Sunday, January 26

Pleasures of the Winter Kitchen...



The bubble-bubble of soups and broths, the simmer of the stock-pot

A dish of citrus fruits, jaffa and navel and blood oranges, tangerines and clementines, globular grapefruit, dozens of lemons, skins all aglow.

Root vegetables freshly pulled, earth still clinging to them and crumbling on to the table.  Turnip and parsnip, carrot and celery, leek and swede.

A red cabbage, sliced down the centre, to reveal its whorls and whirls of purple-red-blue m ibter-streaked with white.

A pomegranate, split open to reveal the same symmetry, perfectly satisfying to the eye.

The feel of the heavy Christmas pudding mixture as youstir, pulling on the hand and wrist and arm, resisting.

The rise and fall of the singing kettle as it boils for hot drinks on bitter days.

The dry smell of the shed where the onions and potatoes are stored, on strings or in sacks and the other smell, of the apple loft under the eves.

Susan Hill

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