Photo: Contributed

I know, you can all hardly wait, as it has finally arrived and soon we will be able to celebrate with the usual food and drink that accompanies the whole event…

Did you think I was speaking of the Superbowl? I suppose that could be a reasonable assumption, but I was actually thinking of that other big event this week – Groundhog Day. It really is a big thing in those locales where there is a resident rodent to “prognosticate” on the status of the coming spring. In a country where weather is a large part of our daily water-cooler talk and even our identity, it is surprising that we do not make more of this effort to encourage spring along! After all, for those of us who have not already escaped to some warmer clime to fend off the aches in our bones from the bighting cold, this is one bright spot. February has no other holiday in it, for goodness sake!

Okay, so maybe I am taking those beer ads too seriously (you know, the ones that say we have two seasons – July and winter?!) But in the doldrums of the month that is the shortest but often seems the longest, I for one think any excuse for a celebration is a reasonable one. I plan to watch the Superbowl, and I plan to celebrate Groundhog Day too. Valentines’ Day is good for a bit of warmth if you can beat the commercial superficiality out of it (translation: stay home for dinner, if you know what I mean), and if I can find another event to celebrate towards the end of the month, then before I know it spring will be here (whether the little rodent sees his shadow or not!)

I went to visit the website for the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, where the whole week’s events are posted by the hour, from the pancake breakfast to the Punxy Phil Anything Goes Chili and Wings Cook Off (I kid you not, these are real events. I guess you need sustenance in between visiting the weather centre exhibits and the weddings at Phil’s chapel, not to mention the Prognosticators’ Ball and the midnight showing of the Bill Murray movie.) I found this news most encouraging, and so I say why argue? If you haven’t been celebrating this special holiday, you are 121 years behind good old Phil in Pennsylvania, and centuries behind Christian tradition that recognized Candlemas as a time to begin events of the coming year (all the candles were blessed at this time).

Whether you prefer a serious celebration of the coming year, or a recognition of the fact that we are halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, or even just that a relatively well-fed rodent bothered to poke his head up and tip his hat in our direction… well, any of those events on February 2 is a good way to start a new month and to continue enjoying this life. To keep it exciting, plan the menu once you decide on the forecast – stew if winter is staying, and seafood if spring is coming? Either way, with some good friends in attendance, it will be a wonderful celebration, I am sure. Cheers to you!

(Photo: Guram Dolenjashvili)

The thermometer is telling us we are in the dead of winter. Perhaps it was the void created after the decadence of Christmas, or maybe it was me thinking of dancing penguins and that expanse of polar ice cap, but any way you look at it, we are not enjoying global warming in our neck of the woods this week. Where we live, Old Man Winter is not only alive and well; he is throwing a party for Jack Frost and all his other friends. They have uncovered the frigid pool (no hot tub for them!) and they are making up frozen cocktails; they are settling in for a rockin’ good time. With that in mind, I decided to offer up a few suggestions for a wonderful winter party. What better way to warm up a room than the company of good friends and some heartwarming food!

Martin and I decided that we are going to have a cheese fondue party this weekend. We will exercise our minds and souls with riveting conversation and camaraderie. We can think about getting out next weekend to burn off the calories we will consume! That brings me to other ideas you can try to help fight off the cold…

• Have an après-ski party (or après-toboganning) – a few appies are good, or even grilled cheese sandwiches can be fun; you can use imported cheese or bread for a more grown-up theme, or dunk them in bowls of tomato soup if you want to reminisce (that was my favourite childhood thing on a winter day)

• Take your dog out for an extra walk – many of our four-legged friends get less exercise in the winter too, so they will appreciate it and their enthusiasm may rub off. Reward yourself afterwards with a nice cup of tea and a piece of winter cheesecake…

Oreo Cookie Cheesecake

10 inch pan, buttered

• 1250 g cream cheese (5 packs)
• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 whole lemon juice and zest
• 250 ml whipping cream (35%)
• 6 eggs
• 12 Oreo cookies

Preheat your oven at 325F.The cheesecake will bake on the middle rack, and you also need a pan with water on the bottom rack to create steam inside.

In your food processor, mix together cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice. Once you have a smooth mixture, add your cream and eggs by hand in a large bowl.

Pour the batter in your greased pan and add 6 to 8 cookies in chopped in pieces all over the pan.

Bake until the filling has a uniformed jiggling, around 2 hours but it could take longer.

Let it rest in the fridge overnight or for best results, two days. Decorate with fresh whipped cream and the remaining Oreo cookies on top.

• Catch up with an old friend – you know, that “When Harry Met Sally” thing. Winter is a good time to swap stories with someone you may not see often. Cozy memories will warm you up, and you can commemorate the event with “Pee-can Pie” (you have to say it the way Billy Crystal did in the movie – remember that scene?) As a sidebar here, I will mention that if your old friends are all a world away like mine, you can just as easily send them an e-mail and then cuddle up yourself with a piece of pie. It would be great to send them a piece of pie to enjoy too, but I don’t recommend trying to put Pecan Pie in an envelope!  If you want the recipe, click here.

If all else fails, try the “if you can’t beat ‘em” philosophy… try watching a winter movie like “Happy Feet” to boost your spirits. If your sense of humour is a bit warped by the cold, you can try “Fargo”, or if you feel overwhelmed by the bleakness of it all, well then “Dr. Zhivago” is the thing for you. (A cup of hot cocoa might be needed to survive all that cold, though.)

