Sunday Letter: the first cold morning

Good morning. It happened. On Thursday I opened the balcony door at seven and the air had an edge to it — not cold, exactly, by Manchester standards, but cold enough that I went back inside and put on socks. Rosie, when I told her, laughed for a full minute.

One story

Lisbon doesn’t do autumn the way I grew up with. There are no piles of leaves to kick, no sudden dark at four. Instead, the change arrives in small signals, and this week they all came at once.

The chestnut sellers appeared, first one by the Martim Moniz tram stop, then another outside the church in Graça, their carts puffing white smoke that smells like a bonfire and a bakery having an argument. Twelve chestnuts in a paper cone made from an old phone directory, €3, too hot to hold.

Senhor Abel moved the oranges to the front of the shop and the last of the peaches to the back. Dona Fernanda started wearing her good cardigan, the burgundy one, and told me that I should be wearing a vest. On the 28, people suddenly had scarves, worn very loosely, more as a statement of intent than anything practical.

And on Thursday night, for the first time since April, I closed the balcony door before bed. My chair sat outside on its own, looking slightly abandoned. I felt a bit sorry for it.

One recipe

There’s only one thing to cook on the first cold evening in Portugal, and it’s caldo verde: potato soup with ribbons of greens and slices of chouriço. Serves four, costs very little and tastes like being looked after.

• 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• 600g floury potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1.5 litres water or light stock
• 200g couve galega or kale, shredded very finely
• 1 chouriço, thinly sliced
• Salt

Soften the onion and garlic in the oil for ten minutes without browning. Add the potatoes and water, salt well, and simmer for 20 minutes until the potatoes fall apart. Blend until smooth. Bring back to a simmer, add the greens and cook for just four or five minutes so they stay bright. Meanwhile, fry the chouriço in a dry pan until its oil runs. Ladle the soup into bowls, add a few slices of chouriço to each and finish with a thread of olive oil. Bread on the side, obviously.

The secret is cutting the greens as thin as you possibly can — think hair, not ribbons. If you want to see it done properly, there’s a two-minute caldo verde video I keep coming back to.

One thing worth reading

Wintering by Katherine May. I read it two winters ago and pulled it off the stairwell shelf again this week, where someone had left it with a bus ticket for a bookmark. It’s a memoir about the seasons of life when things go quiet and hard, and about letting yourself rest rather than pushing through. It sounds heavy; it isn’t. It’s gentle and practical and full of cold swims and good soup, and it’s exactly the book for the week the socks come out.

That’s it from me. Close the door, make the soup, be kind to yourself.

Warmly, from under a blanket,

Millie