Wreaths, Crafts, and Wild Apples: How a Design Writer Celebrates Fall in the Catskills

If you’ve ever dreamed of leaving city life behind for the quiet hum of the countryside, Lisa Przystup’s new book Once Around the Sun might be the perfect field guide for you.

And field guide it is. The book, which promises “seasonal rituals, food, and stories from a house upstate,” per the subtitle, is an almanac-inspired ode to the changing seasons that transports you right into a year in the author’s life in New York’s Western Catskills, with gleaming photos by husband-and-wife photographer duo Kate Foster and John Hesselbarth.

Przystup, a design writer and erstwhile florist who has contributed to Domino, Vogue, New York magazine, and more, is also the author of Upstate: Living Spaces with Space to Live. She and her husband, musician Jonathon Linaberry, bought their Catskills farmhouse in 2016. They initially went back and forth between their apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, but moved up there full time amid the pandemic in 2020.

Six years later, they’ve settled in—and found ways of creatively embracing each season. Each has its own traditions: In the summer, for instance, Przystup grows tomatoes in her garden, makes meals on a stone grill, swims and floats in the water, eats stuffed daylilies, picks flowers. But as summer turns to fall, her rituals grow cozier, moving indoors while also recognizing the beauty of the new chill in the air, the crisp frost on the leaves.

Throughout the book, Przystup shares ways of infusing the seasons into her daily life and home with crafty decor, rituals, hosting, and more. There is flower-arrangement inspiration for all seasons, ways of bringing the wild outdoors in. Much of the book is about experiences: savoring the simple things we do that make each season unique.

“There is a really beautiful melancholy to fall,” Przystup tells Vogue. Letting go of summer isn’t easy, but that just underscores how helpful rituals can be. “Doing these things injects a certain amount of magic” into the hard transitions, the earlier sunsets, and the dipping temperatures, she says.

“There are really small things that you can do each season to sort of mark and celebrate the season, and I think we all do it just naturally,” Przystup adds. “There’s this really great moment when the first frost rolls through, where the sun is out and you wake up in the morning, and all the leaves on the ground are covered in frost. If you pick one up and twirl it in the light of the sun, it looks like it’s covered in crystals.”

The book serves as a reminder for us all to meditate on the changing seasons. “Experiencing life within the boundaries of the seasons serves as a dress rehearsal for letting go,” writes Przystup in the book’s introduction. “It offers a very special opportunity to understand and accept the impermanent nature of things—and as a result, to cherish them.”

Below, just in time to savor the cozy autumnal days ahead of us, Przystup shares her rituals for making the most of the fall.

Roast a chicken

“The first roast chicken of the season, you’re like, ‘Okay yeah, now we’re in it.’ There’s this really nourishing, warm dish,” Przystup says. Whether you cook it or someone else does (her husband has mastered the art of the roast chicken, she says), the dish can warm up your kitchen and your spirit.

Enjoy the season’s bounty, both on your plate and on your table

Pumpkin, delicate squash, elderberry, and apples: These are just some of the bounty of the fall, and Przystup enjoys them as food and decor.

She has fun with the tablescaping, using stacked bread as candle holders. “I did not invent this idea,” she writes in the book. “What I do know is that I love the playfulness of the idea and that bread is beautiful and deserving of being showcased as more than just food.” (Though she cuts out the waxy part and freezes the bread to eat later.)

Pick wild apples—or go to the farmer’s market

For city dwellers, Przystup recommends going to the flower market or the farmer’s market, or a classic stroll through Central Park. But if you can, get in the car and go on a fall-themed excursion: apple-picking, or even just driving around and marveling at the glowing orange, yellow, and red leaves. Bake an apple dessert and revel in the scent of pure, warm cinnamon comfort as it wafts through your kitchen.