Winter

We cannot let November pass without a pomegranate!

I love to cook and I love cookbooks, for they seem to hold sorcerer’s spells between their pages. I don’t use them when I cook, however. 

I may glance over the ingredients list or temperature/time chart, but the book closes when I begin preparation. Nothing I do gets done exactly the same way twice as I cook by feel and what is in my kitchen at the time.

I say this only to encourage you to treat the following recipes casually – more as an inspiration than as a contractual obligation.

It happens every week. As I'm selecting my Swiss chard, kale, or collards, someone inevitably sidles up to me and asks, "What do you do with that?" Then after I share a recipe idea, she usually follows up with, "To me, they're all the same."

No wonder people get confused. Every time you go to the supermarket all the winter greens are mixed together in one big, undivided, forest green section, with seemingly randomly placed signs and prices scattered above and below them.

It's like a game: Match the green on the left column with the correct name and price on the right column. Chances are you probably just select the green that your mom made when you were growing up because it's the one you actually know how to cook.

I do enjoy winter. Aside from the holidays, which can be as stressful and maddening as they are glorious, there is a natural exaggeration of the contrast between “outside” and “inside,” between the biting cold and isolation of a Michigan winter and the warmth and community to be found at home. There are very few experiences I prefer to that of coming into a warm house after spending time outside shovelling, sledding or taking a walk with the dogs; my body naturally melts into the ambient warmth, and (with a little luck) there can be hot chocolate or a cup of tea in my immediate future.

Its good to come in from the cold, but I can ratchet my pleasure level even higher if there is something delicious in the oven, scenting the house and promising good things to come. Winter is not about the quick, refreshing fruits and vegetable of spring and summer which often require just a knife and maybe a little kosher salt. Winter is a time for the slow, deep flavors that come from long cooking of root vegetables and cuts of meat too tough and complicated to be thrown on the grill. It is a perfect time for braising and stewing, which let you begin with tough (but flavorful) protein and thick, starchy vegetables and end with tender meat and vegetables as well as sauce or gravy infused with the flavors and scents of meat, vegetables, and the aromatics of your choosing.

Without being super conscious about it, I have been making more and more vegetarian meals. Millet, lentils, quinoa, black beans, and lots of green vegetables are consumed weekly while less meat and chicken grace our dinner table. Don’t get me wrong, I like my animal protein. As long as it is pastured and raised in an environment that you and I would want to be raised in.

Last winter, when we switched over to a gluten free diet, I cleaned out the pantry. I was amazed at how much food I had on hand and I realized that I could feed my family for a month based on the existing inventory.

In that inventory, there was an unopened bag of millet. I have always liked millet but pretty much forgot about it. Instead, I was making a lot of farro, quinoa, and barley. Quinoa is one of the few grains that we continued to eat and I decided to open that bag of millet and start experimenting.