remedial eating

like i said

I forgot, last week, the suffix to Spring, at least when you have little people about: BREAK!

The kiddos were off these past ten days, and we're all a little bleary-eyed and wobbly-pinned, these first days back.  Mondays are iffy.  Mondays after Spring Break, doubly so.  I've been leaning heavily on the 3x5" index card I scrawled for myself, just before school let out.  Knowing I would forget everything important, I jotted down a few Must Remembers for yesterday, like Take Out Trash, and Send Important E-mails, BE PATIENT, and BE KIND.  I didn't exactly bat 1000.  But I haven't yet biffed it entirely, either.  We won't, at the very least, be lamenting last week's garbage, next Thursday.  So I think I'll call it a Qualified Success.  And I thought I'd pop over with a wave and hello.

It was just what we all needed, I think, this pile-up of days in the middle of March.

Playing dominoes, drawing with wax, puzzling out hopping frogs. Memorizing Charlie Harper. Bearing witness to an embarassment of flowers.

There were dinosaurs, and playdates, and Graeter's waffle cones.  Come to think of it, that might've made the Break, right there.  But that was just day number one.  

Our usual St. Patrick's Day feast didn't happen. But some of us found gold at the end of the rainbow, complete with leprauchaun. That made up for a lot.

We welcomed a bit of weather whiplash, with nights back to freezing, and days bright but nippy.  We bobbed for apples.  Only with marshmallows instead of apples.  And with hot cocoa instead of water.  Because we won't be needing either, a month from now, and we'd best clear out the fridge and pantry.

(All in the name of spring cleaning, you understand.)

Long-overdue projects were tackled. I cleaned out my purse, for example. I lost eight pounds instantly, mostly in crumbs. I vacuumed my car. That took the better part of a Saturday afternoon. There were Cheerios, people. We haven't brought Cheerios along in the car in I-don't-know-how-long. We used up the very last stale house stash last summer. In bracelets. Seeing as they weren't suitable for human consumption.

Like I said: needed. I should preface that: sorely.

Taxes.

Room-cleaning.

Balancing spoons on frozen-blueberry bowls. Important stuff like that.

(Spoon photo by Max. Balancing talent, also.)

We dug for bugs.

We searched for swirls.

Oh. And we went to Montréal.

Nous sommes allées à Montréal!

By car. Twelve hours, and one-half.  In one day.  Twice in one week.  (Gas stops, meals, border crossings, chocolate emergencies, not included.)

Still recovering.  More on Montréal later.

Until then: beets and oranges. (Like I said: more salads.)

But beets.  Do you do beets?  I do, and adore them.  Fiercely.

For one thing, they are devilishly convenient.  I am no Tamar Adler when it comes to produce processing.  I am lucky if I get my groceries in the fridge before nightfall, never mind roasting the week's veg before they ever see the crisper.  Never, that is, save for my beets.

Years ago, I began mindlessly roasting my beets as I put away the pretzels and dish soap.  Roasting beets is about as basic as it gets: trim, rinse, and place in a Pyrex pie plate, with a half-inch of water and a tight lid of foil.  Slide them in solo, or alongside whatever you're baking, at whatever temperature you want, until a knife mistakes your beets for butter. I've baked beets alongside cakes, and granola, and bread, and lasagne, and cookies, and just last night, baked potatoes. There's no peeling, no chopping, no prepping, no thinking.  Sign me up yesterday. This is so my style.

What you wind up with is sweet garnet meat, giant balls of the stuff, tender, earthy, vivid. They are excellent tucked into mustardy French lentils, or tossed with cucumbers, dill, and sour cream.  I can often be found eating them out of hand, whole, like an apple, though that does get a little Lady MacBeth. (Temporarily.  Plain old soap and water makes quick work of ghoulish hands. And their storied staining power is much ado about nothing: Clorox 2 gets beet juice out of anything. You could, I suppose, go with golden beets, but where, precisely, is the thrill in that?)

But among my most beloved beet standbys is a simple salad with orange, feta, and mint. The beets are diced, plated and drizzled with vinegar.  Okay, alright, full disclosure: strike 'drizzled'; insert 'lashed'.  Roasted beets love vinegar.  Roasted beets need vinegar.  Beets are sweet, no matter which way you fix them, floating in borscht or grated raw into flinty salads.  But roasting intensifies beets' sweetness exponentially, intensifying them into a concentrated, almost syrupy swagger.  This is a good thing.  A good thing bettered by vinegar. 

