I have a hard time letting go of summer and giving in to fall. Mostly this has to do with the sun setting early and it being depressingly dark at 5 p.m., but of course it's also food-related. As we slide slowly into autumn, some of my favorite produce like zucchini and tomatoes begin to vanish from my CSA box, replaced by tough-skinned celeriac and winter squash. The other day I went to my neighborhood produce stand to pick up some fruit for my daughter, who loves nectarines, and found that all of the stone fruits had vanished.

I moped for a moment until I found the bins brimming with Fuyu persimmons, whose beautiful orange color complement all of the leaves changing overhead.

Persimmons are widely eaten throughout Asia, where the many different varieties are as common as apples are in the United States. But they're still not very well known or eaten regularly here, which is a shame because they are wonderful—sweet, but not too sweet, earthy, and mild. Here, we typcially only see two varities: Hachiya and Fuyu. Hachiya are lovely—heart-shaped and filled with a quivering, soft, custardy fruit. But you have to wait until they are completely, meltingly ripe, otherwise the flavor is terrible and astringent. I recommend sticking with Fuyus, which are adorable and squat like tomatoes, have a cute little four-petaled hat, and can be eaten when they are still firm.

I worked as a server at Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi's Joule for a couple of years and one of my favorite dishes—one I still think about to this day—was a salad made with both fresh and dried persimmons and bitter greens like dandelion and radicchio. There was also shaved fennel, a lovely curry vinaigrette, and crunchy wild sesame (perilla) seeds. The salad sat atop a little heap of cool, tangy Greeky yogurt. To me, it's a perfect fall salad: the bracing bitterness of the leaves cut by the sweetness of the fruit, and a great array of textures. I've tried to recreate it several times at home, and while my version never tastes quite as good, it's still delicious. I love a recipe that puts the fruit at the center of the dish.

Right now persimmons are popping up on menus around town. I had dinner the other night at Lark and noticed that one of the seasonal accompaniments to their foie gras terrine is persimmon, along with grains of paradise, hazelnut, and brown butter. Downtown at Tom Douglas's Lola, the kitchen is serving a grilled octopus dish with roasted delicata squash, pumpkin seeds, and persimmon. And at Tillikum Place Cafe, a "harvest moon custard," made from roasted persimmons, is currently on the dessert menu.

If you see persimmons at your local market, pick up a few and give them a try. This simple salad would be a great place to start. But you can also eat them raw and plain, as my daughter does.

The sweetness of persimmons, rather than being cloying and aggressive, is mellow, easing its way across your palate before making you swoon. It's a lot like how I approach fall—cautiously and slowly, until almost imperceptibly I come to embrace the darkness and quiet. It's only after I've spent a few nights cuddled up under a blanket while soup simmers on the stove that I realize I have completely surrendered.