Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall...which season is your favorite for food?

[Beach Chick]

For me, it's summer..lots of fresh veggies and tons of great seafood..and lots of summer cocktails.
Fall is a runner up..love making soups and stews, hearty meals with a fresh baked loaf of bread...love getting ready for the holidays.

[Beckyleach]

It's the Great Contradiction: in the summer, my garden is bursting with ingredients (and since I live in rural NW Iowa in a land of Boring Eaters, I can't buy much of this in the stores if I wanted to) but I'm too hot and tired and busy to cook it with the love and excitement it deserves.

In the Fall and Winter, I'm happy to be in the kitchen, but my supplies are dwindling and it's frustrating trying to put together recipes, for lack of ingredients.

I've never reconciled this problem, damn it!

[mcf]

Fall is my favorite season and probably my husband's favorite culinary season because of the homey and hearty kind of food: meat loaf, pot roast, chili, stews, etc. Food wise, I like spring and summer best, light, bright grilled meats and fish and grilled veggies and salads.
Easier prep, eaten outdoors every night, quick to make, quick to clean up.

Thanksgiving is my single day of worship, and I make it every year, I just love the way the house smells and all the savory leftovers. And it's gotten so much easier to juggle oven duty since I started sending my husband outside to deep fry the turkey. :-)

[hotteacher1976]

Fall/winter - I get to enjoy heartier foods and the aromas are much more delectable.
My least favorite is Summer. It's too hot to eat heavier foods!

[bayoucook]

Fall. Love the soups and stews and winter vegetables. Time for turnip and other greens to be in season, and of course - oyster season! We get seafood here year round, but how we look forward to those fresh, salty oysters during the cooler months. I find myself nesting more, and seem to do more fall cleaning than spring cleaning - probably b/c hot summer is when we're the most closed in. LOVE this time of year!

[Val]

Fall, .. autumn...whatever...thank GOD it's cooler today here in SW FL!!!!!! I BAKED...yes, BAKED an Oatmeal Molasses bread..AND I actually oven-roasted some butternut squash that was on sale at Publix for .79/pound....and I AM ECSTATIC!!! You don't know how BAD it is to go through the entire summer without using your oven....and now I'm in an oven-baking frenzy,,,hurry up Val...come on, Val...better step it up, Val....because in a few days...we'll be turning our a/c back on...yes..and I didn't schedule any time off from work...so..I have to use my time wisely!!! LOLZ...You could almost hear my mad *insane* laughter when that front came through yesterday!

[invinotheresverde]

It's snowed three out of the last four days in MA. I'm jealous.

[im_nomad]

While spring is my most favorite time of the year, food-wise i'm along the same lines as you Beach Chick and especially with nofunlatte above, although I might say Fall first, and summer a second. My kitchen pretty much comes alive in the fall as well and fall is a great time for touring around wineries and waiting for the apples. I made a lovely risotto with mushrooms, honeycrisp apples and calvados this evening :) There have already been lots of soups made, and more planned !

[rockability]

It's a tie between Fall and Winter for me. I love fall for the cooking, food and air, but I also live in Quebec so the Winters here are pretty special.

[debbiel]

I'm another fan of Fall. I love turning the oven on again, love the hearty soups and stews, the comforting baked goods. And I love the bounty at the autumn farmers market. This is my favorite time of year at our market--kales, chards, spinach, beets, turnips, carrots, potatoes, fennel, winter squashes, cauliflower, still enjoying bell peppers, Brussels sprouts coming soon.

[Cherylptw]

Fall, for the same reasons as everyone else posted & Spring for the beginnings of the new seasonal veggies...

[Karl S]

Fall, winter, summer, spring, in that order. LIke peasants of old. The hungriest times of year were often spring, because the larder of staple crops (grains, potatoes) was at its lowest at that time of year. Yes, you'd get greens, some spring fruits, and bird eggs and dairy, but we don't really appreciate how much of the daily food was based on the staple crops.

[Harters]

Definitely early autumn. Plenty of local produce crying out to be cooked in a style that just suits the weather starting to get a nip in the air. It's past salad days but not yet time for heavy stews. Fab.

[shaogo]

Runner-up for me is summer, because of the bounty of delightful fresh produce. However, in summer, the last thing I want to do is be in the kitchen cooking all day...

Sure, fall is "the food season," but when fall's over and the snow's falling -- that's my favorite time to cook. I'm a huge fan of cassoulet, stews and soups. There's nothing more satisfying than coming in out of the cold and savoring a dish that warms to the core with fragrant gravy/broth!

