September Pleasures

This week brought pleasures that are strictly for the month of September!  Years ago I planted some sweet white wine grapes with the thought I'd want to make wine.  I do not want to make wine.  It seems I just cleaned out the basement and I'm not willing to put anything else down there!

 This year was a lovely harvest from that vine and today I will make some beautiful, sparkly, white grape jelly.

John and I have given each other many trees as gifts over the years.  For our 10th wedding anniversary John gave me a magnolia tree with the brightest, most delicious blossoms in May that you can imagine.  It's a special treasure all year long.  Four years ago, I gave him a pear tree for his birthday and we have enjoyed a peck or so each year.  This year, the little pear that could...DID!  Wow, we ended up having to pick these pears a bit before their time to save the branches from breaking.  They are now laid out on boards to ripen. 

I hope you are ready for pear recipes!  Last year I made a lovely mascarpone cheese and pear pie, it will be difficult to find something new to create that tops that one!  I will be posting recipes as the pears ripen.

Our Pierre has decided that summer is officially over, as you can see from the evidence of a rainy, cold week:

I should be angry, but we left them in fair game areas and the end-of-summer sales softened the blow!  How can you be mad at this?