Here in the northern reaches of the Commonwealth of Virginia, where drunken British troops once wandered aimlessly in search of heaven, and even well bred boys from Mississippi wondered aloud over the flapping of the star-and-bars why anyone would design the nation’s capital in a swamp, things have been warm. Summer decided, in 2007, not to go quietly into anyone’s damn night.

At least not until this week.

Fall (when it is not, technically speaking, already winter) is the time where those who never wear white after labor day move on to drinks with substance, with gravitas, with more oomph than a perfectly chilled glass of gin (or vodka). They are also the same people - frankly - that really get on your nerves.

 So, in celebration of the coming of fall, the death of summer, the future of winter, and the probability of Spring, we got all anarchoseasonal and fired-up the martini shaker, stuffed some freakish mutant olives with blue cheese, added some gin, some shaking, some rattling, and not too little rolling (although only of eyes) to produce the paean of summer: The Gin Martini.

The British excel at many things, but first among them (at least in culinary terms) may be the unabashed love of, and at times unseemly lust for, the interesting sandwich. The entire history of empire thrown passionately between two slices of bread. Chicken tika, prawn and curry, goat and feta all are to be found in nearly every vending machine and sandwich shop worth its salt. These are nice, some even cute. However, an old drunkard in front of the fire with his gout and his dog kind of sandwich - an old school sandwich - can be found in places like the farmers market in Oxford, or off the high street in York. This is the stilton cheese and onion sandwich which can, and often does, change the way people think about the earl’s solution to famished card playing.

First, the stilton and onion sandwich is not, not, not for the faint of heart. It is a powerful piece of food, and should be respected for its many powers. Legion are the stories told by British female university students of feverish attempts to finish a stilton and onion prior to the start of tutorial, the tutorial that aside from geography or history may also feature a particularly randy (and oftentimes most unappealing) tutor. But, aside from its potentially aphrodisiacal qualities, the stilton and onion also stands as an odoriferous testament to matching flavor and texture in the pursuit of the perfect no nonsense snack.

What makes this sandwich work, and work so well, is the combination of two things most people wouldn’t dream of combining, but when combined so transcends individual flavors, that addiction is inevitable. Stilton cheese, itself worthy to stand as one of the thousand, comes only from the hills and dales of Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire and from the Dale of the Dove area (just west of Derbyshire). It is a blue cheese made from full-cream milk, and is incredibly creamy and rich. Best aged at least 12 months (and hopefully for 18), stilton offers a flavor that while similar to what most people think of when they think of blue cheese, it is often much more mellow.

The onion half of the equation is best represented by either the red or sweet white variety. Always served raw in the stilton onion sandwich, the onion’s bite, crunch, and texture provides a perfect counterpoint to the creamy, rich stilton.

So, with stilton and with onion, all that remains is the bread. For the best experience, don’t worry too much about this. I’ve had equally good sandwiches on ciabatta, on farmhouse white, and on multigrain store bought stuff. I’d recommend, if you’re ever only going to eat one of these, that you do so with ciabatta, or a crispy roll. If you’re feeling truly decadent, briefly melt the stilton on one slice before adding the onions. No other toppings are necessary or recommended.

The result? A new experience, and a probable addiction.

There is something wonderful and decadent about cooking for friends on a Saturday night. While the rest of the world is out standing in line, or waiting impatiently for their bread and water to show up, you can relax around a busy, much smaller kitchen, drinking perfectly appropriately priced wine, and tasting as you go. What is not to love?

A couple of weekends ago I spent the better half of a day out doing all of those end-of-summer tasks that one finds impossible to ignore anymore. After cutting grass, planting a couple thousand little bulbs, picking pieces of backed-over driveway lighting (circa July) out of the gully that used to be a nice landscaped water feature, and enthusiastically trying to kill off the remaining 31 mosquitoes in the back yard, I turned to dinner.

It felt—in my bones—like a rotisserie kind of night, and I’d been waiting for an opportunity to do babi guling. Babi guling is one of those dishes that you just know on hearing about that you’d be willing to give up a wee bit of your soul for a long, uninterrupted evening of rolling around in the sand with a big hunk of pork. Traditionally served during the religious holidays of Galungan and Kuninga, babi guling is a suckling pig stuffed with herbs and spices, and then slowly roasted over a fire of corn husks. The resultant buttery meat and very crispy skin, while undoubtedly offensive to any honest pig-pikin North Carolina pit master, is legendary.

Having a certain dearth of suckling pigs, or an abundance of corn husks, or frankly a good holiday, my version used a pork loin, which while clearly lacking the necessary skin to ever be very crispy, had the distinct advantage after a day of being outside not cooking babi guling, of being both much easier to get, and cooking in under 12 hours. The pork loin itself is not really all that exciting. If you close your eyes and think about a pork loin, you’ll have a pretty accurate picture of what I was dealing with. The spice paste, known to Balinese everywhere as bumbu, is where the babi guling steps up to its porcine brethren, clears its throat, and says, “excuse me, but I’m just going to pop out and total f with the way people think about little four-legged, short-snouted, curly-tailed swine.”

The babi guling bumbu (or at least the one I made, and I generally stay in the same hemisphere of interpretation), is made from shallots (this is not strictly traditional), thai chilies, chopped ginger, garlic, turmeric, some galangal, lots of lemongrass, some cilantro, black pepper, lime juice, and brown sugar. A cook, well-steeped in the appropriate culinary lore of Indonesia, would have worked this mixture over in a big mortar with pestle until it was the smoothness of melted chocolate. I added a bit of oil, threw everything into the food processor, whirled it until I had the smoothness of chocolate, and wiggled my eyebrows at my relieved looking mortar. I then sauteed the mixture until it smelled like heaven and took on a sheen, stuffed the pork loin with it, tied everything tight, rubbed the loin with the remaining bumbu, and then ran a rotisserie stake through the middle.

A couple of hours later I paraded the fragrant and deeply caramelized roast through the appropriately cooing throng on the way from grill to platter. After 15 minutes of doing nothing but trying to undertake polite conversation while the deep and deeply seductive aroma of the pork washed over us, we convened in a manner that had a small furry desert creature been watching would have been disturbingly reminiscent of a pack of jackals happening upon a slightly dazed and decidedly plump elephant. With our third (or fourth) bottle of wine, we settled into an evening of babi guling, rice, and some really nice caviar stuffed new potatoes (another entry altogether).

Take a 3 lbs (or so) pork shoulder roast (or pork loin) and cut a long, deep slice from end to end; blend shallots, chilies, ginger, garlic, turmeric, lemon grass, galanga, cilantro, black pepper, lime juice, salt, brown sugar, and enough vegetable oil to make a nice paste; stuff the pork, tie it, and stick it on the rotisserie for about an hour and a half to two hours. Let sit for 10-15 minutes (if possible) before slicing and eating. Serve with rice, some sambal, and wine or beer.

The original plan was to dive the Dominican Republic. A fair and good plan for the onslaught of fallish weather. But, fate and a sudden, but completely uncontrollable urge to eat jamon serrano and anything remotely both porcine and asado, has led to a change of plans. At the end of the month, we’re off to Madrid for ten days. The plan is very, very simple: 1. eat, 2. drink, 3. revel (in Spain, in painting, in architecture, in markets), 4. sleep, 5. repeat.

Yes, there will be pictures, there will be wild pronouncements of undying love for the city’s markets, completely rational and calm assurances that I’m never returning to Northern Virginia, and Every. Single. Euro. I have will be spent on the city’s splendid eats and drink.

Any suggestions?