Severe Clear

Intense blue and the sunlight on the snow is so bright it's hard to stay outdoors. I come at lunch with a slight headache, decide to make a simple onion soup. Caramelize two yellow onions slowly (40 minutes), add a can of chicken broth, simmer together while I toast a thick slice of good whole wheat bread and grate over it, in a bowl, some Jack cheese. Not really kosher but excellent on another very cold day. Suit up one last time, split kindling, cut small stuff for starter sticks with the bow-saw, enjoying the effort, heating myself nicely. Read food essays through the afternoon, put away a few books, go through some cryptic notes and annotate them, while they're fresh on my mind. My usual notes are one or two words, which need context even for me to remember what I was thinking, which I can add, but only on the day they're written, often even the next day, they're more like disembodied words than the observations they actually are. A lovely afternoon, a little warmer, above freezing tomorrow. Reading John Thorne and intrigued with a Newfoundland set of recipes that parallel New England clam chowder. Fish and Brewis (brooze) and I have the basic ingredients. Fry a couple strips salt-pork, minced, boil a large Yukon Gold potato not quite all the way to doneness, slip it from its skin, cut into half-inch slices. Take the scrunchions (the rendered bits of pork) out of the cast iron skillet, save most of the fat for other uses, lay in a bottom layer of potatoes, the cod fillet on top, salt and pepper, dotted with butter, in the oven for maybe 12 minutes, and when it comes out you spread the scrunchions on top, if you live alone you eat this right from the skillet. In this weather, probably a good idea anyway. I have enough Number 6 cast iron skillets, serving as country ramekins, to serve a party of four. A really simple dish but damn it is good. Potatoes and cod, married with fat, is one of those great combinations. When I got up to stoke the fire this morning, I baked a tube of those Pillsbury breakfast rolls that come with a little tub of icing, decadent, but I'm trying to gain weight, and had the last two for dessert tonight. I don't have a sweet tooth, but the sugar was oddly satisfying. Easily converted fuel. Watching goats browse, I realized that if you were sensible, you ate what you craved, your body knew what it needed. Everything in moderation, a little of this, a little of that, but what you need. I talk to myself constantly, I'm in tune with this dialog, but even so, I often don't know what to say. Often left at the back of a room raising my hand in confusion. It isn't easy to navigate these waters even with a decent chart. And there is no decent chart. What we still have is a map that is marked with whole sections labeled 'there be dragons' or bears or something. You make what sense you can.