In the (not always) Bleak Midwinter

A winter candle from that lovely store, Helix, in Athens, GA

This is our home in midwinter:

In the mornings I have shifted my reading spot from the sofa, where I used to watch the sun rise over the tenement behind us, to the green chair. Now that it's getting light later, I need to turn on a lamp, and since we keep our living room curtains open, this chair with its reading lamp both affords me more privacy and bothers the neighbors less.

It's about 7 a.m. and just getting light. By April it will get light at 4:30 a.m.

I got the lamp for Christmas, from my mother-in-law! We purchased another comfy chair when we got rid of our TV this fall, but it isn't here yet. (Long story.) Now we'll have lamps for both chairs. That's important in winter.

What I hear:

The crackling and spitting of the radiator beside me, trash truck brakes and motor outside, a traffic helicopter, muffled feet upstairs, and the elevator cables rattling a bit behind our stove.

What I am thinking about:

"Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters...Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stand or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

"Each man should be fully convinced in his own mind...for none of us lives to himself alone...If we live, we live to the Lord..." (Mostly from Romans 14)

I am thinking about the difference between networks and communities, and between communities and the Body of Christ. If I ever get my thoughts into any sort of organized form, I may post them. Meanwhile, I recommend John Taylor Gatto's excellent essay on the difference between networks and communities. But the Body of Christ comes first, even before a real community. And I'm not at all sure that the Body of Christ functions like a fellowship group, as important and enjoyable as those can be.

Winter food:

This is the opposite season, foodwise, from my midsummer post on tomatoes. This week I saw a photo of a single cherry tomato and a bit of balsamic vinegar on an empty plate and was filled with a terrible longing for summer, complete with the smell of basil and the sense of a warm wind on my face during an outdoor meal. The rest of my family, all two of them fanatical Nordic skiing aficionados, don't get my nostalgia about warm weather, which starts right after Christmas and increases until May. But there it is.

So, if like me, you're experiencing nostalgia for tomatoes, here's a recipe from The Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics (pg. 183) that I made last week. Ina Garten is right when she says that it makes dull supermarket plum tomatoes develop the intense flavor of summer tomatoes:

12 plum tomatoes

1/4 C. good olive oil

1 1/2 T. aged balsamic vinegar

2 large garlic cloves, miced

2 t. sugar

1 1/2 t. kosher salt

1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper

10 large basil leaves, julienned

Preheat oven at 450 degrees.

Arrange tomatoes on a sheet pan, cut sides up, in a single layer. Drizzle with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tomatoes start to caramelize and the flavors are concentrated. Sprinkle the basil on top and serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 4 to 5. (In our case, it served 3!)

This is not to say, however, that I can't appreciate winter. In fact, it's the subject of this whole post! Right now, I am finding 101 uses for carrots, since that's what's left from my last CSA bag. Last night I made prosciutto roasted bass with autumn roasted vegetables. It used three whole carrots!

Evenings:

For years, Bob came home at 9 p.m., so I got to be rather artful at appreciating the quiet cheer of an evening alone with one child, in an apartment. It gets dark at 4:30 in New York City during December, so I light candles in preparation for Christmas. Bob is coming home earlier now, and it's even staying light a little later, but still our winter patterns prevail.

Here's a photo of a typical winter evening at our home. CZ is practicing for a competition--or perhaps I should say that she's avoiding practicing for a competition. Chances are about 5 to 1 she is playing Saint-Saens, Sibelius, Bernstein...anything but her unaccompanied Bach! She may have just finished her schoolwork, come home from her violin lesson, or she may have been reading or knitting. She's a fan of the current fashion of wearing long sweaters with short boots, which, along with her small size and penchant for rereading Lord of the Rings, makes her appear something like a hobbit or hobbit/elf combo. It feels quiet at home, even though it isn't exactly quiet. I'm usually cooking on the other side of the room in our open kitchen. And yes, those lights in the window are from other apartments.

You can also see that I was loath to take down the tree. We didn't do so until this Saturday. Also, you can see that I left our books from the day on the various chairs where we put them. And that CZ has a thing about warming her hands by the space heater, even though our radiator is over-zealous and it's well above 70 degrees inside.

When Bob comes home, the atmosphere changes immediately. He comes in the door speaking Italian, which causes CZ to groan. Sometimes they start playing chess, which is a surprisingly noisy game the way they play it. For the past two nights it's been accompanied by Shakespeare lyrics sung to our Twelfth Night CD. CZ enjoys matching Anne Hathaway's soprano, but Bob, who has currently lost his voice, prefers to butcher both the tune and lyrics. "Tell me where is fancy bred?" becomes "Tell me where is...fancy bread?" Somehow this usually ends up in some kind of dancing, nerf murder-football, kinesthetically watching ski or cycling championships on You Tube, or gymnastic demonstrations, often with both parties talking over my book, by 10 p.m.

In three or four years, this all will change--I don't know how exactly. Our years of homeschooling an only child will be over, and that's as it should be. But for now I'm just trying to appreciate the moment, whether winter or summer, while it lasts.