Bellezza di Vita

Two years ago, my sister and I ventured up to Snohomish County to go to our first corn maze. On this past Sunday, we repeated the experience, this time, with her boyfriend in our company, taking lead as map guide.  In our first year, we had forgone the use of the map and decided to venture through completely on our own. We made it! It took us nearly two hours to complete the massive maze, but all the same, had a a lot of fun - so much so that when she announced that she was moving back to Washington State from Arizona, we both decided (early in the summer, mind you) that we would be returning to Bob's Corn Maze. As our tummies were grumbling with hunger upon our arrival, we started our visit by standing in the understandably long line for three scrumptious golden ears of roasted corn, dipped into melted salty butter, using a napkin and the blackened husks to anchor the ears to our hands. Juicy bites of corn melted in our mouths with one delicious bite after another

Now that it's fall, I can bask in all the loveliness that this too-short season brings - be it the beautiful autumn reds and golds of the changing leaves, to the crisp, smoky air, and of course, my favorite: the bountiful fall harvests of apples, pumpkins, pears, squash, and many others. I've been busy around my house, preserving many jars of fruit butters: apple and pear. I made two variations of apple butter - one is more traditional with a mulled apple cider flavor. The second one is a concoction I threw together by accident - lemon clove. I wasn't paying attention to the quantity of cloves and allspice, so the flavor was... ahem... a little strong. To counter it, I used a bit of maple syrup and cooked a lemon into the softening apple mixture. It now has a really nice mix of lemon and clove - very refreshing and unique. I think I will post a recipe onto my other blog because it accidentally turned into something quite tasty. What are your favorite autumn tradi