Pumpkin and meatballs--the flavors of fall

As you know, here at Living the Astorian Dream, we can't let a season change without commenting on it. Perhaps it's the fact that I grew up in a place without seasons (well okay, it had one, maybe one and a half seasons), but I never get tired of this natural phenomenon. As much as I love seasons in general, fall is my favorite. The first day of fall is technically not until Wednesday, but I'm already enjoying the crispness in the air and the joy of waiting for the train underground without breaking a sweat. But my favorite thing about fall (or any season really) is the food. Suddenly you can get everything from pumpkin donuts to pumpkin spice lattes. I also find myself baking, with pumpkin and otherwise, a lot more.

Last night, I made some pumpkin zucchini bread. It was originally supposed to be muffins, but I left both my cupcake pans at work (happens more than you'd think). Here's the recipe: http://www.fitsugar.com/Healthy-Recipe-Pumpkin-Zucchini-Muffins-2361954. Zucchini or no zucchini, I'm not sure how anyone can call this a "healthy" recipe when it contains no less than two sticks of butter.

Just picture these, but loafier

Another thing to enjoy about autumn in New York is the annual Food and Wine Festival in October. Not that I go to that, because so many of the events are rather expensive. And I'm not quite enough of a foodie to invest money in learning about food. I'd rather use my food budget on cheese. Nice cheese is never cheap. However, these is one event at the Food and Wine Festival that has my interest piqued. It is called Meatball Madness, and it's pretty much what it sounds like. Tickets are $200 a piece, and it's already sold out. I found a contest online where you can win tickets every Monday by answering meatball related questions. I need to find it to post it here, so that my New York readers (and especially those who might use the second ticket to take a certain non-food-blogger) might enter. I can't seem to find it though. Or remember how I got there. I guess I'll have to solve this snafu by next Monday or suffer the tragedy of letting another Meatball Madness go by without attending.

Anyway, I wish you a happy last few days of summer, readers! As a final note on fall, I'm also looking forward to my parent's coming this weekend as we're going to head upstate to see a little fall foliage. Pumpkin, meatballs, foliage, and family. It's really all you need.