We're a No-Pumpkin-Spice Zone. But We Do Love an Autumnal Salad!

So we have a Falldorf™️ salad! And Roasted Corn, Tomato, and Farro Salad with Lemon Thyme Vinaigrette

Introducing the Falldorf Salad ™️

FALL DOESN’T OFFICIALLY BEGIN until Saturday, September 23, at 2:50 a.m. EDT, but the boys in the lab are already driving me a little bonkers. Nobody loves the autumnal vibe the way they do. And once they don their plaid flannel aprons, install their corn shocks and bales of hay here and there, and splash on their pumpkin-spice after-shave, it’s fall colors this and horn of plenty that until I want winter to come so fast that it freezes them in place like a cartoon coyote—just so I can get some quiet around here.

I’d like to freeze all talk of pumpkin spice and apple types indefinitely.

In fact, if I have to listen to another one of their ostensibly lighthearted (but actually vicious and insulting) debates about whether the Macoun, with its berry undertones, or the Honeycrisp, with its sweet honey-and-pear juiciness, is the superior apple I’m going to go ahead and cancel their Thanksgiving right now and invite myself to spend it with the sharply dressed no-B.S. dowager standing in line in front of me at the fancy grocer yesterday, who snapped at the checkout kid because the candy corn had already taken over the candy impulse-buy rack.

“But that stuff is good,” he said grinning at her like, I hate to say it, a Jack-O-Lantern.

Oh, autumn, whose mists and mellow fruitfulness inspire our deepest and most complex season-related emotions!

Which is saying a lot. As sophisticated, in-control, and self-actualized as we like to think we’ve become as humans—and as far removed as most of us have gotten from the earth and how it, you know, works—all four seasons drive the bus much more than we seem to want to admit.

The autumnal equinox marks the turning point when darkness begins to win out over daylight. Great. (Getty images)

According to Psychology Today, the seasons influence the way we think, feel, mate, relate, create, eat, focus, and contribute to the well-being of our fellow humans, among other endeavors.

And it has always seemed to me, personally, that we rely on the seasons to tell us what exactly to do next, to keep us from feeling lost: Oh, this is when we slam on the brakes and take stock, and now it’s time to hurry up, or gather, or isolate, or relax at last. It’s almost as if we believe that putting out seasonal candy or holiday decorations will help us know where we stand in this world at any given time.

Isn’t it time you roasted some corn and made our Corn, Tomato, and Farro Salad with Lemon Thyme Vinaigrette and Feta?

But in terms of fall, the Farmer’s Almanac says that the autumnal equinox “marks the turning point when darkness begins to win out over daylight.” No other season is quite as terrifying a metaphor for just about everything.

And yet, it’s still my favorite. That haunting mix of bright hopefulness and dark wistfulness really speaks to me. And I find I even love one of the worst culinary cliches we seasonally commit. Just as we drive to see the same colored leaves year after year, so too are we driven to search out and order the enormous autumnal salad.

Green Green Green: Lacinato kale, pistachios, grapes, celery, apples, and pears! (Placing cut apples and pears in lemon water keeps them from turning brown.)

Loaded up with everything that seems remotely related to fall (however incorrectly), these salads feature creamy, delightfully gloopy cheese, dried fruit and candied nuts, maybe some roasted squash, definitely some diced apples, with a creamy dressing and some lettuce leaves thrown in to make it qualify as a salad at all.

It’s the kind of dish best enjoyed in a restaurant, especially where they’ve decorated the tables “tastefully” with a single tiny pumpkin.

Beautiful shallots flavor both of today’s salads.

But I find I can’t resist making my own version, which always leads to the Dried Cranberry Question. Which is: Defy or Supply? For me, including dried cranberries is the culinary and nutritional equivalent of making a tray of fudge and calling it a salad. People are going to like anything with dried cranberries—they’re sweet and tart and chewy like candy. But isn’t that cheating?

I mentioned this quandary on social media and was stunned to discover that not only are there people who do not like dried cranberries (or raisins!) but also people who do indeed put them in their salads at home a lot; they don’t even wait for the season. You can read the responses below.