Winter

It’s a lazy time, isn’t it, winter—especially after the holidays. You toss something in a slow cooker, or roast a hunk of meat all afternoon, maybe adding some root vegetables in with it an hour before suppertime. Some evenings, you pull a jar of salsa verde out of the pantry and bake it into a bubbly dish of chicken enchiladas; or you stir-fry diced fermented long beans and some ground pork you found in a corner of the freezer with a bunch of scallions, drizzles of soy sauce and black vinegar, and a slick of orange-red chile oil. You might simmer hastily formed but still tasty meatballs in a bright, simple tomato sauce you put in jars or in the freezer over the summer; or you’ll throw a handful of shrimp in a hot pan with a sweet-tart tamarind sauce. Perhaps, instead of anything fancy, for a weekend breakfast you toast sandwiches oozing fontina cheese in a cast-iron skillet and have them with spicy pickles and the Sunday paper, and maybe on busier weekdays you put a pot of oatmeal on in the morning when it’s still dark out and open a jar of apple butter to stir into it. You might brighten everyone’s gray afternoon with a summery cherry clafouti you threw together in a few minutes with a bag of frozen Bings; or, some days, you don’t bother cooking anything at all and just slice a loaf of bread and an aged cheese (do you have a hard salami somewhere in the fridge too?) and set out little plates of homemade pickles and spoon sweets to go with them.