There’s an old Scottish proverb which says ‘As the days lengthen, the cauld does strengthen’. Typically dour, it offers little consolation for improvement in the weather post Winter Solstice. This is true not only for Scotland: around here we can expect the weather to be grey, cold and windy for the next few months, ensuring frequent visitations from the ‘black dog’, that mood changer who visits during low light. And yet on rare days during this miserable season, the sky is incandescent, the silver rays blinding, as the low winter sun streams through the north facing windows, heating the walls and brick floors more than an industrial heater could ever do. I often ponder upon the sun, its power to heat and give life and its power to destroy, that baffling dichotomy central to life. It’s no wonder that so many religions place the sun at the apex of worship, a far more logical belief than a theism based on some odd characters with beards, sons and holy ghosts. There are some mornings when we wake to fog in the gully and watch it snake above the Diamond Creek, like a magnet to the rocky wet cold. Flocks of birds migrate above this ancient path. We watch in awe.
Despite the weather, there is incredible productivity in the winter vegetable garden. A few hours outside mulching, making compost, raking oak leaves or gathering manure has an immediate effect on my outlook. We are currently harvesting turnips, leeks, carrots, silverbeet, kale, parsley, Chinese cabbage, radish, dill, rhubarb, rugola, radicchio and various lettuces. Every bed is full, some with slow maturing crops such as garlic and broad beans. In contrast to the plush Mediterranean summer crops, winter crops, mostly hard roots or dark greens, with occasional splurges of deep crimson, provide an amazing source of nutrition for soups, gratins, and salads. As parsley contains three times more Vitamin C than oranges, it makes sense to have lots of tabbouleh in winter when this herb is in its element, as well as adding a bunch to a minestrone soup, or a parsley pesto draped over eggs.
From the garden and into the soup.
My sourdough bread making, now in its 11th year, is another therapeutic activity, bound to scare off any moody attitude. I haven’t convinced any family members to participate in this life changing activity, though they enjoy slicing it down to the butt and look forlorn when it’s absent. I often hear the rustle of activity late at night as the teenagers fuel up on more toast. Rodents, raiders, bread hustlers, it makes me laugh.
Winter, bread and music.
Worker’s lunch
One of my recent finds is the phone app, Yuka, which enables you to scan the bar code of any food product in the supermarket and get a rating out of 100, based on additives, sugar, fat, protein and salt. It also offers healthier alternatives for similar products. A red dot indicates a bad product with hazardous additives, an orange indicates additives that could be bad or too much salt or sugar, while the green gives the product the OK. I scanned a bunch of products in my pantry just to see how the programme works. I was sad but not surprised to find that Lao Gan Ma Crispy Chilli Oil received a score of 0/100, mainly due to the presence of E621( monosodium glutamate ) as well as its high calorific value. It won’t put me off completely, but I’ll be mindful about how much I add to noodles. Two cans of coconut milks received entirely different ratings, 66/100 for Coles Coconut milk and 38/100 for Woolworths Macro Organic coconut milk, the latter considered too fatty. This is where the programme can be a little misleading. If I’m using the creamier version in a curry, I’m likely to add more water, thus reducing the overall fat content. It’s a handy little app, and I’m keen to test it out on pre -made vegan foods to see if it reinforces my prejudice. I’m also keen to run it by products such as commercial biscuits, though the programme doesn’t give information on palm oil.
The above collage of Instagram Bali pics, (@the_morganics, and the header photo on this post, may explain why I’m having difficulty adapting to the cold old hills out of Melbourne. It was a month of warmth and simple eating, walking and swimming. A curveball or deviation on the topic of kitchens and food, but then not so far removed from where my headspace is. Thanks Sherry for continuing to host this series, In My Kitchen, which can be found at Sherry’s Pickings.
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