Winter Wallowing

My house in holiday dress. It's all gone now...


The holidays are over, and I finally got the Christmas decorations down. My mother's perennial excuse that the season isn't really over until after The Feast of the Epiphany expired last week. Well , I did leave a string of lights wound around my Eiffel Tower. Every time I plug those in, I'm instantly transported to Paris. Those are staying put.

... except for the Eiffel Tower lights (sorry about the blurry photo).

The house seems so naked now! What with the bare trees, dead grass and general blah-ness outside, it's all rather depressing.

But the post-holiday lull does bring with it the soul-soothing benefits of winter wallowing. And Lord knows, I do love a wallow.

I snuggle on the sofa in my cozy yellow and red family room, under a toasty throw, surrounded by purring kitties (Want to learn how to wallow? Observe a cat.) and watching old movies while sipping from a generous-sized mug of cinnamon vanilla tea or hot cocoa with chocolate-coated mint marshmallows melting inside. (Thank you, Kimmy!)

Everything I know about wallowing, I learned from my cats.

I flip through the new cookbooks I received for Christmas in search of wallow-worthy recipes.

Unlike holiday food --opulent, over the top and designed to impress -- wallow food is simple, homely, hearty fare meant to be enjoyed alone or shared en famille. That's another thing I love about mid-January: It's the least judgmental time of the year, completely lacking in pretension or pressure.

Sammy finds a private place amidst the pillows for his wallow time.


The other night I tossed a couple of cans of rinsed white cannellini beans with a pint of grape tomatoes, olive oil, chopped fresh oregano, thyme and rosemary, smashed garlic cloves, sea salt and freshly ground pepper, topped them chicken thighs, drizzled with more olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper and baked for about 45 minutes. Voila --- wallow-worthy winter food just like I ate in Paris last winter.

I also baked a dense, moist chocolate orange loaf cake from Nigella Lawson's new cookbook (now there's a lady who makes wallowing look downright sexy). It was a lovely, lumpy, sunken in the middle, frosting-less cake perfect for nibbling.

Tonight I'm going to take the remnants of the show-stopping standing rib roast I served at Christmas out of the freezer and simmer it with onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, beef broth, red wine and baby pasta to make my grandmother's famous beef soup. If I work up enough energy (difficult to do when properly immersed in a state of wallowing), I will make up a mess of tomato and pork-simmered sauerkraut to serve alongside it.

Just thinking about it lifts my spirits.