A Warning - Don't Be Fooled by Sunshine

So it seems, dear reader, that not only did summer confuse the hell out of us all with its downpours and general inclemency, but now autumn seems to be doing the same thing.  "Oh, but it's been so lovely and hot and sunny," I may hear some of you exclaim.  I don't care.  I don't like it.

I want fog.  I want frosts.  I want to open my window in the morning and be able to smell that 'back to school' smell of cooling air and lowering temperatures.  I want soup.

I do not want, and I cannot stress this enough, I DO NOT WANT SALAD.

In that blasted heatwave of a couple of weeks ago, I was forced into making salad because of the weather.  It was too damn hot to make anything else.  I attempted to make it a bit autumnal though, using a Nigel Slater recipe involving roasted beetroot, pink grapefruit, mixed leaves (he said to use watercress but I couldn't find any that day) and some goats' cheese sprinkled over the top.  To look at, it's lovely, the beetroot making the grapefruit even pinker, the green of the leaves coordinating nicely with the pink, the white of the goats' cheese lightening it all - even the occasional curl of orange zest from the orange and olive oil dressing creating a little flash of neon:

Do not be deceived.  It was utterly, utterly foul.

The beetroot was undercooked (admittedly my fault), the grapefruit went all slimy from the olive oil, the goats' cheese coagulated into a vile slime from all the various liquids, I could have sworn there was grass in those leaves and the orange zest kept catching in my teeth.

This, dear reader, this is why I dislike hot weather in autumn.  I am not supposed to eat salad at this time of year.

I want soup.