Favorite Smells of Winter

What are your favorite smells of winter?

Mine are indoor smells that I associate with home…cozy and warm even when the outdoors if very cold.

Vanilla. It’s often combined with other scents, perhaps because it is a ‘comfort’ smell. There are artificial forms now but I always try to buy the natural form. It pleases me to know that it comes from an orchid that requires special care to produce the seed pods that contain the scent. It took quite a long time to figure out how to grow the plants in tropical places where they were not native! The scent can waft from cooking or tea or a candle or hand lotion. 

Baking bread. I am not a bread baker but I enjoy the smell when I am drying bread crumbs (bread going stale processed in the food processor then dried in a 200 degree F oven for a couple or hours). It makes the whole house smell like baking bread. Somehow that smell is the one I associate most with warmth. 

Cinnamon - cloves - nutmeg (i.e. the pumpkin pie spices). The smell of these spices are such a favorite that I make pumpkin custard (who needs the crust!) almost once a month and the candles I buy are most likely to be this scent.

So - are these smells among your favorites…or do you have completely different favorite smells of winter?

February Celebrations

February starts tomorrow. What do you celebrate in February? Here are some ideas:

1. Valentine’s Day. This is a holiday to celebrate as a twosome rather than with a larger group. Think about something that you would both enjoy…good food, warmth, favorite music. Savor how fabulous it is to be a couple. Alternatively - celebrate as a family and articulate the love you share. Chocolates and flowers are the tradition but they are just the glitz; think deeper and you may realize it is more about spending time together than purchasing a gift. Note: If you are planning an ‘out to eat’ be aware that many restaurants are crowded on the 14th. Consider designating another day (such as the monthly anniversary of your wedding or meeting) as your day to celebrate.
2. Winter. February may be winter’s last hurrah so celebrate it.  If you ski - February is a good time. If a snow storm is forecast, have the makings for snow ice cream on hand and wood by the door for the fireplace; make sure you know where the coats, boots, and sleds are.
3. Harbinger’s of Spring. Celebrate the crocus and hyacinths peeking through the garden soil. They may even bloom in February if the winter has been particularly mild where you live. 

January Extremes in Howard County, Maryland

Within less than a week, we’ve had the extremes of weather for January. The first was a few days in the 20s with wintery mix on the ground. As it started to slowly warm up there was lots of fog in the neighborhood and back into the forest. The deer were in the yards noshing on the grass and anything else that wasn’t covered by the ice.

The warming trend culminated in a day that was more like March than January; the temperature actually reached 60 degrees F and the flags were fluttering wildly in the wind as I walked into my local library. There is a new-to-me mural on the side of the building near the athletic fields. Looks like spring…but it’s not quite that time yet.

Quote of the Day - 1/26/2012

WHEN all the panes are hung with frost,
Wild wizard-work of silver lace,

I draw my sofa on the rug
Before the ancient chimney-place.

(Poems Of Thomas Bailey Aldrich)

~~~~~

When Aldrich published these lines in the 1880s, fireplaces were a major source of heat in the home. Now our houses are heated in other ways primarily but the majority of houses are still built with fireplaces. Maybe the rationale is articulated by this poem. When we visualize a ‘cozy place’ on a cold winter’s day/night, there is almost always a fireplace in the picture. Maybe the sofa is replaced by a wing back chair or a rocking chair. Maybe there is a footstool or a cuddly quilt. Is there a cat or dog with you? What about a good book/eReader….or is the television on? Next time there is frost…’wild wizard-work of silver lace’… make your ‘cozy place’ a reality and then enjoy.

The book is also available to read online at American Verse Project at the University of Michigan http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/.

The Year of Little Snow (so far)

Here we are past mid-January and we have gotten almost no snow in Maryland so far. On Friday night it was forecast. I woke up at 2 AM and I got up like a child wondering if Santa had indeed arrived; yes - indeed - the skylight was covered. I crept back to bed.

I was up a little before my alarm and dressed for the day quickly so I could see more of the snow. I was taking pictures on the deck in the darkness a bit after 6! The snow had already turned to ‘wintery mix’ as forecast so the icy top crunched underneath my feet. 

And then the dawn came. It was a gradual increase in light without the sun actually making its appearance through the gray clouds. There was no color associated with the sunrise but it did make the crystals of ice easier to see. These were on the front step.

Once the trees got a bit of flocking, is stayed in place the rest of the day with the temperature only getting up to freezing and the stillness of the day doing nothing to dislodge the accumulation. The tulip polars and cherry tree (below) seemed to catch the most; the maples have more verticle branches.

Quote of the Day - 1/19/2012

I live in the tame and visit the wild and never forget the difference between the two. - Janice Emily Bowers (books)

