Where is Fall?

As fall-themed recipes have started popping up on other people's blogs, I've begun to notice my own reluctance to dig out the pumpkin puree from the pantry. Normally I make fall recipes too early, out of sheer excitement for sweater season, but this year the transition is taking a while. It's already mid-October and the weather has not let up one drop. As my friend Dave so eloquently put it, "where is the cold, apple-crisp air of fall? Things seem unnaturally fecund, overgrown, about to rot."

Perhaps this post will trigger a weather change. If only I had that much influence...