The Weekly Pannier, December 19, 2009

This has been a week of cold weather food. Soups and stews mostly, with a version of our version of roasted sweet potato. The Weekly Pannier for the holidays is fruits and green vegetables (with some potatoes and a winter squash of some sort), which reminds us to take advantage of broccoli, winter lettuces, and spinach during a season that can rely heavily on heavier vegetables. Of course, the term Heavy Food hardly applies to vegetables, does it? Keeping the diet light is easy when you think about it. Juliette and I, we don't cook with flour at all (except for bread made with low-gluten epautre flour and seeds) and we no longer eat animal milk products, which means no gravies or other rich sauces. We make sauces with soy products, oils (olive, sunflower, colza, etc.), garlic, and other herbs and spices. Juliette tells me I ought to write a blog essay on the subject. All I could say was, yes, I'd like to do that, but given my busy schedule right now, who knows when it might be. She said, You'll know what to do, and gave me that enigmatic, sphinx-y smile of hers that always baffles me. Was she agreeing with the whiff of procrastination in my voice (Oh, go ahead, put it off, you have all the time you need), or was she posing a secret challenge of her own (Go ahead, put it off, but don't forget, time is precious).

The only new food this week is the potimarron, which is a cousin of the potiron which we have had earlier this year, plus: eggs, a big sack of spinach, lettuce, potatoes, céleri rave, broccoli, oranges, and kiwis.