ginger cookie on which I'm nibbling. The heady scent of a container of dried orange peel that Connie and Dick brought to us yesterday. The black squid ink pasta in my pantry that I might finally dare to cook this week. The last sip of a bottle of Argentinian malbec.

Life is fast. And, often, we consume things simply to stay fueled - mindless eating in a fleet-footed world. As we anticipate the autumnal equinox and the bounty of the fall season (pumpkins and chard and ruby red beets), let's be more mindful of what we eat and where it comes from ... the hands that plant and harvest our fruits and vegetables, the animals that give their lives for our sustenance.

Gratitude ... that's my message for the month. Celebrate and be thankful for the many simple pleasures that fill our lives. The season's last peaches, fall's apples, and the rice that grows under the tiger's orange paws.

Have a beautiful and peaceful September, friends.