Labor Day comes early this year, as early as it can, and with it comes September, which has a different resonance as it falls from the tongue, different from July or August. It is not a word of summer, September: it is a word of transition, a word tinged with gold and brown, a word of fall. Indeed, autumn arrives this month, by the almanac. The year is waning.
To mark the shift, here is your Convivio Book of Days calendar for September. It’s a printable PDF, as usual, and this month, we’re featuring luminous goose berries. When I was a boy, I’d pick goose berries at one of the neighbor’s houses, the Gruenthallers, where they grew as a sort of hedge between their house and their neighbor next door. I’d never had goose berries before, nor since, but if memory serves well, I’m pretty sure they were delicious.
It is not goose berries but grapes that we’ll celebrate on the 8th of September for the Nativity of Mary, only because she is known at this time of year as Our Lady of the Grape Harvest in the places where vintners now begin their wine making. It’s not unusual to find bunches of grapes placed in the hands of statues of Mary on this day. And it is the apple that will take center stage this month, dipped in honey for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that begins this year on the same night as the autumnal equinox (September 22). It’s also the birthday of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, on the 26th: another auspicious day for eating apples.
It is the humble blackberry, however, that gets the best story of the month. It is traditional to eat blackberries on Michaelmas, the 29th of September… and also ill-advised to eat them after this day. It was St. Michael the Archangel who battled Satan and in the battle, Satan fell to Earth and landed in a bramble patch. Have you ever been in a bramble patch? I have. A bramble patch would make even the pope curse and swear and this is exactly what Satan did, and legend has it that he returns each year on Michaelmas to curse and spit upon the brambles… which is why some people will not eat a blackberry after Michaelmas. They are taking no chances.
At the shop this month we have the first of our Convivio Cookery workshops, which I am so excited about. For the first one, I’ll be teaching you how to make one of my very favorite things to eat: Mambricoli, a most unusual pasta that is specific to my maternal grandparents’ region of Italy, la provincia di Foggia. You’ve probably never tasted anything like mambricoli, and they are a delight to make. If you’re local, you should come! CLICK HERE for details and registration.
We’re open next on Saturday September 6 from 11 to 4. (That’s this coming Saturday, when we are opening because our friend Hazel is coming in from San Antonio to visit the shop, and if Hazel’s coming, well, you should, too.) After that, you can expect a few Boo Bazaar events where we’ll turn our attention to pumpkins and Hallowe’en, and then, believe it or not… we’ll be setting up our pop-up market at the German American Social Club in Miami for two weekends of Oktoberfest Miami plus the German International Parents’ Association (GIPA) Oktoberfest before that on October 4.
We’ve also got a Gift Basket Making workshop on Saturday October 4 at the shop, and another Convivio Cookery workshop in November where my whole family will teach you how to make Cavatelli, another traditional Italian pasta (one much more well known than mambricoli). By then, even the weather here in this strange green land will be cooler, and our transition from summer to fall will feel more like reality, and less like a fairytale.
