We’re heading to the shortest day of the year. The winter solstice - this Sunday - is a powerful and ominous time. We’ve been descending into darkness for several months as the days grow ever shorter. Only after the longest night is over will the sun begin to return to give us life. Seasonal feelings of dread must date back to the earliest humans.

In Zoroastrian tradition the longest night is called Shab-e-Yalda, or simply Yalda for short. On Yalda people stay up all night eating pomegranates and dried fruit and talking and story-telling, to push back the forces of the dark. Persian grocery stores here in Toronto are loaded with piles of pomegranates (anar in Farsi, Urdu, and Hindi) and with dried fruits of all kinds, their rich colours enticingly like a version of the treasure in Aladdin’s cave.

pomegranate seeds close up

This hinge of the year is a good time to reflect back and to imagine forward. I’ve been doing some of each.

A dear friend brought me a pomegranate about a week ago. It’s been sitting round glowing pink-red, reminding me to open it up. So this morning, a couple of days early for Yalda, that’s what I did. If you’ve got a lot of pomegranates to strip, the task can seem tedious or onerous. But if, as I was, you are on your own with no deadline to meet, then it becomes wonderfully meditative.

mostly done, my meditative stripping of lovely seeds

I picked the glowing red seeds off the sections of membrane in ones and pairs and dropped them into a wide bowl. Now and then I’d eat one or two, crunching their acid-sweet juice and the slightly bitter seed between my teeth. It was easy to lose track of time and just float.

As they often do, my thoughts turned to Tashi. I am still hearing from friends of mine and friends of his with expressions of sorrow and sympathy. I appreciate them all. It’s difficult for people to know what to write, what to say. And it takes courage sometimes to risk saying the inexpressible. I don’t respond usually, except to thank them. But then a few days ago I found myself writing a response for myself, not to send, but to explain to myself how things feel right now.

Here it is:

“It is entirely outside the power of words or immediate understanding, this absence of Tashi. I say that, but in fact I feel him everywhere, just outside my line of sight, his attentive energy and his presence. I don’t know how long this will go on. It’s lovely and haunting and kind of a cushion against the harsh fact of his death.

The other thing I’ve learned in all this is what a labour death is for the person dying. We labour to give birth and most of us labour to die. That’s especially true when the person dying is young and healthy, as Tashi was. The drugs and treatments weakened him of course, but really the tumour messing with his brain was driving the show, producing and directing it. And so he laboured, with amazing patience and tolerance and humour.

As I age into stiffening muscles and a poor memory for names, with many more weaknesses to come, I hope I can remember to model myself on Tashi. Children educate us in so many ways. I just never dreamt he’d be the one to show me how to exit gracefully.”

These days, as we enter full holiday season mode, friends of all ages come by. Over coffee or a meal, we talk easily of the present and of the past. And we touch on possible future plans. These conversations knit together the fabric and help build a sense of how the future will take shape. I am so grateful

Almost every week since May 2020 I have gone for a long walk with a small handful of friends, people I’ve known for years. Once Covid restrictions eased, we added lunch at some quirky small place to our walk. These jewelled Turkish sweets were part of a coffee stop we made this week at Simit Chi on Bloor.

KITCHEN THIS AND THAT, MOSTLY TIPS AND TRICKS

In my last post I mentioned pastry plans. I’m happy to report that I made a batch of pastry using flour milled by Dawnthebaker from Maris Widgeon wheat, a delicious variety that is now being grown by one or two farmers in Ontario.

I used half of it to make an improvised version of pear tart, open-faced, with the pears resting on a layer of frangipane. In its most elegant form this combination is called a Tarte Bourdaloue. I took a rough and ready approach, which meant that my tart was a poor cousin to the Bourdaloue in many ways: I chopped the pears rather approximately into several shapes, I used a rectangular tart pan rather than a round one, and my frangipane was a bit coarse (I’d toasted the Ontario hazelnuts lightly, but didn’t grind them finely enough). Other criticisms: I used salted butter but the pastry could have used more salt, and the frangipane too. Still, I was pleased. Textures were great and I loved the flavours.

frangipane made from Ontario-grown hazelnuts; local pears; whole grain Maris Widgeon flour

Now to report on the mincemeat. Two days ago I made mince tarts, little ones. The tartlets were delicious, yes, but there was a bit of a glitch. I left them in the baking tin too long. By the time I wanted to serve them for dessert on Tuesday evening they had stuck a little in their hollows and were difficult to lift out, even though I’d greased each little indent well with butter. I gather the trick is to take them out when the pan has cooled a little, but before things are completely cooled. There’s always more to learn.

mince tarts in preparation; I put a dab of frangipane on top of each

And on the topic of always having more to learn, my friend Ed Rek, whose Substack is Movements of a Cook, told me he had a new twist on roasting chicken. I roast chicken at 400 F/200C and I always start with the chicken breast side down so the underside gets a good start and is sure to be cooked through. I turn the bird over after about 20 minutes, so the breast ends up on top all golden-skinned. His suggestion: once the chicken comes out of the oven, turn it over while it rests, so that any juices drain back into the breast, keeping it even more moist. It’s something to try next time.

Another tip, this time from Dawnthebaker: She’d given me two large beautiful squash, a new hybrid variety. I don’t remember the name, sorry. The tip? Once she said it, it seemed obvious, a real duh! but it had never occurred to me: when you cut them in half, leave the seeds in. They keep the flesh moist and it saves work. Bake them cut side down. The seeds are very easy to scoop out once the squash is cooked. The flesh was silky smooth, simple to scoop out of the skin, and a little sweet. I added chopped radicchio to it, then dressed the resulting dish – a salad? a mashed textured vegetable? – with a little olive oil, some lemon juice, a dash of good vinegar, and some fish sauce. A real pleasure to eat. Alas, there were no leftovers to have with eggs the next day

radicchio landscape: both kinds grown by Paul of Footsteps Farm

fried eggs in process this morning, about to go over leftover brown rice