This whole dinner began because we had taken our toddler with us to the grocery store, and as we walked through the produce section he was insistent we buy an orange pepper. And then he wanted a yellow pepper. And then a red one. It was like we were writing If You Give a Mouse A Bell Pepper in real time.

With pumpkin spice season upon us, we did the usual thing middle-aged, once upwardly mobile professionals with a young child do and headed out of the city to pick apples in the fields of the Hudson Valley. I grew up a few miles from the Warwick, New York, the center of autumnal activities. There are plenty of u-pick apple orchards to choose from here. In recent years, traffic overwhelms the narrow roads on weekends as urban dwellers flock to nature.