The acid adds interest and edge and dimension, harmony to the melody, Amy Ray to Emily Saliers.  It does not, I should note, yield your average Acme canned beet, which is strident and sharp and a little bit tawdry.  The home-roasted spiked beet is another beast completely, rich, well-rounded, intense, decadent.  Talk about a strong foundation.

To this, you pile on the chopped meat of an orange, a toss of good feta, a tangle of fresh mint.  The bright citrus sweet is entirely unlike the stored underground sort, which is fascinating, and wonderful.  It's sun and soil, distilled and assembled, amped up on feta's twang and the fresh slap of cool mint.  Sometimes I build it on a base of baby spinach.  Often, I add a smattering of roasted, salted pistachios, which amaze.  Mostly, I make it over and over, just like this, just the very best bits.  I ate some for lunch, not long before we left.  And again for brunch, this very morning.  Chances are, I'll double it for dinner, and eat it again, before the week's out.  Because there are beets in the fridge, ready and waiting, and five minutes between me and a feast.  Join me? 

Beets + Oranges with Feta + Mint
Serves 1

If you live in a place where new spring beets are coming on: congratulations! This is as fine a place to honor them as any.  If you live in a place where senile storage beets are all that are on offer: congratulations!  Beets are one of the best keepers I know. We are decisively in this latter category, and I continue to marvel over the beet's mysterious stamina.

As written, this makes a tidy lunch for one; scale up as needed.  Beets are often paired with chèvre, but I prefer something more toothsome.  Feta, ricotta salata, queso fresco all work beautifully here.  Finally: I build this salad from the beets up, because they color everything in a heartbeat.  Your snowy feta will be lurid magenta within minutes.  And all the more delicious for it.  But, you know, FYI.   

1 plump, juicy navel orange
1 plump roasted beet, peeled**
1 tablespoon sweet, mild vinegar (raspberry, cider, any color wine, sherry...)
drizzle olive oil
2-3 tablespoons good feta, crumbled
2-3 tablespoons' fresh mint, slivered
salted, roasted pistachios (optional)
salt and pepper, to taste

Cut peeled, roasted beet into bite-size (1/2-1") bits, and set on plate. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon vinegar over all, add a good pinch of salt, and let beets drink this up while you prepare your orange...

Semi-suprême your orange: with a sharp paring knife, top and tail your orange, and set it on it's newly flat end.  Work your way around the sides, paring peel and pith from the fruit.  Once you are down to a sphere of fruit, separate it into halves, remove the pithy core, and slice it (interior pith and all) into bite-size (1/2-1") bits.  Set orange bits on beets. 

Crumble your feta, sliver your mint, roughly chop pistachios, if using, and scatter all over beets and oranges.  Drizzle with a bit more vinegar, and a touch of olive oil, and final flurry of salt and fresh pepper.  Smile.

***

To roast your beets:  Trim leaves off, leaving an inch of stalk, and set aside for soups or sautées.  Wash, and place in a small baking dish (Pyrex pie plates work beautifully) with a half-inch of water, and cover tightly with foil.  Bake beets in the oven, with whatever else is baking, anywhere from 275º to 450º, until a knife glides through the biggest beet with ease.  This may take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on beet size and oven temperature.  Test after 45 minutes, and if you meet any resistance, return to the oven again, adding more water if needed and sealing foil tightly.  Most of my beets take around an hour at 400º.  When done, cool slightly, top and tail, then roll each beet gently in a clean paper towel: the skin will slide right off.  Use immediately, or store in the refrigerator for later use.  Roasted beets keep beautifully for 5-7 days.

 

under the wire

This past week, we've been slammed by sunshine.  Then rain.  Then sun.  

Rain.  Sun.  Rain.

Repeat.  

We've appreciated anew the reckless hellebore, that hardy soul that blooms when no one else dares. 

And realized with a start that our first flowers will soon pass.  And welcomed the parade of bulbs that will follow.

We've tidied an extra bit, not an extra lot, but a bit.  It is astounding how many spider webs lurk where you don't look. 

(Don't look up.  Because what you don't see—I've recently decided, in a long overdue analog to what you don't know—cannot, in good conscience, be dirty.)

We've been reveling in nights that are light until eight, walking, park-ing, reading, playing, drinking it in. 

(The mornings, ugh.  Less revelry, more dishevelry.  I hereby propose to the Daylight Savings Supreme Council that we shake things up a bit, gain an hour on both ends.  All in favor?)

