Fall is good for business travelers. Fewer families on their way to summer vacations crowd airports and highways. In most destinations, you no longer need to worry about summer’s sweltering heat and the difficulty of looking crisp and fresh, nor do you yet face winter’s challenge of toting around heavy, cold-weather garments. On the other hand, autumn can be unpredictable, demanding a layered approach to travel clothes that allows you to get warmer or cooler without a complete change.
Any good hotel will be well-equipped to keep you cozy, but if you are the sort who likes to be extra warm in bed or while you work at your desk, ask when you check in if an extra duvet or blanket is available. Travel candles seem especially right in the fall for adding a subtle scent to your room, whether it’s just for you or if you plan to conduct business there. Aromas like pumpkin pie spice or spiced apple add a warm, seasonal touch.
If you are planning to do any amount of driving, especially in rural areas, we have a word of caution and a delicious word to the wise. The warning: wildlife spend autumn getting ready for winter. Squirrels and groundhogs run across roads storing up nuts; deer and moose are busy munching roadside greenery to put on winter fat. For drivers, the former are a nuisance, the latter dangerous. The good part about driving in the countryside this time of year is that it’s harvest time. Farm stands sell just-picked apples and corn so good you can eat it uncooked. In New Mexico, roadside roasters cook chiles and offer ad hoc chile sandwiches to passers-by.
In restaurants, look for harvest specials. One of our favorite eateries between New York and Boston, Pizzeria Lauretano* in Bethel, Connecticut, offers a seasonal “garden pizza” topped with locally grown squash, sweet corn kernels and heirloom tomatoes. In the Pacific Northwest, autumn is the season when fresh Dungeness crab is at its best: sweet and plump, available in deluxe presentations such as crab Louis at Portland’s Dan and Louis*, or simply as a cup of crab meat with cocktail sauce at the roadside gem, The Crabpot*, of Lincoln City. And on all three coasts, oysters are in season starting in September. We like them at Swan Oyster Depot* in San Francisco, at the Acme Oyster House* in New Orleans and at the Oyster Bar* in New York City’s Grand Central Station.
Autumn is also when soup starts to sound especially good. If you have time for only one meal between meetings in New York, consider clam chowder at the Pearl Oyster Bar; in Oklahoma City, savor the beefiest-possible steak soup at the Cattlemen’s Steakhouse; and in St. Augustine, Florida, don’t miss the fiery Minorcan chowder (and four-star fried shrimp) at O’Steen’s.
Finally, our favorite culinary fact about traveling in autumn: chocolate isn’t going to melt if you take some in your luggage or mail it home. Mike’s Candies* of Buffalo, New York, won’t even ship its magical sponge candy (dark chocolate enrobing ethereal blocks of spun sugar) until the weather starts getting cool. And while they’re not strictly seasonal, candy turtles with their dense caramel bodies, thick chocolate shells and crisp nuts seem especially right as an autumn treat. They are quite spectacular at Cambridge’s Upstairs on the Square*, where the caramel is replaced by hugely sweet brown sugar praline, and nowhere better than at Turtle Alley* in nearby Gloucester, where the stunner is an almond chipotle turtle in which the pepper’s smoky bite surges through the caramel filling and around the nuts like edible adrenalin, all its excitement robed in a silky sweet chocolate coat that assures on-fire taste buds that all is well.
Acme Oyster House: 724 Iberville St., New Orleans. 504-522-5973.
Cattlemen’s Steakhouse: 1309 S. Agnew, Oklahoma City, OK. 405-236-0416.
The Crabpot: 6019 S.W. Highway 101, Lincoln City, OR. 541-996-2487
Dan and Louis Oyster Bar: 208 SW Ankeny St., Portland, OR. 503-227-5906.
Mike’s Candies: 2110 Clinton Street, Cheektowaga, NY. 716-826-6515.
O’Steen’s: 205 Anastasia Blvd., St. Augustine, FL. 904-829-6974
Grand Central Oyster Bar: Grand Central Terminal, New York, NY. 212-490-6650.
Pearl Oyster Bar: 18 Cornelia St., New York, NY. 212-691-8211.
Pizzeria Lauretano: 291 Greenwood Ave., Bethel, CT. 203-792-1500
Swan Oyster Depot: 1517 Polk St., San Francisco, CA. 415-673-1101
Turtle Alley: 91A Washington St., Gloucester, MA. 978-281-4000.
Upstairs on the Square: 91 Winthrop St., Cambridge, MA. 617-864-1933.
