They used to be among the best-kept secrets of fall. You had to know someone with a tree. Or know someone who was in on the secret. Now we see them at markets, nestled prominently beside apples and pears—catching our attention with glossy orange skins. Persimmons:  they’re the other orange treasures of October. Still, they remain a mystery to most. Perhaps you recall grandma folding the pulp into moist cakes, but many of us grew up without once encountering a persimmon. We wonder what to do with them, beyond a festive centerpiece. Luckily, there’s loads of options.

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This morning I drove my daughter to school in the gentle rain, a smile on my face.  Drivers next to me scowled in their cars—miserable, and muttering under their breath.  Or so it seemed, in my reverie.  Traffic creeped along, hesitant, as if this was our collective first experience with a bit of wet pavement—something threatening to no one but a blue-sky-loving Californian.  Rain!  After how many months of perfectly pristine, neat-as-a-pin cloudless skies?  Nothing but sun lined up, single-file, day after day after endless day.  Too many for this Midwestern gal.  Call me a curmudgeon for saying so, but I’m ready for something different.  For foggy, cool mornings that beg us to pull on a woolly sweater and cozy slippers (and linger with a cup of coffee).  For soft raindrops on the roof that sing us to sleep at night, and coax us inside on weekends to play board games together and sip hot cocoa.  The few bursts of orange and yellow dressed branches along the road are appreciated too.

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