Ode to Winter

My morning commute is with the sunrise, and evening with the sunset. There's two ways to picture winter: a pain-in-the-ass season of slogging through the rain on my bike, wet and cold - a blur of short, gray days and cold nights. Or, I can feel the acute cold on my fingertips, the icy rain stinging my face, and the grateful clarity of the rare day without rain - hot pinks sunrises and sunsets. Everything is intensified. This external experience brings a new freshness to my writing, too. With the short days the outside world shrinks, and the space for quiet reflection and creating stories swells. And that's pretty lovely.

First Winter Portland Farmer's Market

 

Today was the first-ever winter farmer's market here in Portland. So instead of that dreadful time from Thanksgiving to April, when we could only dream of getting a jewelry box of multicolored eggs and having cheerful conversations with the mushroom man (I should really learn his name) we have all sorts of (surprisingly colorful) treats at our fingers: cabbages, kale, turnips and a crazy-looking black beer radish. It's nice to know that even when produce goes underground in winter, the damp and depressed citizens of Portlandia don't have to.

If you're curious...here's a few soups that have kept it cozy the last few weeks:

Nostrana's Tuscan kale, white bean, and ciabatta soup

Creamy sunchoke soup with fried parsnips and mushrooms (from Home Made)