I’ve added two new titles to my series of vintage animal photograph postcard books – Vintage Farm Animal Photographs and Vintage Dog Photographs.

Vintage Chicken Photographs is the first of the series.

Inside these books, you’ll find images like these:

Details about these books can be found on my Books page.

UPDATE: THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED. MARY HONEYFIELD WON.

To celebrate their publication I’m giving away all three to one lucky winner! To enter, tell me which cover you like the best. I want to get the word out about these books, so there are additional chances to win. Like me on Facebook to get another entry. (You have to come back here and tell me you’ve done that.) If you already like me on FaceBook, then share this post to get another entry. If you share this post via Twitter, you get an additional entry. Again, come back here and tell me in a separate comment. In order to select a winner, I enter the number of blog comments into a random number generator. I only count comments here on my website, not on my FaceBook page.

The winner will be selected on Friday, September 20 at 9 pm EDT. I’ll contact the winner via email. Good luck!

Apples from here

went into this. Steve’s Happy Birthday Apple Pie.

This is one of the versions of apple pie that I’ll be teaching in my Pie Baking Class. See how flaky that crust is? You can do that, too!

It will be gone by tomorrow. I do so like pie for breakfast.

It’s apple picking season, and so we headed out to Harvard, Massachusetts to my favorite U-Pick orchard.

There’s no petting zoo, corn maze or hay rides. What they do have is a wide variety of fruit.

And dwarf trees that are full of perfectly ripe apples that are easy to reach.

There’s a map to tell you where the different apples are, but the trees don’t have signs. You’re told to “taste your way through.” We did.

There are apples for eating out of hand,

and apples for baking.

But, despite all of the tasting, after loading up the car, we had one more stop.

I came home with 3 bags full of apples (and a small bag of a half-dozen donuts.) I’ve already made two big pots of applesauce;  containers are in the freezer. Today is Steve’s birthday. I’m baking him a pie.

I love baking pie. I enjoy the process of turning butter and flour into flaky crust. I love the rustic, free-form quality of fruit pies, and how even the most elegant of pies retains a casual demeanor when baked in a pie plate. But, I realize that many of you have  pie-phobia. Rolling a crust makes you tense. Fruit pies have you obsessing about runny fillings. That’s a shame, because with a little mentoring and a little experience, baking pies can become a joy for you, too.

I will be teaching a pie baking class in my home kitchen on Saturday, October 26. You’ll be going home with an apple pie, and a lot of confidence! Class size is strictly limited to six students, so if interested, sign up soon.

For more details, and to register, go here.

There are days when it’s too hot to cook, or I don’t have time, or I don’t have all of the ingredients needed, or I’m just too tired to face the work. But, once in awhile, there’s a “perfect storm” of weather, harvest, time and desire. Yesterday was one of those. My kitchen counter was spilling over with produce. On Saturday, I’d shopped at the tiny farmers market two miles up the street from home. I’d bought a dozen ears of the corn and some hot peppers from a friend in town who sells the excess from her backyard garden at a small table at the market.

My next-door neighbor, John, has such a productive garden that his friends get handed brown paper bags full of the excess. I’d been the lucky recipient of garlic, peppers, eggplants and tomatillos. (I left a dozen eggs on his porch.)

I’m still harvesting herbs, tomatoes, chard and carrots. As I said, the counters were full. It was one of those mornings that you open the windows wide and let the breeze in. Fall! Chilly but not cold. Perfect cooking weather. And so I did.

This is spontaneous from the garden and coop to the kitchen cooking. I don’t have recipes for you, but perhaps you’ll have the perfect storm of end-of-summer produce and weather and time, be inspired, and get into the kitchen too.

With tomatillos, tomatoes, garlic, onion, and hot peppers, I made a piquant sauce. There’s a jar in the fridge and several containers in the freezer for winter taco dinners.

With the eggplant, onions, garlic, mint, basil and tomatoes, I made a bruschetta topping. It is so good on pita crackers topped with ricotta insalata cheese!

Using the corn, onion, herbs, and peppers, I tossed together this salad.

With eggs, tomatoes, onions, basil and a sausage from a farmer in the next town over, I made this quiche.

By noon the food was stored and the kitchen was cleaned up. It was that sort of day.