“It’s National Nut Month at These Upstate New York Nut Stores!”

I will proudly admit it:  "I go nuts for nuts!"

October is National Nut Month (October 22 is actually National Nut Day).  And this is a great time to celebrate the nut business and the nut stores and shops across Upstate New York and beyond.

Few aromas will get your taste buds flowing more than the smell of fresh roasted nuts coming from the small glass warming case on a store counter, the one with the lightbulb illuminating the nuts below it.  OK, so maybe the smell of popcorn that hits you when you walk into a movie theater will beat it.  But, it is close!

Fresh nuts, served up by a clerk using a little silver scoop, and poured into a small paper bag, has been a food tradition since long before the immigrant wave came at the dawning of the 20th century (they gave us the pushcart peddlers and their roasted nuts on the sidewalks of major cities).

I love all nuts from cashews to almonds to walnut and to pecans.  But my heart belongs to the lowly peanut.  Give me anything with a peanut butter flavor and I am a happy camper.  I can't tell you how many times I have walked up to a pastry counter and the first thing I say to the vendor is "Do you have anything with peanuts in it?"

In celebration, here is a kaleidoscopic gallery of several ways to celebrate National Nut Month in Upstate New York.  These are local purveyors of homemade peanut butter, peanut butter sweet treats (think cookies and brownies) and wholesale and retail makers of mountains of fresh roasted nuts of all kinds.

So...."calling all nuts!" It is your month to celebrate!