Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been harvesting beautiful orange tubers – sweet potatoes – and storing them in our packing house. Sweet potatoes were the first to reconnect us to the earth, after a summer in which we ate mostly fruits (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, squash, pumpkin, watermelon, melon, corn) and pods (yard-long beans, okra, edamame) abounding with juice and seeds, grown hanging from bushes, trellised or lying on the ground. And now come the tubers to bring us back down to earth to the roots, the stability, and the blessing in the clods of soil that even in heavy heat above remain ever-cool below.

In Hebrew, the word for orange is כתום (Katom) from the word for gold (Ketem, also “stain”) because of the golden color comprised of red and yellow. For me, the orange deserves its royal name, and the synergy of cooling weather and the warmth of the orange hue are a perfect balance for this amazing season.