Last Tuesday at the Addison Road Community Market in Marrickville, the same stallholder who sold me bunches of basil back in January had his table split almost exactly down the middle. Pumpkins and bunched silverbeet on one side, the last of the tomatoes and a crate of soft-skinned peaches on the other. He shrugged when I asked which way the season was going. ‘Depends on the week,’ he said. That’s shoulder season cooking in one sentence, really.
These in-between stretches, the run from summer into autumn, or the wobble from winter toward spring, are the weeks I actually enjoy cooking in most, though I’ll admit they take a bit more thought than the reliable extremes. In deep winter you know you’re making soup. In January you know you’re not turning the oven on before 8pm. It’s these transitional weeks where the fridge holds odd bedfellows and the weather can’t commit, that’s when I find the best meals happen, mostly because I stop following a script.
Why shoulder season cooking asks something different of you
The produce itself is the tell. You’ll get capsicums sitting next to the first broccoli of the season, or strawberries hanging on stubbornly while the citrus starts turning up in boxes. Eat For Health’s Australian Dietary Guidelines don’t dictate a seasonal calendar, but the general steer toward variety and plenty of vegetables across the week holds up whatever the month, and honestly it’s easier to hit that variety in the shoulder months than almost any other time of year, because you’ve got two seasons’ worth of produce to pull from at once.
What I love about cooking through this stretch is that it forces a bit of improvisation. You can’t lean on the same three vegetables for eight weeks straight because the ones you liked last fortnight have already thinned out at the greengrocer. It keeps a home cook a little more honest, a little more awake to what’s actually good that week rather than what’s habitual.
What’s genuinely worth buying right now
Right now in Sydney I’m seeing pumpkin, the earliest broccoli, silverbeet, and leeks starting to firm up alongside stone fruit that’s on its last legs and capsicums still holding decent flavour. None of it needs much done to it. A tray roast of pumpkin wedges with a scatter of chilli flakes from my balcony pots does more work than a complicated braise, and it bridges into either season without looking out of place on the plate.
If you want a template rather than a recipe, this is mine: one roasted vegetable that’s clearly heading into cooler months, one raw or lightly cooked vegetable that’s still hanging on from the warm season, a protein that doesn’t need babysitting, and a sauce with some acid in it to wake the whole thing up. The chargrilled chicken with salsa verde does this without trying, and it’s one I keep coming back to for exactly this kind of week.
One tray, two seasons
My go-to shoulder season habit is running a single tray with both directions of produce on it, pumpkin and green beans, or leek and the last cherry tomatoes, roasted together so the sweetness of the summer veg gets a bit of caramelised backup from whatever’s coming into season. It’s not fussy and it isn’t trying to be clever. It’s just a practical way to use what’s actually in the crisper rather than throwing out the sad end of one box while buying a whole new one.
The smell when a tray like that hits a hot oven, that mix of caramelising onion and something a bit sharper underneath, is honestly one of my favourite kitchen moments of the year. It doesn’t smell like winter and it doesn’t smell like summer. It smells like the actual week you’re in.
Eating for how the weeks actually feel
There’s a mood shift that comes with shoulder seasons too, and I don’t think it gets talked about enough outside of the produce. Energy dips a bit as daylight changes, appetite swings, some mornings you want something warm and some you still want the salad you had in February. Betterhealth.vic.gov.au has some sensible, non-alarmist material on how seasonal shifts in routine and light can affect mood and energy, and it’s worth a read if you notice yourself flagging around this time of year without quite knowing why.
I try not to overthink it. If I want porridge one morning and a smoothie the next, I let that happen rather than forcing consistency for its own sake. This is roughly the same logic behind building a balanced plate without starting another diet, which I still think is one of the more useful pieces we’ve run here, because it takes the pressure off eating the same virtuous thing every single day.
The pantry habit that actually earns its place
Where I do get a bit more organised in these weeks is the pantry. Tinned chickpeas, a decent stock, and something warming like ginger or chilli mean I can go from a summery kingfish ceviche with lime and chilli one night to a properly warming spiced chickpea and pumpkin stew the next, without a special shop in between. That flexibility is, I reckon, the entire point of shoulder season cooking. You’re not committing to a season, you’re keeping options open until the weather makes up its mind.
Where I draw the line
I’ll be honest, I don’t bother trying to force a proper seasonal menu plan for these weeks. I’ve tried the spreadsheet version, colour-coded by what’s meant to be in season on a given date, and it fell apart by week two because the actual market didn’t match the plan. These months reward a looser hand. Buy what looks good, roast what needs roasting, and don’t feel obliged to cook a hearty stew just because the calendar says autumn if it’s twenty-six degrees outside, which in this country it often still is.
If you’re finding the changeable weeks are knocking your routine around more broadly, not just at mealtimes, it’s worth having a look at taking time out in autumn or gentle ways to reset after a stressful week, both of which sit alongside this kind of eating rather than trying to fix it with food alone.
A small tray, most weeknights
My balcony chilli plant is doing that stubborn thing it does every March, still fruiting weeks after it should have called it quits, and I’ve taken to throwing a couple into whatever tray is going into the oven that night regardless of season. It’s a small, slightly contrary habit, but it sums up how I feel about this whole stretch of the year: less about matching the produce to the calendar, more about matching the meal to the actual evening you’re having. That’s the bit worth holding onto once the weather properly decides which way it’s going.
– Mei Lin, Golden Door Living kitchen
