Fall is the great season for food.

Of the four seasons, my favorite is fall. True, I miss the warmth of summer, and I hate how each day is shorter. Spring mornings are warm but these fall mornings can only be called crisp. But, thank God, there isn’t the three feet of snow we’ll see in January.

No, I love fall because it truly represents the culmination of the growing season and the opportunity for the best meals. Just visit your local farmers market to see the bounty of the harvest.

There are still summer favorites there, corn and perhaps the last of the berries. But now we have freshly picked apples and pears, squash, early pumpkins, and all those carrots and heads of lettuce that have absorbed months of sunshine. The garlic has just been picked. The cucumbers are moist and sweet. The tomatoes will be gone all too soon.

Now is the time to cook or can or just sit back and enjoy each forkful of freshness.

Here at Cooking by the Book, we offer Farmers Markets Events. Our groups start at a great market here in New York City where they first gaze, smell, and buy. Then the group comes to our Tribeca kitchen and prepares a full meal with all those fresh ingredients. If you can’t come to New York, by all means check with your local market and see if they can offer you this fall celebration of our harvest.