The birds are back.  In spades.  In legions.  Sizing up our backyard birdhouses like so many sunbelt speculators, ca. 2004.  And apart from my newfound crow-wariness, the grand hubbub has been all kinds of fun.

We've watched our first daffodil open, and our second, and our fifteenth-sixteenth-seventeenth- ...  And with that, brought the year's first cut flower inside.  Seems like that ought to be a holiday right there, doesn't it?

We've made pie twice, and eaten it thrice, and practiced our 3.14159.  Because Pi Day really is a holiday.  An unofficial one, maybe, but no less tasty for it. 

We finished off the last of last Fall's caramel, and held vigil over the bare patch where we know to expect rhubarb.  Nothing ... nothing ... nothing ... something!  Too small to photograph, heliotrope elf torpedos, but there they were, Wednesday, right on schedule.

We've spied new growth rubbing shoulders with old, everywhere.  Green spears heading north, old brown blooms dangling south.  Little shoes, suddenly too small.  Pants that worked last month, all wrong this. 

We stumbled upon Erin Steed's latest gem, and fell (again) head over heels for her exquisite illustrations.  And one young boy's exquisite patience.  And a hat-wearing penguin.  And... oh, just go.

Go. 

Now. 

Read.  

We've found the first fly, the first ant, the first ladybug.  And after weeks of searching, the first roly poly.  Can you see it, up top, in those dusty cupped hands?  It was tiny, tiny, tinier even than those rhubarb tips.  But when you've been building habitats and hanging "VACANCY" signs and up-ending rocks since February, size is so not an issue.

Bubbly mudpuddles have taken up residence under every soap pump.  There's a fine layer of grit on the bottom of the bath tub.  We've tracked in enough mud to fill a raised bed.  It sounds almost romantic, doesn't it?  It's not.  It's just dirty.  But it's a good dirty.

I've made emergency runs to the basement for shorts.  Fielded—and punted—popsicle requests.  Refereed water fights in the backyard.  At half-past seven.  No goosebumps in sight. 

Yes, those are bare elbows, knees and toes, and yes, those are daffodils in the background.  Sort of like last year, emphasis on the "not at all".  Seventy-seven it was, this past Wednesday.  Next Tuesday's projection: 81º.  That would be Tuesday, March 20.  As in Tuesday, Equinox Eve.  Must be Summer.  Late Winter.  New World Order.  Whatever.  Let's go with a sneak preview of Spring.

Here is where I confess I am Toad.  A touch curmudgeon, dragging my feet, not quite ready to crawl out from under winter's covers. 

Not entirely Toad.  I would never ever say to Spring, point-blank, “Blah.”  I want to skip through the meadows and run through the woods and swim—okay, splash—in the river, I do!  Just, you know, later.  Just not quite yet.  I’ve got knitting in progress!  Basement sewing unfinished!  To-do’s still to do!  Can I burrow down one more month? 

(We've also taken cat naps, since the Daylight Savings Supreme Council seems to be permanently Out of Office.)

This is why I need Frogs in my life, like daffodils and insistent suns and small children in triplicate.  They cajole my slow self into making the switch.  They keep me honest.  They remind me to look up.  And between the bright hot, there are still those damp days.  We can squeeze in some wooly goodness, when the sun don't shine.  Work puzzles, string beads, while sitting out the drizzle.  And before the calendar officially flips, we can sneak in pork and apples, under the wire.

If you've been around here any length of time, you'll have noticed I don't talk meat-centered mains very often.  This is because I don't eat meat-centered mains very often.  Meat appears most weeks, if not most nights, but when it does, it is ordinarily a bit player.  Apart from the odd braise or festive shish kebab, meat mostly makes its way onto our table stir-fried with vegetables, consorting with tofu, or tossed with abundant greens, beans, grains or legumes.  A + 2B family, we are not.

Except on those rare occasions when we are.  This pork, these apples: they are the rare.  I've been making this dish for some ten years, now, often once a year, always regretting not more.  A single tenderloin is sliced thin and seared, as much for the handsome crust this delivers, as for the golden bits they leave behind.  When the medallions are bronzed, but not yet done, they're set aside to rest, and to give the apples and onions their turn. 

I didn't mention the onions.  The onions are important.  They are tiny little things, slivered, transluscent, but the source of that unmistakable allium baritone.  The onions are savory harmony to the apples' tart-sweet melody, a caramelized vegetal counterpoint to the rich disks of meat. 