Stay warm! See you next week.

Kristin

In a world where everything has to be sensational to be noticed, it seems food has fallen prey to that same philosophy. So, to ensure that you can all keep up at the company water cooler, I thought I should let you know of some of the latest news. Prepare to be amazed.

Perhaps the posterchild of the change in public image is junk food, which is now no longer cool to promote except in jest. The latest casualty is Hostess, the company that makes Twinkies and Ding Dongs; they filed for bankruptcy recently. They just can’t keep up… even though their products have become famous for never spoiling. (I posted a great piece from another blogger on possible ways to “kill” a Twinkie on my Happy Gourmand Facebook page, if you are in need of a good giggle.) The only division of the company to survive is Wonder Bread, whose new slogan is “Discover the Joy of Natural Wonder… now free of artificial preservatives, artificial colours and artificial flavours”. What a revolutionary idea.

The key to success nowadays is to have a food that is either so rare and unique (read expensive) that you can brag about it like you do your Tag Heuer or your Astin Martin. I saw an ad for “Shackleton’s whiskey” recently – a replica whiskey made in honour of Ernest Shackleton and his private stash from his expedition to the South Pole. You see, they discovered a few cases of scotch that was hidden in the permafrost under the hut Shackleton’s team used to store supplies. Three bottles were finally extracted from the ice and sent to Scotland for “research” (read tasting). Whyte & Mackay, the company that is the modern day version of the original maker of the stuff, produced the replica after tasting the original, with all of the flavours, as well as intrigue and irony. The story is fun not just because it’s about a retro product, but because it is a silly escapade. Shackleton’s expedition was wrought with disaster at every turn. (He should have known – the ship’s name was the Nimrod, after all.) He was not a scientific explorer, and didn’t even really like the snow (he hated sled dogs, the best transportation method to use in Antarctica). But he was a naturally good leader (no bloody wonder, if he had such good whiskey!) If you can find a bottle, this once-in-a-lifetime experience will cost you about two hundred dollars Canadian. That’s about $2 a dram (that’s one sixteenth of an ounce).

Photo: Contributed

Another category that has become trendy is of course the heirloom varieties of vegetables and fruit. At a dinner with friends recently, I heard much complaining of the overuse of “heirloom” as a descriptor on menus. Wouldn’t you know, we went out for dinner this past week, and instead of “heirloom”, the word was “little”? I grow heirloom varieties in our garden, but I have to agree – do we need to remind everyone their food is cute?

But perhaps the important part is that we seem to be more focused on enjoying our food. If we are weird and wonderful about it, then maybe that is all that counts. You might not want to carve your food up like the picture I show this week, but if that kind of work will get your kids to eat fruits and veggies, maybe a bit of pulp and peel on the table is okay… think of it as the new version of that famous “Close Encounters” scene with the mashed potatoes.

Bon appetit!

Have you ever heard someone say they “had an epiphany” while brushing their teeth? Well, Wikipedia lists the secular meaning of an epiphany as “the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something… (when someone) has new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper foundational frame of reference”. My Mom calls them “a-ha moments”!

Photo: Contributed

Well, Epiphany is also a holiday, one that occurs on January 6, and celebrates traditionally the baptism of Jesus Christ and/or the coming of the Magi. There are different interpretations of the dates of all the pieces of Christ’s history, but the common thread is that this day is celebrated recognizing Christ as the Son of God. It was as big as Christmas at one time. This is where the Twelve Days of Christmas comes from – January 6 is the “Twelfth Night”. In some Christian cultures, such as South America, this season was extended for 40 days, to Candlemas (February 2 – tune in to a later column to see the nifty history on that).

Of course, since this was a celebration, there was a feast and activities. Epiphany marked the end of the Christmas celebrations – the yule log would burn on the fire until this night, when the ashes would then be kept until next Christmas to rekindle the good spirit of the season. The Christmas tree and wreath were kept up until Epiphany and any dried or candied fruit that might decorate either one would be eaten as part of the feast (remember, fruit was hard to come by in winter, and so was a treasured gift and would not be wasted.) People would go singing door to door, and they or sometimes the priests would bless the house after a sip of wassail punch, and mark it with the year’s date in chalk. Shakespeare even wrote a play for this time, in which many elements are reversed, as was common during this bit of celebrating (this tradition seems to go back to pagan rituals, which celebrated Epiphany as the end of the season that started at All Hallow’s Eve, when the world turned upside down.) And in many cultures there would be a “king cake”, baked with a bean or pea in the filling. The person receiving the bean in their piece would be crowned king or queen for the evening.

I was not aware of any of the ceremony that was Epiphany until I spent time in France, and I must admit I was charmed and awed by this wonderful way of closing out the Christmas season. Whether you are religious or not, it helps to have the focus on moving forward and hoping for a better tomorrow, don’t you think? I felt it helped me understand more about the big picture.

We will be celebrating Twelfth Night at Rabbit Hollow with my traditional French recipe for the Galette des Rois (King Cake), which you can find on my Happy Gourmand blog. I will enjoy a last look at the Christmas tree before it comes down, and reflect on the good things to come in 2012. I wish you and yours a happy start to this new year.