September is national what month? It’s a month full of celebrations of fall foods and flavors. It’s a month dedicated to self-care and self-awareness. With summer harvests ending and the school year beginning, September is like a new beginning!
September is a month perfect for spending time in the kitchen. Where else can we meet the approaching fall season with flavor, health, and the pursuit of wellness all in one place?
Continue reading to learn about the foods we celebrate in September. Let’s also explore the ways we as a nation embrace wellness as the fall season approaches. finally, we’ll look at ways to tend to the seasonal kitchen in September.
The Seasonal Kitchen in September
It was only a couple of weeks ago that we were in the throes of August, celebrating peaches and preserving food for winter meals.
Now, it’s September, and it’s a month with a whole new set of flavors, kitchen tasks, and wellness practices.
September is a good month for giving the kitchen a deep clean after all that summer activity. Soon, we’ll be baking for the holidays and it’s always nice to start big jobs fresh and clean and sparkly. Scroll down to learn more.
September’s flavors are earthy, rich and deeply nourishing. That’s why national awareness month celebrations for September include the mushroom and the potato, honey and rice, whole grains and better breakfasts.
September is national preparedness month, and there’s no place more central to safety than the kitchen. Water, food, and energy stores for times of crisis can be organized in and through the kitchen.
September is the month where we begin to move back indoors as days shorten and get cooler. The kitchen table is a great place for journaling with a cup of nourishing herbal tea. It’s also a great place to doodle and read.
Heck! If you’re like me, you’ll practically be living in your kitchen by the end of the month. Read on to explore what we celebrate and emphasize as a nation in September. Learn how to get the most from your kitchen as fall arrives with all the color and flavor we desire.
Set time aside to Celebrate the Fall Equinox
The fall equinox is exact on Monday, September 23, 2019, at 3:50 am. Be sure to set time aside to learn about this seasonal event and create a way to welcome the fall season!
Click here to see my 5 recommended ways to celebrate the fall equinox this September.
National Awareness Months
There is an ever-growing list of monthly observances and celebrations that we in the United States use to live seasonally. Each month of the year has a flavor all its own. Yes, there are the flavors of foods particular to that time of year, but there are also seasonal flavors for each month like the fruity sweetness of summer we honor with National Peach Month in August and the turn toward earthy rich foods in September.
Most national observances are created by an act of Congress or a Presidential decree. That’s all well and good, but most of these designations are common sense to the day and reflect the general mood and tone of the season at hand.
7 September Foods We Celebrate
There are 7 food-related celebrations in September:
- Better Breakfasts
- Chicken
- Honey
- Mushroom
- Potato
- Rice
- Whole Grains
In this post, we dig deep into each national observance in order to get the most from the September kitchen.
September is Better Breakfast Month
Breakfast is the first meal of the day. It can come anytime after you get moving in the morning but does not have to be enjoyed until you are actually hungry.
This September, why not educate yourself on the new nutrition sciences that help us understand the importance of healthy fats and the dangers of sugars and complex carbohydrates. What you eat for breakfast, for that first meal of the day, sets the tone for your body’s wellness for the remainder of the day.
In my seasonal kitchen, breakfast is a pretty important meal. It comes after a 3-mile walk along country roads of West Virginia and tending to our flock of chickens. I usually am up by 5 am and breakfast is prepared somewhere between 9 and 10 am. (Couldn’t help but bring John into the mention of the country roads. Feel free to sing along!)
My breakfast almost always has our farm-fresh eggs as their centerpiece. Then, the remainder of the plate is an expression of the current harvests from the kitchen garden. My favorite September breakfast is an egg, over easy, set atop sauteed beets and their greens with a splash of apple cider vinegar. There’s probably some local goat cheese in there, too. And, don’t forget the sea salt to ensure a good dose of trace minerals in the diet!
In my humble opinion, a better breakfast is prepared with fresh and local ingredients, is comprised mostly of clean proteins, healthy fats, and lots of fruits and veggies. Additionally, a better breakfast is eaten consciously with minimal distractions and a healthy dose of gratitude for all the effort and good weather it took to get it to the plate.
National Chicken Month
National Chicken Month is observed in September by the decree of the National Chicken Council.
I’d like to take this opportunity to recommend a radical approach to celebrate National Chicken Month this September.
Let’s not eat chickens from industrial chicken farms.