Rich?  Oh, yes, that.  There's a pan sauce, also, built of booze, cider and cream.  And of course those crusty bits, good as gold, flavor bombs that become one with the sauce.  Well, and thyme, which I shouldn't underplay, because its soft herbal zip is evident throughout.  This all gets reduced, concentrated, until syrupy, whereupon the pork re-enters the swim.  Everything completes finishing school together, until pork, apples, onions, and cream can complete each other's sentences.  I could clutter another paragraph with ecstatic adjectives, or I could just encourage you to give it a go.  You can still sneak it in under the winter wire, if you wish.  But really, there's no deadline on delicious. 

Pork Tenderloin with Apples, Onions, Thyme + Cream
adapted from The Best Recipe, from the Editors of Cook's Illustrated

Long ago, I increased the apples and onions, both, as I always crave more of the caramelized chunks.  Ditto the sauce.  You could quadruple it, easy.  As to apples, use a good firm sweet-tart apple, such as Pink Lady or Granny Smith.  Both hold their shape beautifully.  As to "cider", I last used one Juicy Juice box, leftover from a party months ago.  And as for "Applejack", I used Tuaca, a completely unrelated liquor with a sweet, vanilla edge.  The original called for sage; I like thyme.  My point: apple varieties aside, this recipe is deeply forgiving.  Don't be held back by the details. 

1 pork tenderloin (1 - 1.5 pounds), sliced into 3/4" medallions
1 teaspoon kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon butter + 1 tablespoon oil
3 firm, tart apples, such as Pink Lady or Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and cut into 1" chunks
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
3 tablespoons applejack, brandy, rum, cognac, anything heady
1 cup apple cider or juice
1/2 cup chicken broth or water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons thyme, dry or fresh
1/2 cup heavy cream
additional salt and pepper, to taste

Arrange pork slices in a single layer upon paper towel and blot dry, then sprinkle both sides generously with salt and pepper.  In a large, heavy skillet, heat oil over high heat until it shimmers.  Working in batches, with tongs, carefully lay several slices of tenderloin in the hot pan, leaving an inch between pieces to ensure browning, not steaming.  Let sit, undisturbed, 2-3 minutes, or until the bottom side is well-browed and releases easily.  (If oil begins to smoke, turn heat down slightly.)  Flip medallions, and sear on reverse, until golden.  Remove medallions to a clean plate, and repeat with remaining pork, adding another splash of oil, if needed, to keep bottom covered.  Reserve crusty skillet with all its glorious brown bits for step two.

With the pork seared and resting, sauté your apples and build your pan sauce:  In the same skillet you used to sear the pork, melt butter and oil over medium heat, and swirl to distribute.  Add apples and onions, stir to coat, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until apples are browning at the edges, 4-8 minutes.  Add apple cider/juice and brandy to apples and onions, and bring to a boil, scraping pan bottom with a wooden spatula to loosen the browned bits.  Boil gently until liquid reduces to a glaze, 3-4 minutes.  Increase heat to high, add broth (or water), any accumulated pork juices from the resting plate, salt and thyme (if dried, rub between fingers as you add it, to release its oils and brighten its flavor).  Boil until liquid reduces, thickens and becomes syrupy, 3-4 minutes.  Add cream; continue to boil, until reduced by half, 2-3 minutes.

Reduce heat to medium, and return pork medallions to the pan, turning meat to coat and nestling them down amidst the apples.  Simmer pork in the pan sauce until cooked through, 5-10 minutes (the USDA recently lowered the safe cooking temperature for pork to 145º; I cut open the thickest slice, and look for clear juices and a faint blush of pink).  Taste, and adjust salt and pepper to suit.  Transfer to a serving platter, spooning apples, onions and sauce over all, and enjoy.

shameless

Once, three hundred years ago, or at least three lifetimes ago, I was traveling by train through the Pyrénées.

We were somewhere between Barcelona and Madrid, barreling through the stark hills which the locals called mountains.  It was hard for my Northwest self to see "mountain" in the modest peaks out either window. They looked more like foothills, like Issaquah, like Snoqualmie, than like Rainier, which was my mountain archetype.  But semantics aside, they were mesmerizing, so scrubby, so rugged, so different from all I knew.

I remember riding with my nose pushed up against the chill glass, playing with that funny focus that trains invite.  Pick a point well ahead, affix your eyeballs, and follow it with your head until fwoop!, it's all gone. 

