More Valentines, Winter Food

Finally, I managed yesterday to finish my cafepress shop Valentines. There are three more designs and I even have two of them in Spanish. They are pretty and I am pleased. (Shameless plug over, post continues below.)

The weather continues to be colder than normal for our area and the house has the feeling of a permanent chill to it. Reminds me of Papa calling the living room the "root cellar"! Of course, he grew up in a house that had a root cellar and a summer garden. His Grandma for sure kept apples in the root cellar. I wonder if she also stored onions, potatoes and turnips there?

Onions, potatoes and turnips would make a good soup. Kale would be good in it too along with garlic. Garlic is definitely a seasonal vegetable although most of the time we probably don't think of it that way--it just tastes so much better before it sprouts.

Pumpkin makes good soup too. Although it is better in pie and in muffins. Split pea soup and bread pudding are two more wonderful winter foods that do come to mind. I love split pea soup. Bread pudding is not worth making (or eating) if it is a low-fat version. This is one of those things that are just better when made the original way.

Cooking is one of the arts our culture is losing because we spend too much time commuting and too much time working. I have wondered for years if we would be healthier with a shorter work week. Then again we might just watch more dumb television and stay as unhealthy as we are.

Finally, I am disappointed that John Edwards dropped out of the Presidential race. I am glad to see that his agenda of eliminating poverty is going to be continued by the remaining Democratic candidates. I still don't see anything about helping the disabled or the elderly and so I am skeptical. However, it was the last Clinton administration that made at least a start toward improving disability benefits. So much more needs to be done and I hope that it will be.