Some past posts to celebrate 10 years of Only A Blockhead; this from late October 2010.
Fall. The harvest is almost in—one farm down the road still has the rice drying on poles in the paddy fields. It’s being soaked with the rain from the passing typhoons, and will dry again with improved flavor.
Fall is above all a comfortable season. That means a great deal because the Japanese summer is so intense with impossibly humid heat – something to stand.
Fall is the blessing of a temperature that suits the body. It’s a season for both sport and exertion, and for relaxation and reading. A season for enjoying a cornucopia of delicious things to eat such as pumpkin – the dense, sweet kind; “sanma” Pacific saury, a fish that’s grilled and then served with grated daikon radish; jade green gingko nuts grilled on the thinnest skewers; mushrooms... (the list goes on).
--Julian