Eats, books and leaves

There can be a melancholy edge to this time of year.  The cold air hints at the long winter awaiting us. Of course, it'll be a couple of months before the arrival of snow and real cold - but two months is gone in no time.  Clearing the leaves from the backyard makes for...well...just an empty backyard (though there's some satisfaction in the whopping pile of leaves dragged round to the front on a tarp, and now sitting at the roadside waiting to be collected).  Overall there's a sense of an impending ending, like being close to finishing a good novel.  You don't want it to be over, yet you can't put the book down...  There's no stopping the inexorable momentum. 

Maybe that's really what's contributing to a certain gloom for me today.  I've been enjoying Lionel Shriver's The Post-Birthday World, but I'm near the end now.  I'm on a bit of a Shriver-drive, actually, having also recently read So Much for That - a depressing and yet funny book, worth reading right through just for the kicker of a last line.  Both books I much prefer to We Need to Talk About Kevin, though that was also an un-put-downable read at the time.

Ah, then again, perhaps what ails me is a post-chocolate downer.  There is (it may shock you to know) such a thing as too much chocolate.  I was at a Fair Trade conference this morning in Ballston Spa (still New York's one and only Fair Trade Town), and one session featured chocolate tasting.  We each had nine squares to sample, from mild milk chocolates to high-octane 85% cocoa-content.  Also a cocoa bean.  It's hard to say no when the chocolate is right there in front of you, but I probably should have by about piece number five.  The initial coffee-grade buzz was followed by a slump which I haven't quite shaken off all day.  But top tip, Equal Exchange organic chocolate caramel crunch with sea salt is something pretty special.