The prize in this solitary, high-speed game was the spying of villages, rare and sudden.  We whizzed through tiny, anonymous towns by the dozen, small congregations of gray roofs, incongruous as toadstools.  They were enchanting, mystifying, a little terrifying, stubborn little outposts against all that stone.  Up each main street, without fail, plodded a few elderly women, market-bound with net bags.  Backs curved with age, coats invariably black, hair always encased under waterproof scarves.

I remember how unwittingly they resembled their surroundings: concave huddled clusters, pointy-topped, pewter-hued, the women, the mountains, the both of them.  I remember being impressed they all wore the same uniform.  Mostly, I remember those identical plastic rain scarves, tied tight under absolutely every last chin.  And nothing but sunshine, not a raindrop in sight. 

Weird.

(By now, you serious students of Spain, and those with any passing knowledge of geography, will have noted that there are no Pyrénees between Barcelona and Madrid.  They run, of course, due North of Barcelona, dividing Spain from La Belle France. 

I know this.  I do.  I even spent a good hour, re-visiting Spanish topograhy, trying to square my memory with reality.  I had a serious talking to with my recollections, pointing out that in all liklihood, we were traveling through the Sistema Ibérico.  It was unyielding: Barcelona, Pyrénées, Madrid.  Memory's funny that way, able to move mountains.)    

But the main thing I remember was the teenage girl across the aisle.  She was beautiful, lean, lanky, like all Spaniards of a certain age, her hair deep and glossy as a good oil-cured olive.  She was sixteen, maybe seventeen, perhaps five years my junior, which seemed like a lifetime to my newlywed self.  I was amused by the way she lay strewn across the seats, arms here, long legs there, hair tossed back into the row behind.  Somehow, she stretched her ninety-two-pound self over three rows, and across the aisle, also.  

All this, I likely wouldn't have noticed, were it not for the singing.

Mostly, she chatted quietly with her friends, in rapid-fire Spanish, not one word of which I understood.  But she was also plugged into a walkman (three hundred years ago, like I said), and every now and again, in that hushed train car half-full of strangers, she would open her lips and without warning, sing, "IT'S MY PAAAAARTY, AND I'LL CRY IF I WANT TO, CRY IF I WANT TO, CRY-Y-Y-Y IF I WANT TO, YOU WOULD CRY TOO IF IT HAPPENED TO YOO-OU..."

Out loud. 

Really out loud. 

Singing's a misnomer.  Belting's better. 

In perfect English, Lesley Gore gone brunette.  Utterly un-self-conscious.  Shameless.  Excellent.

All of which is my roundabout road to what's above, and what's to follow: 

More winter love. 

More salads.

I've already admitted my affection for winter's gauzy light, barren beauty, and endless indoor play.  Though I don't think I've mentioned that the Best Play-Doh Toys Ever can be found in the foot massage section at Daiso (Westlake Center and Lynwood, for you Seattle folks).  After the kitchen drawer, of course.  And since I know I'm in the minority:  Do you see, you Spring Peepers, all the infant shoots, buds and signs? 

But three salads in as many months?  With March just begun?  You bet.  Because it's my blog, and I can dwell if I want to.  And I do, I so do. 

Thing is, I collect salads the way some women collect shoes.  Like wedges and espadrilles and thigh-high boots and gladiator sandals, I go giddy over the permutations, the possibilities.  I trot out salads for every season, soul and mood, and this next one sits resolutely in the Still Awaiting Spring camp.  (My footwear assortment, for the record, is downright disreputable.) 

Equal parts celery, romaine, and Asian pear, it's a concession to March, when fresh is still far off.  In Elsa Beskow's Around the Year, March is an Old Man, a metaphor I'm pretty sure she stole from late-winter's produce aisles.  Because that is how everything feels right now, grizzled, a little wizened, past its pull date.  I am never as grateful as I am in March for those hardy souls that manage a smile, even after a long-haul.  

Concession, wizened, manage a smile.  That wasn't a ringing introduction, was it?  Let me put it this way: I cannot stop eating this salad.  I meant to get an Asian pear picture for you, but blazed through half a dozen before snapping one.  So I bought two more, just for this purpose.  Then inhaled two more bowls.  I am helpless.  Imagine.

Concession, please note, is not spelled c-o-m-p-r-o-m-i-s-e.  This tastes like celebration, makes March look good.

The Asian pear is important, here, a sentence I never thought I would write.  Asian pears are odd ducks.  Technically a pear, with the texture of an apple, an ungenerous soul might call them wet, dull and bland.  Mostly, I have avoided them, because mostly, I've been that ungenerous soul.  But March is not mostly.  I somehow brought home six.  And discovered they have a soulmate in celery.

