I’m sitting on my deck, my office for the last several months, wondering how long I can (or will!) use this space into the colder months. My family has figured out how to entertain while still social distancing and supporting the restaurant industry: two tables on the deck, each with two or three chairs facing the other table. Each table has its own candle and matches. We all order takeout from a nearby restaurant and one couple picks it up while the other couple hosts. We do what everyone is comfortable with, happy to be able to enjoy the company of friends outside.

Eating local has never felt so pertinent. Whether it’s buying vegetables from a local farm, ordering takeout dinner or cocktails from a local restaurant or drinking a beer outside at a brewery and getting snacks from a nearby food truck, we’re eating local. We’re cooking more, too, and traveling less, at least to places outside Massachusetts. 

But fall is here and colder days are coming. A nearby restaurant owner told me that we have to train Americans to eat outside, to ignore the wind and the bugs and to brave the cold. As least until the snow falls or maybe even beyond. So let’s make reservations to sit outside and bundle up!

And when we’re not dining out, let’s get cooking. We chose the recipes in this issue to give you a taste of the longer stories printed in our sister magazine, Edible Boston. In Edible Worcester, we’ve included recipes for roasted beets and yogurt, braised turkey legs, honeyed green beans and sweet potato and pecan pie, perfect for a smaller holiday gathering.

This issue also looks at a Worcester coffee roastery, a new location for an old Jamaican favorite, an Oakham winery and a food pantry for college students whether or not they’re on campus. Kevin Koczwara checks in on the changing of Massachusetts liquor laws and tells us how to-go cocktails became possible in our state, and Karen Bento tells the story of Growing Places, a nonprofit in Leominster providing food through community gardens for people in need.

This fall, we’ll be sitting around our campfire wrapped in blankets, chairs clustered so COVID bubbles are always six feet apart. We will be ordering take-out or grilling and roasting marshmallows or eating apple crisp made with just picked apples. Anything to keep dining outside as long as possible.

Please thank the advertisers in this magazine and give them your business. We are entirely supported by advertising and they make Edible Worcester possible.

Stay safe and well. And remember to vote.

Tara