Let’s support local producers who humanely raise their chickens for eggs and meat by committing to supporting them 100% with our shopping dollars in September. You never know, it might become a habit!
You might also want to explore getting a few pet chickens for your yard this September, too! September is the perfect month to add started pullets to the homestead, whether urban, rural, or suburban. That’s because the weather is warm enough to get them easily established in a coop and ready for the winter months to come.
And, if your seasonal kitchen is vegan, then you can skip right over this national observance and move right into National Honey month!
September is National Honey Month
September is a seminal month for most beekeepers in the United States. It’s the month that bees stop producing honey and begin securing the hive for the winter months.
That is why the National Honey Board establishes September as National Honey Month. They organize month-long events to celebrate beekeepers, promote beekeeping and honey as a natural sweetener.
I’ve yet to be a successful beekeeper. It is hard, labor-intensive work. Beekeeping requires a lot of study and education. If ever an industry and its hobbyist deserve our national attention, it is beekeepers in the 21st century.
A class of pesticides called neonicotinoids are killing bees and impacting their ability to reproduce. Beekeeping is a hobby or business that requires significant financial investment in supplies, time, and education. It is devastating to make the investment, do everything right, and still lose your hive to no fault of your own.
I personally can attest to the impact climate change has on beekeeping. I lost my last 2 hives in 2017 to the wettest year on record for my region. This area simply did not have a nectar flow in summer to help new hives get established. Very, very sad experience.
So this September, buy honey from local producers and support their efforts to keep these pollinators active and healthy in your ecosystem.
It’s National Mushroom Month
National Mushroom Month is another one of those observances created by the governing and organizing council of that industry. This particular observance was legislated in 1990 under the George H. W. Bush administration to promote mushrooms to consumers.
All that history aside, mushrooms are awesome and deserve their own month!
Whether you grow, forage or purchase mushrooms, they are the perfect addition to September meals. We’ve grown shiitakes in oak logs for years. Neighbors down the street grow theirs in bags of sawdust and straw. There are plenty of very popular mushroom vendors at local farmers markets.
This September, why not sign up for a mushroom foraging hike in your area? Learning how to safely identify culinary and medicinal mushrooms can easily become a lifelong hobby. It’s kind of addictive once you get started!
We Celebrate the Potato in September
I don’t know about you, but I celebrate the potato every darn day of the week. Diet be damned! I love me some spuds! The fresher the better.
This post on planting potatoes from my old blog is my all-time most popular.
The best way to eat potatoes is fresh harvested young potatoes, boiled, buttered and parsleyed. But, that’s not going to happen for most of us in September.
This month, we’ll be pulling potatoes out of our basement stores from the July harvests. Nothing wrong with that! Potatoes are one of the easiest foods to preserve from the kitchen garden.
I think crafting up a dish with chicken, mushrooms, and potatoes is one of the best meals you’ll have this September.
It’s National Rice Month
This little video pretty says it all about National Rice Month.
September is National Whole Grains Month
The Whole Grains Council has a really fun promotion running for the month of September. They’ve organized a quiz to test your whole grain knowledge.
They also offer an opportunity to sign up for the Whole Grains World Tour! It’s an email campaign that deliveries whole-grain recipes to your email inbox featuring the foods of the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America, and the African diaspora.
What a fun food event to help educate ourselves about worldwide uses of whole grains.
Food Preservation in the September Kitchen
Here at Lorrie Season, we’re food preservation obsessed!
There is no more affordable or nutritious way to feed your family flavorful local meals in the winter months than stocking your kitchen with preserved foods during the growing season.
That’s why we have three comprehensive resources to support you on your food preservation journey in September, while there’s still time to capture summer flavors for fall and winter meals.
There’s the Free 5-Day Food Preservation Bootcamp. It’s an email course that delivers 5 instructional classes on food preservation basics. Check it out here!
We also organized the Traditional Methods of Food Preservation post that offers tips and tricks from 20 experts in the field. Read it to learn basic and ancient food preservation techniques that are affordable, safe and tasty!
Then, I created the Food Preservation Quick Guide. It costs $1 and is a perfect addition to your Kindle cookbook library!