I've always been fairly celery ambivalent, also, keeping it on hand for soups and stews and little else.  But one night, the two found their way into my salad bowl, and by golly, if they aren't fruit-vegetable doppelgängers.  Both bursting with water, which translates as C-R-U-N-C-H, they are, sliced thin, a most excellent ensemble.  Ordinary apples won't do here.

Romaine goes in also, albeit as a minor player.  I do love a salad blueprint, flexible, democratic, but this is not one of those.  This is a salad of particulars, and proportions.  Many salads are mostly lettuce, and many of them are lovely, but lettuce can be a bit bossypants.  We're doormats that way, we Americans, thinking lettuce a synonym for salad.  It is not.  In this one, the lettuce can be left out entirely, and I've made it that way often, and liked it, very much.  In the end, I deceided I liked it better with, but do not let your lettuce get out of line. 

Because the soul of this salad, it's come-hither finger, is the riveting conversation between celery and Asian pear.  It is, in my humble opinion, dreamy.  They have an identical taut juicy crunch, celery's saline snap yin to the pear's crisp sweet yang.  They get along famously, and in equal measure, should make up the bulk of the salad themselves. 

As for the balance, think lemon and nuts, great lashings of the both of them.  Hazlenuts are my very favorite here, earthy and mysterious and softly sweet, but only if they're good hazlenuts.  I don't say this to be precious, but because hazlenuts are troublesome, turning coat faster than any nut I know.  Fresh, they are glorious.  Rancid, ghastly.  Taste several, and if any strike a wrong note, speak your condolences and chuck 'em, post haste (and freeze your next batch, to save their sweet souls).  Toasted pecans or walnuts will stand in nicely.

As to the lemon, don't be alarmed by the quantities.  I often invert the classic acid:oil ratio, opting for 3 times as much acid as oil.  Not because I'm fat-shy (um, hardly), but because I'm tart-friendly.  I have a ferocious sour tooth, as well as an abiding fondness for produce flattered by citrus.  And as it happens, lemon loves celery and apple pear.  Somehow, lemon makes celery sparkle, and turns up apple-pear's ordinarily mild-mannered personality.  In return, they somehow nudge the lemon toward sweet, like sugar's been added, like a miracle berry.  I don't undestand it.  I can't explain it.  I am only the messenger, here to tell you, toss these stalwarts together and the whole gang stands taller, prouder, livelier, perkier, than five minutes earlier.  As do I, eyes tilted toward spring. 

P.S.  Turn your eyes to the horizon, also.  This one's not much of a looker.  But boy, it's an eater. 

P.S.S.  Did I mention I've more salads waiting in the wings?  And I'll just keep belting them out, when I feel like it.  I'm shameless that way.  Forewarned, forearmed, FYI.

Celery, Asian Pear + Romaine Salad with Hazlenuts + Lemon
Serves 2 hungry souls, on the cusp of spring
(or 4 reasonable sorts, as a side)

This salad would be more beautiful if everything were bigger, the pear slices larger.  But I like the bite-a-bility of it, and find the celery and Asian pear benefit from a sliver-thin slice.  Even with this fussing, which you can take or leave, it is, at most, a five-minute affair. 

6 plump, long stalks of celery, sliced 1/4" thin
1 Asian pear, sliced 1/8" thick, then cut into thirds
1 heart of romaine (pale interior leaves), sliced 1/3"
1 cup sweet, fresh hazlenuts, toasted 10 minutes in a 350° oven, roughly chopped
3-4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, from 1-2 large, plump lemons
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
several grinds black pepper

Place sliced celery, Asian pear, romaine and hazlenuts in a wide bowl.  In a jam jar, squeeze lemon, then add salt and swirl to dissolve.  Add olive oil, cover, and shake well to combine.  Pour over veg, and toss well to coat.  Add pepper, taste for salt, adjust as needed, and dig in.

keeping cozy

Hasn't been hard this year, actually.

This has been The Winter That Wasn't.  Not for lack of wishing, hoping, finger-crossing, and snow dancing on our parts.  We are not alone, I understand, but we're still coming to terms.    

I began, last year, to realize that our first full winter here may've been a bit unusual.  I remember, when it snowed, and snowed again (and again) in 2010, hearing phrases like "historic levels!" and "not since Grover Cleveland!!"  I smiled, and ignored them, and grabbed our soggy mittens.  Then spent last winter, waiting for an encore.  We never did get those foot-high drifts in 2011, just a few inches, here and there.  

