winter

Soups and Stews

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

Lately I’ve been making soups and stews. I’ve been trying out some recipes from NYT cooking. Their instagram feed always sucks me right in.

I use either my slow cooker (a.k.a crockpot) or my 4.5 quart Le Creuset Dutch Oven. I have a green Le Creuset, which I received as a gift from my mother decades ago. Le Creuset Dutch Ovens are a big investment, but in my opinion, every kitchen in a cold weather climate should have one. I can’t believe how many colors they come in now!

Recently, I made the NYT “Old Fashioned Beef Stew” in my Le Creuset. It was delicious. (I got the stew beef at Whole Foods and it was high quality.)

Beef stew underway in my Le Creuset

I also made the NYT Tortellini Soup in Le Creuset, which I really liked and will definitely make again.

Here’s the finished Tortellini Soup. The green is baby spinach. Also, it’s garnished with fresh basil and Parmesan.

Last night, I tried the NYT Slow-Cooker Chicken Stew with Spinach, Lemon and Feta. Obviously I made this one in the slow cooker rather than Le Creuset. I liked it. It has a Greek vibe. It’s very garlicky and has a real kick to it. I might try it again with a few adjustments.

Here’s the chicken stew garnished with crumbled feta and pita chips.
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Winter attitude adjustment

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What could you do differently?
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Ugh, snow. Pretty, snow.

We’re stuck in the house all day. Our house is safe and warm.

Church and choir are cancelled. Church is online and the choir made a video.

This is going to be a boring day. I’m going to get a lot of my book read.

The power better not go out! National Grid is prepared for this.

This is just the beginning of winter. I don’t have to commute to Boston anymore.

It’s 72 degrees in Florida right now. My kids and my parents are within an hour’s drive.

Christmas is over. I left the tree up and it finally looks like Christmas.

Back in the USSR

~ MaryG ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
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I traveled to Russia (then called the Soviet Union or USSR) in January 1987 with a group of students and professors from my college. It was a Winter Break trip. We left just after New Year’s Day 1987. It was led by two professors of Russian History with whom I had taken classes. We went to Moscow and St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad), as well as some smaller cities–Suzdal and Vladimir.

I’m sure it was a fascinating trip, but my main memory is of how cold it was. It was really F***ing COLD.

This is the United Press International archives (UPI.com) report from January 8, 1987:

MOSCOW — An Arctic cold snap with temperatures lower than minus 40 degrees has gripped most of central Russia, slowing life in Moscow to a frozen crawl. The daytime temperature in Moscow is now almost four times colder than the average home freezer. A record low of minus 45 degrees hit Leningrad overnight and Moscow recorded minus 39, close to the 1940 record of minus 44. The official Tass news agency said the first week of January 1987 was the coldest recorded in Moscow in 35 years. Auto traffic in Moscow was virtually non-existent as a frozen mist, triggered by the snow on the ground being warmer than the air, rolled over the city. Ice fishermen tried their luck in the frozen Moscow River, but few others ventured outside unless absolutely necessary.

I remember we were warned to keep every inch of skin covered while we were outdoors so as not to get frostbite. We kept bottles of vodka in our chilly hotel rooms which we slugged for warming purposes (mainly). Other memories include eating coarse brown bread with butter and caviar, the museum-like Moscow subway, and fur hats. We all bought fur hats.

Leningrad in the frozen mist on a frozen river
The Moscow Metro
Our group playing outside in Vladimir – very briefly!
A bit of sun in Suzdal

Monthly delights

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments

Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.

For Christmas 2019, my husband got me a 3-month subscription to BloomsyBox, a monthly delivery of beautiful flowers. By the end of the three months, COVID had hit and we were stuck at home, so I kept the subscription going. It was just so nice to have these gorgeous blooms to look at, especially in the winter.

Three years later, I still get these monthly deliveries. Each one is different and quite stunning. And I get excited about each one.

Here’s this month’s. Yellow is such a great color.
July’s were exotic – hot and tropical
June’s were really gorgeous. My birthday month.

TIP: I ordered and paid for an entire year of deliveries on Black Friday and saved hundreds of dollars.

Revenge Weather 

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments

[Inspired by this daily prompt]

New England winters get old, REAL old, after 50 years.  Sure, they start out great: sledding, skating, lots of snow days and hot chocolate when you’re a kid.  Later, when you’re young and single and living in the city, they might mess up your commute, delay a flight or two, or worst of all, force you to contemplate slashing your upstairs neighbor’s tires when he parks in the spot you spent an hour shoveling and had clearly “saved” with an antique trash can.  But, it’s not until you have kids, a house, and a driveway all your own, that you really start to HATE them.  (Don’t even get me started on snowblowers, ice dams, frozen pipes, black ice, and roof rakes.)

This is why so many New Englanders, the minute we have even the smallest amount of disposable income, cannot resist hopping on planes and flying three short hours to Florida in January, February, and March.  Now the winters aren’t always hot and sunny in Florida, but they are reliably better (much better) than from where we came.

Sometimes, the most satisfying thing about being in Florida is hearing about the New England weather you’re missing while you’re down there.  Whether you’re in Disneyworld, or at the beach, or simply strolling around outside between grocery shopping trips to Publix, it’s very satisfying to read something like this in The Boston Globe:

Monday and Tuesday will have highs in the mid- to low 20s, but the windchill effect could be down to single digits for Monday and as low as zero to -10 degrees for Tuesday. Up to 4 inches of snow is expected. 

Ha! And I’m not there.

the terribly guilty look of a woman who spontaneously abandons her family in New England for a weekend visit with friends in Delray Beach