~~~~~

What an elegant way of articulating what is true for the relationship most of us have with wild environments. It is our preference to feel safe from the wild world where we live while appreciating that the wild still thrives. We want to tame - to control - so that we feel safe and secure. Our control of the wild is minimal; we are less confident that we will always survive or even understand what it contains.

Still - there are occasions where the wild world can be viewed from the security of our tame life:

• Deer coming into the backyard, seen from a window 3 stories above
• A woodpecker in the top of a tree with dead branches on a walk through a formal garden
• Jack-in-the-Pulpits beside a boardwalk through a scrap of woods
• The rosy light of dawn on the winter trees seen from the kitchen window

And those add a blessing to the day.

Quote of the Day - 1/17/2012

It was January and the black fields lay hibernating and desolate under a coating of frost. - Elizabeth Adler in In a Heartbeat.

~~~~~

 

What a treat to find a book that fits the current time of year and weather! It is almost like being plopped down into the setting for the book while you read.

Cattails in Winter

Cattails grow at the edges of just about every pond in my area so they are a common sight throughout the year. Their winter appearance lacks the green lushness of other times but their explosion of down makes them worthy of notice on a winter walk. I've read that native peoples used the down as absorbant material for diapering babies; the peak collection time for cattail down would have been about now.

Some of the cattails somehow keep their seeds a bit longer...retaining typical velvety brown appearance until well into winter. The picture to the right was taken in January. Perhaps the velvety brown ones are just a few days behind the others. Someone told me a story years ago about cutting cattails in the late fall for a dried flower arrangement....and having them explode a few months later inside her house. What a mess that must have been!

I'm satisfied with observing them outdoors - a highpoint of a winter walk.

Recipe of the Week: Winter Foods

What are your favorite cold weather foods? For many of us, it is ‘anything hot’ because we want to feel warmed from the inside out. Another criteria could be foods that preserve well into the winter or are seasonal in the winter. Here is the list I’ve created on a cold January day in Maryland:

• Soup. I did a blog post about homemade soup in early December…still is good in January. Today I enjoyed soup made by stir-frying mushrooms and celery with seasonings, adding some homemade spaghetti sauce with some water to make the broth, pouring it over freshly chopped cilantro, and topping it off with a few croutons. It was a great cold weather meal-in-a-bowl.

• Squash. The winter squashes (butternut or acorn) add a wonderful flavor as a side dish, a dessert, or pureed for a soup. I like their flavor and their color. The outdoors in winter time often seems less colorful than any other time of year so having food that has more color is very welcome. I tend to cook these squash whole in the oven so that they are soft by the time I cut them to scoop out the seeds. I like them with a dab of butter or sour cream as a side dish; with maple syrup and chopped pecans for dessert; with tomatoes and green chilies for a soup.  

Tea/Mulled Cider/Hot chocolate. I usually do not drink hot beverages in warm weather…but switch to them when the weather is cold outside. Teas and tisanes come in such a wide variety of flavors and scents; there is one to fit just about any mood. Sweetener may be required but I’ve found that drinking them without any additions allows me to appreciate the subtle flavor of the tea itself. Adding milk or cream brings back memories of childhood when my tea was as much milk as tea; it’s a pleasant trigger on a cold day indoors. Mulled cider or wassail (with citrus and cranberry) is very sweet; I love the smell too; it is very enjoyable in small amounts so I only make if for groups so that others will help drink it. I’ve tried the powdered versions and didn’t like it enough to buy the packets again. Hot chocolate comes in so many formulations; I enjoy the darker chocolate with less (or no) milk.

• Chili. Everyone should develop a favorite chili recipe. Mine is a Texas style with beef, beans, tomato sauce…and spices sometimes a little toward the hot side. We eat it like soup, in tortillas, as a casserole topped with cornbread, and over Fritos (how 60ish!). It is easy to make a lot at one time and then freeze half before we get tired of it; it will be a quick meal in a couple of weeks.

 What are your favorite foods this January?