This year, that plural would've left us giddy.  This year makes last year look like Snowmageddon.

We've had a half-inch here, an almost-inch there, enough to check the box, I guess.  Most importantly, it snowed the night before Henry's snow party, which in retrospect was no minor miracle.  (We had a bin of fake snow on hand, just in case, not being ones to rely on such things.)  Still, the flakes inside outnumbered the flakes outside. 

That snow elf, back in December?  Biggest snowman we managed.  Our one snowball fight topped out at five balls.  We've not had a single snow day.  Not even a delay.  In winter.  In Ohio.  Remarkable, in my book.  Heresy, in my childrens'.  

Fact is, it's been unseasonably warm, with days in the forties, fifties, and beyond.  

The bulbs began peeking through four weeks ago.  The first crocus blushed purple while the calendar still read February.  We've spent afternoons in our shirtsleeves, drawing rainbows in sidewalk chalk.  Clipped thyme in our t-shirts. Wore our spring coats.  In January.  We made bird muffins, more out of orneriness than necessity.  Because birds in winter need food, you know?  Even if we didn't need so much as second layers to hang them.  

(I meant to mention: Suet, oats, seeds and bashed peanuts, in whatever quantities we had around.  Inspired by this wild birds web site here.)

I used the kids' snow shovels for leaves, last Friday, feeling badly they'd not yet been pressed into service.  The Valentine's roses made it to the compost, a first for me, but see that sunshine?  Usually our composting goes on hiatus in winter, or until the walk from the back door turns from *CRUNCH* to s-q-u-i-s-h.  We're so there.  So in they went.

Wednesday clocked in at 69°, and no, neither 6 nor 9 were a typo.  Zoë begged to bring up the spring box.  I was tempted to take down winter.  Seemed like tempting fate, though, after last year's spring snow, so we compromised on a bit of both.  

We're not yet compromising on the cocoa.  

Snow or no, there's always a chill, even if it's intermittent and unreliable.  We still have our single-digit mornings, our whippy winds that make thirty-five feel like twelve.  Sometimes, that sunshine and those "unseasonably warm" forties lure us out longer than we would ordinarily stay.  And we've had plenty of days in the wet, gusty upper thirties, for which I think the technical weather term is ICKY.  Such weather demands soft warming things, and hot cocoa has been high on this year's list.

Because this is the year we finally got hot chocolate right. 

I began fiddling with homemade cocoa last winter when I accidentally noticed the Swiss Miss ingredient list, our go-to since, well, my childhood.  I grew up on Swiss Miss, and have fond memories of the way it would chase away the damp chill after swimming in the Pacific.  We brought it on all of our camping trips to the coast, and always had a giant blue and white tub around for the drinking. The sweet dusty *plouf* of powder, the tiny white crunchy "marshmallows", the satisfying muddying of boiling water, sigh.  I loved Swiss Miss.  I still do.  I think it makes for a nice, pleasant cup.

Here's what I didn't love: the powdery mess, the thousand bits of Swiss detritus that filled up our grout.  (Tiled counters, GAH!!!!!  Oh gosh, did I groan that out loud?)  And while looking for an excuse to solve that pesky dust problem, I actually read the ingredient list:  "sugar, modified whey, nonfat dry milk, cocoa, corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, salt, carrageenan, dipotassium phosphate and artificial flavor."

Corn syrup?  Partially hydrogenated soybean oil?  Seriously?  It's hot cocoa, people.  Milk, chocolate, sugar.  Not that hard.

Pride goeth before the bad cocoa.

We weren't looking for fancy, or decadent, or even anything halfway exquisite. All I wanted was good everyday hot cocoa, the sort we could slurp in a frost-fingered heartbeat.  Dead-simple, delicious, chocolate-y, instant, creamy (but not too), nutritious (yes), and warmmmmm.

I did a little research, tried out a lot of options, all of them varying degrees of so-so.  There were dry mixes made of cocoa powder and sugar, which were quick and easy but didn't pass the kid test.  "Too gritty," they cried.  My fault, I'm sure.  Too-tepid milk, not-intrepid-enough mixing, "heat and stir well" being apparently too tricky for me.  Three tries and fails and we moved on.

