Fruit platter

I have assumed my corporate mantle, in spite of Mother Nature's efforts to bring Seattle to its knees. It was no triumph of humanity over nature that got me out of an iced-over airport, just patience and dogged determination. After my 24-hour travel odyssey, I was rewarded with a hotel room, and a upgrade to the executive level.

There is a certain comfort for the weary road warrior to know exactly what to expect: the branded soft bed with choice of pillows, big fluffy towels, a desk and huge-screen TV with an assortment of cable channels. Unfortunately, the food is nearly always equally as predictable: a breakfast bar of bagels, toast and pastries, with juice, cut fruit, coffee and tea.  The fruit platter, regardless of the season, is a prime example of homogenized food: cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, watermelon and pineapple; only the garnish (raspberries and blackberries this week) changes.

Hotel lunches offers up a little more variety, but afternoon snacks are invariably a cookie and coffee. It's no wonder that business travelers stream out of hotels for dinner, seeking a hole in the wall that dares to serve something other than chicken Caesar salad or steak and potatoes.

It was in this context that a couple of us set out in the hour between the end of the meetings and needing to catch a flight home--anything to get some fresh air before heading back into a sealed box. So imagine our surprise and delight in turning the corner to be greeted by rows of easy-ups: a farmer's market. Tables groaning under baked goods, fruits, meats--real, seasonal food; the people lining up to buy the food outnumbered the sellers.

In that moment, the reminder that the seasons still exist not just as snowstorms to disturb flight plans and that the earth provides without shipping pineapples across the globe, I relaxed. Just the sight of frost-kissed greens, and the promise in that oasis of bounty in an icy concrete jungle, and I could feel the tension leave my body and my shoulders drop.

Turnips and kale, bread and eggs; not cantaloupe and strawberries. Farmers in the city, life in winter.

Comfort

The mushrooms at the grocer's are big this year, perfect for stuffing if you are so inclined, but the stems are too thick and tough for the delicate risottos and duxelles I have been leaning to these dark, cold evenings. Taking the knife to the fungi takes me back to when I first brought my first knife home and spent hours patiently practicing slicing and dicing. Snapping the stems from the cups, a blade to halve the circle, turning the cut edge down. It is all familiar and comforting.

The same knife and nimble fingers make short order of the crimini this evening, destined for a humble pizza. But just as the tops of onions and odd bits cut off carrots and parsley find their way into the stockpot, so these stems sit by my cutting board awaiting a similar fate. They go into their own dedicated pot, a bit of salted water and today's onion discards, to make mushroom stock, for I am reminded of the need for comfort, and not just in our home.

Little One's class is having a hard week, it seems, with book-ended traffic accidents leaving two parents laid up with fractures and bruises, and their families asking for help in the form of dinners and carpools. We are grateful we are not polishing shoes for a funeral, but it is hard to see the silver lining when the sun is so dim.

And so the simmering stock will be thickened, and cream added. Noodles will be boiled--a few more than usual. I will open two jars of tuna this evening, and fill twin casserole dishes with food designed to be reheated and to comfort the soul.