Did everyone have a pleasant, gluttonous holiday? Good. I don’t know about you, but each year come January, I am so ready to get back to my real life. I am ready to kiss those candy canes goodbye. Ready to extinguish those chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Ready to blow off those powdered sugar cookies. Is anyone with me?
As excited as I become to ring in the holiday season, I think that if I see another Bûche de Noël I just might have to toss it into the fireplace. (She says with a bah-humbug!) I am ready to go back to the daily, winter grind: obsessively checking the weather forecast for signs of snow, piling on layer after layer of woolen winter clothes, and slowly exhaling warm air hoping to catch a glimpse of my breath. And the food– there [...]

While I was at my local market, I spotted them, in a produce box, plunked down in the middle of the aisle. But it’s November, hardly the time for squash blossoms, and beautiful ones at that. They were perfect, large and delicate flowers, unblemished, each firmly affixed to a burgeoning, little zucchini. Every person at the market simply walked past the blossoms, glancing at the contents of the box, then moving right along to the string beans beside them. Now I like string beans as much as the next guy, but when posed with the alternative of a more rare, fresh looking bit of produce, I’m going to go for the rarity.
I guess the general lack of clamoring proved to be a good thing for me. I wasn’t really up for an out and out battle over produce at the market. But I [...]