We added chocolate syrup to warm milk, which was just plain awful.  We stirred chopped chocolate bars into steaming mugs, which sounded simple and good but was neither.  (Chocolate shards all over everywhere, too much mainlining of the hard stuff, and lumpy-bumpy mottled milk as the end result).  We tried the Dorie Greenspan method, with water and blender, which indeed made a very nice, frothy quaff, but with too much to-do, and too much noise.  

(Am I the only mother acutely aware of kitchen noise pullution?  I grind beans every morning, blend smoothies some evenings, and each time feel the ways those ear-blasts interrupt everything.  I do it still, because I love me my coffee, and smoothies are some times the only way to smooth out a rough dinner.  But I am reluctant to introduct any more blitzing in our days.  Cocoa should soothe, not alarm.)

Then, right around this time, last year, the lovely Ashley at Not Without Salt dropped the G-bomb: "I keep a jar of ganache on hand always, for frosting cupcakes, filling cookies, and stirring into hot milk, for cocoa."  I'm paraphrasing wildly here, as I can't find the original mention, as the post wasn't even about Revolution.  By which I mean, she wasn't even talking hot chocolate.  The ganache thing was just an aside.  But did you catch that game-changer?  Ganache + hot milk = hot chocolate? 

Ganache. 

Ganache?

GANACHE. 

Gadzooks!!

Ganache, of course, is the fancypants French name for hot cream and chopped chocolate. 

That's it. 

Once upon a time, The end. 

Shortest dessert story ever told.  Not to mention the most ridiculously useful.  Drizzle it while warm, and it becomes one swank glaze.  Cool, scoop, roll, and behold: truffles.  Whip it, watch it triple, and you've got devastatingly great frosting.  All this I knew, and applied, often.  What I didn't know was that ganache was my hot cocoa holy grail.  

It seemed almost too good to be true.  Actually, it seemed absolutely too good to be true.  Seriously?? 

But with little to lose, we whipped up some ganache, snapping semisweet Ghiradelli bars (no chopping, no shards!) into a pool of hot, heavy cream. While the chocolate softened, we heated some milk, until wispy with steam and edged with guppy bubbles.  A few whisks brought the ganache together, several spoonfuls of which were deployed into the hot milk.  At which point, a feather would have laid me out flat: the ganache melted almost on impact, a few stirs—a few lazy stirs, very important detail, that—into this wildly promising, fragrant, intoxicating brew.  It smelled fantastic.  It tasted leagues better.  My children lapped it up.  I happy-danced.

That was last spring.  This is now.  Some hundred-plus cups of hot chocolate later.  Every few weeks, we whip up fresh ganache, a task any four year old can manage with aplomb.  When cocoa time comes, I warm milk, scoop and stir.  And shake my head again over its no-duh elegant simplicity.  It's easier, faster, and less dusty than "instant", and so far above and beyond, I still can't stand it.  It doesn't hurt that, nutritionally, it's not at all bad, besides.  One good dollop of ganache in eight ounces of milk is, in my book, pretty darn respectable.  Particularly when it doubles as a cure for frosty fingers, a balm for cold noses, a ballast against winter.  Because even in the mild ones, one must keep cozy.   

Everyday Hot Chocolate
inspired by Ashley at www.notwithoutsalt.com

Hot Chocolate Base (Ganache)
Yield: 2 generous cups ganache (enough for 2 dozen+ mugs of hot cocoa)

This makes a light ganache (1:1), scoop-able straight from the fridge.  For firm truffles and heartier frostings, a 2:1 chocolate:cream ratio gives greater body and intensity.  FYI.     

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (not ultra-pasteurized, if possible)
12 ounces semisweet chocolate (3 - 4 oz. bars)

Snap chocolate bars into a large, heat-proof bowl.  Heat cream over medium, until the first bubble breaks, then remove from heat and pour over chocolate shards.  Let sit 5 minutes, then whisk gently to combine, 1-2 minutes.  Pour into jar, and refrigerate, up to 1 month. 

To Make Hot Cocoa:

Heat milk (2% or whole), as much as you want, over medium heat, until steaming.  (Alternatively, for one mug, microwave).  Add ganache to hot milk: I use 1 heaping tablespoon per 8 ounces of milk, though there are those under my roof who argue 2 tablespoons are far superior.  And no, I don't measure.  Eyeball it.  Stir ganache into hot milk until dissolved, 10-15 seconds, taste, and add more, if desired.  Pour into mugs, top as desired (whipped cream, marshmallows), wrap fingers 'round, and give thanks for winter.