When my sundresses start to hang stale in the closet and light summer winds turn bitter, I stockpile winter vegetables. Every market I happen upon finds me picking up a random butternut here, a bundle of carrots there. This year, for example, I've been consistently adding miscellaneous potatoes of every shape and color into a low-lying drawer in my kitchen.
But I don't cook them yet. An odd twist, maybe, but I have always had an almost Buddhist devotion to delaying this comfort food gratification, to forestalling the inevitable moment when I dive headfirst into kale and kabocha, bidding adieu to most things refreshing and light until the tulip bulbs start their peek-a-boo game again.
Last winter, however, tragedy struck my household. My landlord decided the winter was the best time to gut the bathroom completely, leaving me not only with a dust storm fit for a Steinbeck novel but also some dim contractors who turned the thermostat up all the way while working. I escaped to my mom's during this literal hot mess, and upon my return found cataclysm in my market reserves, a pantry despoiled of its winter staples. You see, these hard, sturdy vegetables can be kept for months without refrigeration--but they must be stored in a cool, dark place. Exposed to the high heat of my apartment, the skins had lost their stiffness, bizarre dark spots had cropped up, and some even fell apart under their own weight when I attempted to pick them up.
A calamity of heartbreaking caliber, indeed, but not a lesson unlearned. I've never understood how to use that old adage about counting your chickens before they hatch, but some aspect of it has got to apply here. And this winter, though a healthy amount of delay has proved a hard habit to break, I am getting these winter staples involved in my kitchen larks sooner than later.
And with that in mind, you get kind of a two-fer deal on this post. I dipped my toe in last week on one of our first truly cold days. It was raining, and Whole Foods had pretzel rolls just hanging out in big wicker baskets by the cheese counter, like it was no big deal. Those made it home with me, miraculously dry despite my half hour wait for the bus amid a monsoon. I sliced up a little bit of everything in my cheese drawer (Asiago, brie, gouda, cheddar), poured some premade Imagine broccoli & leek soup into roasted acorn squash halves, and served my man a fancy fall version of grilled cheese & tomato soup (he hates tomatoes).
The success of that dish goaded me on, and I guess you could say I went for a push on my next try (I know nothing about poker, though, so maybe I'm misusing that). I filled up two whole sheet pans with beets, carrots, pumpkin, red kuri squash, and some tart green apples I'd picked up in Danvers a few weeks back. They don't need much more than olive oil, S&P, and maybe some pie spices or molasses if you're feeling bold. Meanwhile, I threw into my rice cooker a mess of leftover grains & wines—mostly couscous, bulgur & reisling. It was risky to go with a sweet wine, so I blended it with water and mixed in a handful of dried sour cherries halfway through.
All that remained was to grab a big bowl, mix the winter veg with the grains, and do some accessorizing with chopped pan-roasted cashews, fresh arugula, nutritional yeast and a little more balsamic & olive oil.
The moral of this story is twofold. First of all, I need to work on trusting my ancestors a little more, since clearly the Irish's bout with blight taught me nothing. Second, I now know that these standbys are a little more jeopardous than I once imagined. Rather than take them for granted, we've got to enjoy them while we can. You can't let your preparation for the future hamper your life now, so if your body wants squash now, give it what it wants. This may mean resorting to Chilean imports from the supermarket sooner, but if you just nest on the goods now, you may never see them hatch at all.
...or something like that.
