The ambiguity of January

Cooking and drinking when the world is of two minds

We’re in the depths of winter yet each day, palpably, lasts a little longer. The timid sun signs out flamboyantly at dusk with the lurid sanguine assurance of one on a short hiatus. These few minutes, the slanted rays, give an impulse. Deliberately or not, January is a moment of intention.

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FOOD

The world slumbers, moves inside, retreats to gentle pleasures. Ordering a negroni with dinner feels, especially now, the most exquisite luxury; pouring a glass of wine while chopping vegetables brightens the early twilight. January is no time to abjure alcohol, on the contrary.

It is however, just as everyone says, a good time for soup. My resolve in October to make it on Sundays has lasted, more successfully as a means to use up odds and ends than to try new recipes. Perhaps the target can be adjusted. With a ‘super easy, super flavorful’ chicken soup with red lentil or the Livornese ‘sociable fish stew’ cacciucco.

In another virtous January impulse, I’ve started again preparing Bircher muesli in the evenings for tomorrow’s breakfast. A small ritual that rewards the morning self. [Story and recipe for traditional Bircher muesli]

But the month is also when we French feast on galettes des rois, a ritual entangled in almond cream and nostalgic custom [read about it here]. I like to make at least one homemade version, though buying and comparing is very much part of the fun too.

There are other habits that belong to January as much as silver skies: apple sauce every way and coleslaw with miso-ginger dressing on repeat. What are yours?

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… also MARMALADE

This time I bought Seville oranges the moment they were available, rather than wait for a propitiously free day which never comes and suddenly it is March and there is nary a gnarly bitter orange to be found. Making marmalade is the epitome of January oxymoron, at the puzzling crossroads of doing nothing and spending all day making something. It will take hours but isn’t arduous labour, rather a slow syncopated rhythm that gives unexpected value to commonly overlooked tasks. Boiling for hours until the steamed up windows have blurred out the outside world; removing astringent flesh, pips and fibers with piercing twitches to chapped fingertips; slicing thinly, ever more thinly, and boiling again, a little; boiling one last time, with sugar.

Making marmalade leaves all else behind; it’s embarking on a trip, embracing a process. Though each year I resolve to try new perhaps simpler methods, I fall back on this one every time. My favourite marmalade recipe, still.

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