Late-January into February has always felt like an eternity to me, caught between the excitement of the holidays and the bright promises of spring. These days drag by and not always in the most pleasant of ways. Most weeks my days are shaped by the rhythm of the classroom: the chatter of middle and high school kids, lesson plans, stacks of papers, the kind of busy that leaves a person a little wrung out by evening. By the time I come through the front door at Rosebriar, supper often has to find its way to the table through determination more than inspiration.

But the last couple of weeks we’ve had what North Alabama calls snow days, which, if we’re honest, means about thirteen brave snowflakes, a whole lot of overzealous weather forecasts, disappointment and still days out of school that delight me as much as my students. Those unexpected breaks felt like a long, slow breath after the steady beat of classroom stress. I was handed a few unhurried hours I didn’t plan for, and I spent them exactly where I wanted to be with my hands in flour, a few winter vegetables, and something good simmering on the stove.

There is a particular kind of happiness that comes from cooking when you don’t feel rushed. Sometimes I forget it, and I miss those moments immensely.

On one particular gray afternoon I pulled a chicken from the freezer, one we put up ourselves last year, and let it become the beginning of a proper pot of chicken noodle soup. I chopped carrots that had overwintered in our garden, their color bright enough to argue with the clouds outside.

{I’m teaching figurative language in school right now. How did I do?}

The house filled with that slow, comforting smell that makes you believe everything will turn out all right after all. I firmly believe chicken noodle soup is healing for the soul, but also for those winter colds that seem to creep in, which has been unavoidable recently.

Another afternoon I mixed dough for soft homemade buns and served old-fashioned sloppy joes, the kind Audley and I both remember from childhood. We ate them at the kitchen table and laughed about how some flavors carry whole decades inside them.

I’ve been cooking my way through whatever the pantry and the freezer offer up:
• seared salmon with roasted recently picked Brussels sprouts and more of those faithful winter carrots
• chicken breasts in a Dijon mustard cream sauce with mashed potatoes worthy of Sunday
• lamb burgers (our own lamb) tucked into the same recipe of homemade buns as the sloppy joe
• buffalo chicken lettuce wraps with a rich, unapologetically creamy blue cheese dressing •scrumptious French toast made from the last remnants of a homemade loaf of bread, topped with peaches I preserved last summer

On the stove there’s a container of seafood stock I made from shrimp shells I’d saved (from Gulf coast shrimp Audley picked up on his last trip to Florida for work), simmered with onions, celery, and a handful of tired herbs from the refrigeratior. It’s waiting patiently to become a pot of gumbo, one of our favorite winter delights.

I keep craving something bright in the middle of all this cozy, something with a little sunshine tucked inside it. I’m thinking of trying a balsamic orange duck (my boys recently went hunting), sticky with citrus and dark sweetness, served beside simple rice and a salad of greens. Winter needs a bit of color on the plate, a reminder that the earth is still turning toward spring even when the south looks asleep.

What I’ve realized in these stolen snow days is how much fulfillment lives in simplicity, and the everyday act of feeding the people you love. Not fancy food. Not perfect food. Just real meals made with ingredients that have a story; carrots grown in our soil, lamb raised in our pasture, recipes that belong as much to memory as to the recipe book I’ve kept filling all throughout our thirty years of marriage.

By the time I rinse and dry the last pan and wipe the counters, the sky outside is usually already turning lavender or black… we’ve not had many pretty sunsets of late. The chickens are quiet (the pheasants are not), the greenhouse windows fogged with their own small weather system, and the house feels like it’s breathing out. I also find myself breathing out in contentment. It’s amazing the lessons you learn as you age. This year it is finding peace and contentment in this normally bland season.

Winter may be cold and dreary, but my kitchen has been anything but. What have you been cooking up this winter?