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Winter Weather

The best thing about winter has always been the food. Oh, I am extremely fond of warm-weather eating as well – I practically live on tomato-toast for breakfast through the summer months – but I am feverishly devoted to the products of the winter kitchen. I may pine for fresh, delicate foods in the declining, slush-soaked days before spring appears, but for the most part I am inclined to immerse myself in the braises, soups, stews, gravies, and chillis that ward the chill off our bones and touch every tastebud that yearns for comfort, every belly that knows that a warm bowl of something savory is the only surefire way to make it through the short days, long nights, and looming spectre of frost.

For those whose daily work involves a lot of physical labour, the richness of the traditional winter dinners provides much needed calories to power through the damp and the chilly, but for those of us in heated houses and office buildings, a leaner approach is probably more sensible. Fortunately, there are many ways to modify most existing recipes so that they are not contributing to the sense of girth-expansion more suited to impending hibernation than simply making it through to jacket-free weather. More fortunately still, there are many warm, comforting dinners that do not need any adjusting whatsover to fit the bill.

On the west coast, my winter is not as fierce as that of my northern and eastern neighbours – some years we don’t get snow at all, and the rain alone can be daunting to anyone not born to this climate. Still, we get our share of frosty days and downright cold snaps that send me looking through the freezer for something large and fleshily substantial to help make it through to spring. There must be some sort of primitive instinct or akashic memory trace that instills in us all, however frigid or temperate our winters might be, a desire to submerge ourselves in earthy flavours and substantial meals. Indeed, if I try to eat in winter months the way I do in the summer, my insides yowl and protest that I’m mere mouthfuls away from starving myself – and I’m not one to miss a meal.

I certainly still stock up like an industrious squirrel when autumn rolls around, but by the time we are in the heart of winter, I dip into my stores with a keen sense of anticipation and mull over which recipe will satisfy the most. This is the time to dig through the cookbooks at leisure and unearth those farmhouse recipes that speak of grandmotherly cooking that feeds both the soul and the body.

Today, it turns out that I am leaning toward a nice big pot of beef chili. I’m quite certain that I have everything at hand, and the recipe is both so forgiving and so familiar that doesn’t really matter if I change on ingredient for another – it almost seems to make itself. The long simmer on the stove means that it can be piping hot whenever we get to it, and the freezability and portability of the leftovers make for almost endless possibilities for lunches, straight-up leftovers, or convertables – where you take something left from one meal and convert it into an entirely different dish. Chili is a four-star convertible meal, because it is so versatile, and because the flavours improve with age. I’ve used it wrapped up in tortillas, tucked into omelettes, spread across pizza crust, and of course, spooned over sausages in buns to make that eternal favourite, the chili dog. A fairly small amount of leftover ground-meat chili can become chili mac to rave reviews, with only the addition of freshly cooked macaroni and perhaps a bit of extra tomato sauce. Leftover chili mac can be lunch a couple of days later. Even if you’ve made such a big pot of it that you can hardly stand the thought of another bite (is there a pot that big?) you can always toss it into the freezer with the sure knowledge that in a few weeks, on some harried evening, you will be grateful that it is there waiting for you.

Vancouver has just been through an exceptional, almost record-breaking stretch of crummy weather. Last weekend, we had a couple of relatively dry days that were met with glad cries all around, but Monday morning saw the return of the rain, and I was stuck with the old Rolf Harris song “Vancouver Town” in my head:

“…from the 10th of February through to May,
It rained and poured all night and day!”

The rest of the song was middling-at-best as comedy goes, depending heavily on the headlines and buzzwords of the early 1970s, but those lines run through my head every time it rains for such a long stretch. And it is still only January.

Occasionally, when I just need a break entirely from the relentless drumming of rain against the side of the house, I deliberately plan meals around sunnier climes. Out come recipes from South America, East or West Africa, India. I look to complex, fierce spices to lift me up out of the chilly slog of rain and slush and damp feet. These are momentary bursts of energy in an otherwise more lethargic time, though, and I can easily wilt under the knowledge that spring is still rather far away.

Just when I’m starting to think that short-sleeve weather will never come, we get a beautiful, glorious day of chilly sunshine, and we are all a little revived. I go happily back to my pots and pans and hum to myself as I set about recipes that involve words like “braise” and “simmer” and remind myself that there’s a limited amount of time before it gets to be too hot to bake bread without the doors open, that there are cornbreads yet to be eaten, stews to be savoured, and large chunks of meat to be gently cooked until they fall tremulously off the bone and onto my plate. These things won’t do, in the summer. They are the food for fall and winter, warming and comforting, and endless in their variety. I can stand another onslaught of rain. I’ll ride out the winter weather in the kitchen.
 

January 2006