What Gucci loafers have to do with leaves

And why autumn is the season for salad

Alison has piercing blue eyes, a fringed bob, and speaks as if she graduated with top honours from elocution lessons. When we first met she dressed in black from head to toe: cashmere turtleneck, cigarette pants, and suede horse-bit loafers (which looked very Gucci). Alison had studied at a Cordon Bleu cookery school and when I was in high school, she h…