Amanda Palma

During a recent trip to Las Vegas to visit family, one thing stood out to me: convenience. Food is available at all hours of the day: coffee, snacks, full meals — all ready for your consumption and rarely more than a short walk or drive away.

In the past few years, it has become tradition to build a vision board with my friends. Together, we cut out pictures from magazines, organize them in a meaningful way, then glue them to poster board. This creation represents how we want our lives to look for the upcoming year.

When you mention that the holidays are around the corner, people tend to fall into one of two categories. There's the bright-eyed bunch who exclaim, "Yes! I'm so excited for the snow and seeing family!" Then there are those who sigh, "I can't believe it's here already. I just want it to be over."

October in Harpswell brings a noticeable shift in pace. Fishing boats return to shore earlier in the day. The coastal landscape transitions into muted golds, reds and browns. Kitchens become spaces for more thoughtful preparation as the weather cools. It's a great time to focus on recipes that are a bit more involved, recipes that highlight local ingredients and reward the time you spend on them — like maple pecan sticky buns.

I often try to categorize my cooking style. At first I think about my love for Middle Eastern food and decide that must be my style, but then I remember my love for seafood, which doesn't exactly fit. So I shift to calling my style Mediterranean, but then I think about how much I enjoy cooking venison and beef, and they don't belong in that category. I could say my style reflects my Italian and Chinese heritage, but then I look at my pastry work and realize that doesn't fit neatly into those boxes.

By July, most people have mentally moved on from rhubarb. The first flush of excitement it brought in May and June has faded, and the spotlight is now on tomatoes, corn and berries. But if you live in Harpswell or cook with what's around, you'll notice that rhubarb doesn't always know it's supposed to be done.

I'm that person who falls head over heels for an ingredient and can't seem to get enough of cooking with it. The past few weeks, I have been in a zucchini phase. Last week, I made five batches of zucchini bread. Don't worry, I didn't devour all of it. I made most of it for my customers, but I did cut myself a slice or two.

As the days grow longer and the snow melts away, we begin to feel a familiar restlessness. The sun's out more, the air is a little warmer, and we're all itching to plant something. But the ground is still too cold, and the forecast keeps teasing us with frost. So, we wait. But while we wait for the season to fully shift, we cook.