I’ve been preserving foods since I was a child in my mother’s kitchen capturing peaches from the lone fruit tree in our back yard. Bit by the bug early, I’ve been learning and practicing ever since. I hope my enthusiasm for this craft essential to the September Kitchen transfers over to you. Let me know how it goes in the comments section below. If you need help, simply use the Contact Form to send me a note. I’m happy to help!
Deep Clean the Kitchen in September
With all that food preservation going on for months, the kitchen can become a disorganized catastrophe come September. And, with holiday baking season just around the corner, it is a perfect time for a deep clean of the kitchen.
Here is my basic workflow for a kitchen deep clean that can take about 4 hours.
First, gather cleaning supplies and remove countertop clutter.
Then…
Steps to a perfect fall deep clean of the kitchen
- Pre-clean the kitchen. This is pretty much your daily kitchen cleaning routine that deals with dishes and clutter.
- Clean cooking ingredient cupboards. Empty them. Clean containers and check dates for expired ingredients that need to be tossed. Replace the items in a way that optimizes efficiency, like canned goods together, spices in their own racks, etc.
- Organize storage containers. For me, this means taking an inventory of my mason jars, lids, and rings, as well as recycled glass containers that I use for dried spices. Store by like sizes and make sure everything has a lid that needs one. Recycle items you no longer need. Use this time to effectively downsize.
- Clean refrigerator and freezers by emptying, washing, organizing and discarding foods as appropriate. I have a separate fridge for ferments which can get quite gamey if not cleaned regularly.
- Empty and clean cabinets. Organize for easy use as you put plates, baking supplies, mugs, and glasses back.
- Wash down the sink, countertops, and the outsides of cabinets with a disinfecting cleaner. I love using Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day products. I know some are sensitive to the fragrance, but I enjoy it.
- Take care of the high dust by cleaning walls, ceiling and ceiling fans. Oh, the ceiling fans!
- Sweep and mop. You might have to get down on your hands and knees and take care of those baseboards and corners. I sure do!
- Decorate with a fresh bouquet of flowers on the countertop.
- Make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy some time in your freshly cleaned kitchen with a nice blog post. Relax, you deserve it!
Now you can focus on a little self-care!
It’s National Self-Care Awareness & Self Improvement Month
With so many of us home from vacations and beginning a new school or work year, it’s no wonder we focus on self-care and self-improvement in September!
The seasonal life is all about healing through nature. Then, once healed, we are more fit and ready to be healers in our families and communities.
September is also the perfect month for self-care and self-improvement because of the fall equinox. Wholistic healing traditions emphasize that the equinoxes, both spring and fall, are the perfect time to reset the body with cleanses and fasts.
this is the topic of my next blog post, so be sure to check back for an update!
September is National Preparedness Month
The US National Preparedness Council organizes National Preparedness Month each September. This year’s theme is:
Prepared, not scared. Be ready for disaster.
Each week in September focuses on a preparedness theme:
- First Week: Save Early for Disasters (the finances of preparedness)
- Second Week: Make a Plan to Prepare for Disaster
- Third Week : Teach Youth to Prepare for Disaster
- Fourth Week: Get Involved in Your Community’s Preparedness
These are reasonable steps to help any household be better prepared should the worst happen.
Click here to download the Council’s Emergency Supply Checklist. And, here for their comprehensive website.
Let’s stay connected!!!
If you enjoy seeing life through the lens of the changing seasons, I invite you to stay connected. This is a community of activist-oriented gardeners, cooks, and nature lovers.
If you want a loving community to be a part of your seasonal life, please do anyone (or ALL!) of the following:
- Sign up for the newsletter and get my herbal teas and tisanes recipe book for FREE! Tea is always a welcome addition to any time in the kitchen.
- Join our FREE Facebook group where we’re always talking gardens and kitchens.
- Follow me on Instagram and watch the seasons unfold on my 5-acre homestead in Harpers Ferry, WV.
The Kitchen Garden Planner and Journal
Organize your kitchen garden, season by season, month by month, and project by project with this handy Kitchen Garden Planner and Journal! It comes with lifetime access to printable worksheets and journal pages, and membership in the Stony Ridge Farm seasonal living community.
This planner comes with instructions on how to tackle the following tasks and use our worksheets to:
– Design your vegetable and flower gardens
– Track plant selections and how successful they are in your garden
– Document soil amendments and pest control strategies
– Garden budgeting, tracking projections and actual expenses
– Seasonal and monthly planner calendars
– Garden journal pages
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