We trekked out into the perfect Indian summer late-Sunday-morning sun to find something to fill our tummies and our souls.

We came home an hour later with:

• A new kind of soap the scent of which Ruth Ann's daughter Rachel described as lying down on a forest carpet of pine needles and fall leaves
• A half-gallon of whole milk (Rudi has promised me tapioca this week)
• A half-gallon of apple cider (because the house smells so nice when it's cooking on the stove)
• Jicama (a South American root vegetable that I'm eager to try)
• Turkish eggplant
• Peppers in fall colors
• Tomatoes from a greenhouse
• Broccoli for soup
• Leeks for soup
• Gigantic red beets (almost as big as your head!)
• Suncrisp apples
• A yellow onion
• Young, fresh garlic
• Brussels sprouts
• Mascarpone
• Blueberry scones

Next week I'm going to pick up nuts (if they still have some) and winter squash. I just wasn't ready to switch seasons quite yet!

I started off with the best of intentions and self-restraint, but as the morning wore on (and I got hungrier), the basket began to get heavier until finally it overflowed and I was forced to accept a bag or two, as well.

I came home with:

• blueberries (the last of the season)
• peaches
• nectarines
• two kinds of lettuce
• Red Malabar spinach
• red and orange cherry tomatoes
• a yellow tomato
• two green tomatoes (for frying)
• seconds tomatoes (for gazpacho)
• Thai eggplants
• a giant head of cabbage
• beans (they might be something closely related to a cranberry bean, but I can't remember what kind they said they were)
• corn on the cob
• leeks (the first of the season; of course, I forgot to buy brocolli to make soup with)
• squash (five pounds -- including pattypans, bicolors, dark yellows, and star-shaped ones -- it got cheaper the more you bought and I figured I could make five pounds stretch to two, maybe three, weeks)
• blueberry scones
• milk
• a giant double sunflower