What's your favorite season for cooking?

[Jenise]

Mine's coming right up: Fall. Back to the braised and oven-roasted meats and everything that goes with them.

I’m with you. I think I posted earlier that spring was my least favorite… I just don’t get that excited about it. We just finished a pretty epic summer of cooking at the beach but it was built around ease and cooking for large crowds…. We frequently made a Pearled cous cous recipe from Epicurious with roasted veggies and grilled shrimp all of which can be made ahead and served at room temp… we were big garden draining panzanellas and also a great raw corn salad with Shishito peppers…. You get the drift

I’m probably more mid to late fall into winter as my go to….from now until mid October in New England can be erratic…. A few crisp days followed by pretty warm temps…. So I like to be post Columbus Day before hauling out my Dutch ovens!

We are going to spend some of the fall trying out our new mountain shack in western NC…. So might fire up the smoker before it gets too cold!!

I agree - Autumn is when the cooking brain cells get humming. Too hot in summer, too cold for creativity in winter and spring is just a lead in to summer heat and lack of inclination to spend hours in a hot kitchen.

Fall and Winter for me, I love braising meats in my slow cooker or new braiser. The best thing about spring and summer cooking for me is the array of beautiful lettuces, so many vegetables and fruits. Plus, I am a crazy person for all kinds of tomatoes. I get a huge basket of cherry tomatoes, each Saturday. There is a medley of orange, red, yellow pear, and sometimes the almost black cherry types. I use these to keep me out of the sweets like candy and ice cream. I can snack on them all day long. I love the short winter days, lots of rain, and watching a good movie with a bowl of popcorn. I'm not a baker, but in winter I have a favorite family cookie recipe I like to make along with rice crispy treats with pumpkin pie spice...Yum.

Same here! Fall, all the way.

Fall, and then Spring.

Winter cooking is largely an extension of Fall cooking, now that there really is little difference in the food supply.

Summer is just too hot. Spend all my time on salads and "salads" and popsicle.

Autumn for b e as well. All the late summer veggies still abundant and ya gotta luv cool sunny days with a big dish of ratatouille!

[Jenise]

Fall, and then Spring.

Winter cooking is largely an extension of Fall cooking, now that there really is little difference in the food supply.

Agreed, but environment also plays a role. Winter in NY isn't the same as winter in Miami!

Last night we had Vietnamese crab--a Charles Phan recipe that is the single best way of cooking crab I know. I was lucky to have a generous neighbor bring me five, cleaned and uncooked (he caught 140 this season--so far) on Sunday. It's a messy dish and we ate outside. Today it's cooler and we're having roast duck riffed off of the best duck I ever had, at a small cafe in Paris in 1986. Fresh local blueberries will be in the sauce. In the fall, it all works together.

Cool-weather cooking is much more fun. Casseroles. Tagines. Pot pies. Roasts. Pots of soup on the stove-top. It's also much more fun to be in the kitchen when the kitchen is the warmest place in the house and the weather outside is cold.

[Jenise]

Cool-weather cooking is much more fun.

I so agree. Cooked my first pot roast in a looong time this week--love the aromas, love the leftovers. We had beef/potato/jalapeno tacos yesterday from the leftovers, and the leftover taco filling will become a tasty frittata later in the week.

I'll join the chorus for fall, but it's a pretty tight race. I love getting back to braises, roasts, etc, and look forward to dipping my toes in the truffle market (but not this year I hear). But I also love grilling 4 or 5 nights a week in summer, while enjoying things like tomatoes, corn, occasionally wild chanterelles, etc. And spring- asparagus, morels, ramps....There is glory in all of those things. While the ability to get things year round is far better than in my youth, no winter Kumato or Campari tomato comes close to a summer Beefsteak, much less a heritage in season. Sure you can buy Chilean asparagus in fall or winter, but why?
I guess I'd actually put winter last, while I love stews, braises, etc there's not much I do in Feb that I don't do in November.

[Jenise]

Compelling points all, Dale. Other than asparagus, and sweeter/crisper lettuces than the rest of the year, we don't see much Spring difference over here until it's virtually summer; we don't have anything like ramps.

Btw, I laughed just now when searching for a recipe I know I described in the What's Cooking thread. And I read through comment after comment from me with lines like "Won't be quite my usual version as I don't have cilantro and no way am I making the trek to get any in this frigid weather". That, more then the foods themselves, is what depresses me about winter cooking.

But I also love grilling 4 or 5 nights a week in summer, while enjoying things like tomatoes, corn, occasionally wild chanterelles, etc. And spring- asparagus, morels, ramps....There is glory in all of those things.

Agreed. I always end up enjoying something about each season, although for a vegetable person like me, summer is king. Spring is exciting because it's the start of new products and new freshness after a long dull winter. But the pickings are slim at first, and it's the worst fruit season. Fall still has some of that summer abundance, but winter approaches, and that's always scary!

Once I get into the routine of winter cooking, I usually adapt. But it always means a greater ratio of grocery store to farmers market food, and the produce is clearly less exciting.