Low and Slow

How to tell time by the flavors from our kitchens

The dinner hour is one of my most precious hours of the day. The work from the day has been shut. It is me and my kitchen. The kids are settled post-school and doing their things. Mike is still working, and I get precious time just to be with my thoughts, the veggies in front of me, and the pan's heat. This time is sacred in the winter, and I cook only a few nights of the week because the rest we enjoy leftovers. We don’t eat out much in any season, particularly in winter. Once the darkness settles in like an old friend, a cozy meal in comfy clothes feels best almost every night. I love the ritual of lighting a candle on the windowsill, raising my hand over the pan's heat to remember what it is, not to feel a bite of chill. I turn on whatever music sounds good while I bring together the flavors from the soil around us, whether freshly harvested from a local farm or retrieved from our saved goods in the freezer. It doesn’t matter. There is something about the low and slow nature of cooking in these winter days that feels like doing magic at times.

I can nearly tell you the time of the year just by the veggies on my chopping board that night. Eating seasonally has taught me many things, but it has taught me most about how cooking is a beautiful daily ritual that connects us vitally to the season we are in. Through the years, cooking has been a sustaining and safe place to create, and the seasons have simply guided me to the palette I am meant to work from. Through this process, which I anticipate will take my entire life to master, I have learned just how much our cooking ties to how we can also understand a season's meaning and gifts as well. It also teaches us to value place and community. When I pull out veggies from my friends who are also farmers, I think of them and give thanks for the beauty of this place that can sustain this sort of connection and way of living.

Every season carries a conversation about the food we consume and how that food is best prepared for us in those seasons. As we learn to understand this conversation, embrace it, and hold it as an important part of living.

Cooking in the Spring is crisp. In the early days, when the snow still dances and what has emerged receives tastes of the feelings of winter, the veggies hold the distinct tenderness that comes with the last cold nights and the gift of the warm sunshine's promise.