Sunday, November 23, 2008

Skimbleshanks the Carrot Cat

Winter. Icy wind. Raw face. Root cellar. Broadway shows and twinkly lights.
That's right, I live in New York, not rural New England. And winter is one of my favorite seasons here. Sure, I do a little hunkering down, but I also love wandering around freezing myself in gaudy coats, looking at Christmas trees and glowing waves in Grand Army Plaza, music and pretzels and Central Park and all of it. When I was young, Christmas was time to go to New York and visit grandparents, try on lipstick at Bloomingdales, run around in the snow, go to shows and the Big Apple Circus and eat hot dogs at Fine & Schapiro's (yes, it is (was) our family deli), drink cocoa and hot toddies, and just generally love the way a city glows.
When all that gets old and I'm hiding in my house in Brooklyn wishing I was in Massachusetts, the next best thing to a root cellar is my CSA winter share. It comes in a big cardboard box, which we lugged home on the trolley and opened like a present. Kale, turnips, onions, potatoes, garlic, arugula and vitamin green, pears and apples and cider. So many tiny sweet carrots inspire creativity--I made little flowerets and Jill created...

Skimbleshanks the Carrot Cat! A tribute to Broadway shows and root cellars everywhere.

1 comment:

Nicki said...

Finally, finally, finally. After several attempts to make spaghetti squash delicious, or even palatable, I succeeded tonight. I tried the ricotta. Too bland; maybe I was too timid with the spices. Tonight I baked the squash whole, spooned out the hot squash extremely spahgettiish, mixed it with diced tomatoes (fresh would have been better), put in some fresh rosemary from the garden, mixed in some feta cheese and then topped it off with black olives and more feta, salt and pepper.Serve warm. Pretty good.