Lebkuchen are a German holiday cookie my father remembers fondly from his youth. I'm trying to revive the family tradition by modernizing a recipe attributed to my great-grandmother Anne Hammersley (nee Frank), tracked down from handwritten copies from estranged relatives and transcribed an unknown number of times (if you'd like to try it, or give helpful pointers, here is a copy). The instructions say to start before Thanksgiving, but due to other commitments I put off the baking experiment until after the new year, which fortuitously is when Buddha's Hand Citron is available locally. I candied it per the instructions in the Tartine cookbook to delicious results and used it in the recipe. The notes added to the typed version of the recipe call for molasses and brown sugar, which I tried this year, resulting in a cake-like gingerbreadish cookie, which were tasty, but not what my dad remembers. I suspect Great Granny Annie's recipe really did use only honey and I'll try again with this adjustment next holiday.
Also at the beginning of the year, when apples from cold storage were still crisp and fresh-tasting, Jennifer and I made apple butter. We know a few families back home who still have apple butter making days, where they set a huge kettle over an oak and hickory fire to boil, stirring great amounts of apples into the brown spice-infused spread, and we have fond memories of gifted quarts. Some 10 or 15 pounds of "cosmetically challenged" apples were procured from the farmer's market for an extremely reasonable price. The first step is to wash, core and chop the apples, then make applesauce on the stovetop. The rest of the conversion to apple butter occurs in a wide crock pot. The low even heat slowly drives away moisture and concentrates sugars until the sugars eventually caramelize. Only a few pints made it into long term storage, so I think the effort will have to be redoubled next year.
For Saint Patrick's Day I corned brisket of beef, a food full of American history and ingredient in many fine dishes. I took inspiration from Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall, but ultimately more closely followed a recipe of Martha Stewart's because Fearnley-Wittingstall called for what seemd at the time to be an impertinently large piece of meat for only two people. I bought a beautiful piece of meat from Prather Ranch, boiled and cooled the brine and set it to pickle in the refrigerator for a week. The result was exactly what you would want from a piece of corned beef. Tender, not stringy, and deeply infused with brine flavor and melting fat when cooked. But after only one meal of corned beef and cabbage, a couple orders of corned beef hash with eggs, and a round of Rueben sandwiches, the corned beef was gone. I've learned my lesson that there can never be too much corned beef and will never doubt the wise words from the River Cottage again.
It is always a great thing to retrieve food cached away at the peak of its flavor, and it's even more enjoyable when you can do it twice. In February, just as the earliest dafodils were blooming here in the Bay Area, I pulled out blueberries and blackberries quick frozen on trays in the freezer during the height of the last summer, when I was too busy to do canning, and converted them to a deep, dark jam. It was incredibly nice to be able to add a new jam flavor at the end of winter to remember the quintessential taste of summer and enjoy the harvest in a second format.
The projects described are a great way to stay involved with your food when winter has driven you inside from the garden. These projects cultivate lost and subtly nuanced flavors you can't find with "quick and easy" recipes. But they are suprisingly easy in an markedly earnest and homespun way. These foods require patience, which builds anticipation, and heightens the joy of remembering recent seasons or family gatherings of many years past. They bubble slowly in the kitchen while you play a game or watch a movie while a rainstorm batters the windows, and that is about as comfortable as food can get.
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