[cimui]

What? No votes for spring with its wonderful fiddlehead ferns, artichokes, asparagus, fresh peas, French breakfast radishes, morels, baby greens, new potatoes, strawberries, garlic scapes and tender chives, all fresh and bright-tasting on your tongue after a winter of stewed meats, chowders and canned / jammed / dried fruits and vegetables? Oh -- and there's meltingly tender spring lamb for those who eat it, too.

(Not to say I don't also love summer, fall, and winter foods, of course. :)

[JungMann]

I love the bountiful flavors of summer, but nothing gets my tastebuds tingling like the creamy, rich, hearty, slow-cooked foods of Fall. I have been waiting 7 months to make a hearty paprikash and smother my breakfast in sausage gravy and hallelujah the time has come.

[invinotheresverde]

Summer. I can't get enough tomatoes!

[Emme]

here here! the sugar plums are still tiny and sweet by me.. .LOVE them.. eat them by the BOXFUL

[Popkin]

*cue tune for "it's the most wonderful time of the year*

It's the most........ popular tiiiiiiiime............ of the yeeeear!

With a roast in a pot
and a stew on the stove
all the wonderful smeeeeeeeeels!

I agree with the others.... fall and winter are my favourites. Pot roast, garlic soup, pot pie, oh my!

[CreativeFoodie42]

Yum, made my first chicken pot pie of the season last month. I haven't made a pot roast yet - I'll wait until it is a little colder :-)

[CreativeFoodie42]

I'd have to agree Beach Chick. I love the fall with heartier meals of stews, roasts and my favorite fall ingredient - squash! I've made meals with sides of roasted butternut squash and acorn squash. And let's not forget the baking! The winter is stressful with the holidays but the fall is when I actually enjoy baking. So far I've made pumpkin bread, apple cake, pumpkin cheesecake bars and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. This weekend I'm going to make pumpkin soup and apple sauce using apples from a recent apple picking excursion!

Ofcourse, the fall is also when I actually tend to lose weight as I force myself to diligently go to the gym to balance out all of my fall goodies :-)

[fourunder]

Backyard BBQ or Grilling of meats, seafoods and vegetables.....all year long.

[fmcoxe6188]

Definitely fall! My creative juices have been flowing ever since the temperature started to drop! The summer is too hot to use the oven so now I feel like everything is open to me again-and with such great flavors as well!

[tatamagouche]

Ditto—fall. It is, after all, harvesttime!

I don't doubt something atavistic/anthropological is at work in most of us saying it...homing/nesting instinct...something...at least in the part of the world from which I write. Obviously the answers will be very different where the four seasons mainfest themselves differently (e.g. along the equator).

[Beach Chick]

Love the whole science of pheno and genotypes and the inherited instructions it carries within its own genetic code..
No wonder 98% chose the Fall.

[fern]

Fall really gets me cooking. I feel excited and "nesty" and want to make delicious meals. I want to FEED EVERYONE. But summer has tomatoes and cucumbers, herbs, sweetcorn, peaches, etc and if I had to choose one or the other way to eat, it'd have to be summer. Even though I don't really cook much then!
Fall for cooking, Summer for ingredients.
I have been cooking like mad lately...

[KristieB]

I'll have to say fall and winter because I love soup and oven meals. Don't get me wrong I love all the fresh produce in the summer and I love the newness of spring. But for me fall and winter are by far my cooking seasons.

[free sample addict aka Tracy L]

Fall. I live in No, California so there are still a lot of vegetables in season plus the typical fall veggies. I like the variety of lighter foods and slower cooked hearty foods. Also the weather is very good, warm days and coolish nights. It is the best of both worlds without the extremes.

[nofunlatte]

Fall--I always refer to it as "the cooking season". Love the slow cooked stews, the apple desserts, the smells of the house. While I love summer ingredients, my kitchen blossoms as the hearth in the fall. I don't bake bread in the summer because of the heat of the oven, but a loaf of bread in the oven is such a fall treat.

[Janet from Richmond]

Fall here as well. Stews, pot roast, squash, pumpkin. I never tired of fall foods. By the end of summer, I am craving fall food.

[TeganZ]

I agree with nofunlatte. Fall is the perfect season for cooking. Love baking bread and apple or pumpkin treats.

Nofunlatte- I'm an advocate for the Pampered Chef. Here is a good recipe for apples!

<a href="http://www.pamperedchef.com/our_produ... Autumn Apples: The Pampered Chef, Ltd.</a>