Research says that we cook the same 20 dishes again and again. Again and again. Again and again. (And again.) Sure, every six months, we drop one and replace it with another. Eating in rhythm with the seasons changes that. Each season, each month, there's something new to pique our curiosity and tickle our tastebuds, something that just last month wasn't available or wasn't at its freshest or had to travel from, alors, South America to reach your table. So, tis late fall. Tomatoes are two months gone and asparagus are five, maybe six, months away. What's special about what we cook in November? Here are three vegetables that will turn November into something special, something memorable.

Somehow it seems apt that the time changed for many of us at the close of October, the eve of November. The evening's darkness, it seems to signify a time for nesting, for nestling in with family and loved ones, 'not forgetting your own dear' self as my grandmother used to say. So what might we do -- food-wise, budget-wise, life-wise -- in November, stuff that fits the month like the gloves we'll soon be needing.

Día de los Muerto, Latin America's 'Day of the Dead' and its developments across the diaspora, is not somber or gruesome or scary, it's a joyous celebration to honor departed loved ones.

What is about pudding that sweeps me straight back to childhood? Mention tapioca pudding and instantly I'm standing at my mom's side in the kitchen, talking with my hands to show her -- in detail, exactly -- what happened on the playground at school when Candy grabbed the jump rope from Cheryl. She's at the stove (and maybe wearing an apron? surely not, that's so TV-commercial stereotypical, right?) stirring something in the green saucepan from the matched set purchased one piece at a time from the grocery store in town. What's in that pot? Pudding! It was one of Mom's maaaaany answers to the question, What to make when supper's a little skimpy?

When I slipped into Santa Fe for a few days last summer, a friend clued me in. "Keep your eyes open for Debbie Madison, she's a regular at the Santa Fe farmers market." No such luck! But when the subject of favorite vegetarian cookbooks -- heavens, even just favorite cookbooks -- is broached, Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" often comes up. When I started to look around, turns out, one Deborah Madison cookbook after another could claim the 'favorite' title.