Deep Winter

In this season, you learn about the sufficiency of your preparations, and look for light and sweetness wherever you can.

“A field is empty, but if you put in the effort to grow something then you will have a garden. And that’s life. Give something, something will come back. Give nothing, nothing will come back. To grow a flower is a miracle: it means you can grow more. Remember that a flower is not just a flower, it is the start of a whole garden.”

-Eddie Jaku, The Happiest Man on Earth

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With the arrival, Sunday, of the first real storm of the season, our little homestead is cold and quiet: deep winter is here. And while we’re spending plenty of time cozy inside, making stews and bread and cookies, watching movies and reading books, enjoying a quality of life unheard of just a few short generations ago, we’re also reckoning with the adequacy, or limitations, of our summer and fall preparations.

In deep winter, with its ice-crusted fields and frostbite-threatening winds, there’s no longer any question of slipping casually outside to do just one more chore. Didn’t buy that snowplow blade? The driveway might just have to remain impassable for a few days. No stock tank heaters? Guess you’ll be acting as bucket brigade all week. Are you sure you bought enough hay? Those sheep are looking pretty hungry and the pasture’s now officially closed for the season.

Here’s where our preparations have led us:

The driveway was, yesterday morning, covered in about six inches of snow. Around noon, our household alert system, Stella, notified us of a nearby intruder. It was our neighbor - plowing our driveway free of charge and without being asked. His son was next door digging another neighbor out. We made partial payment by way of some just-out-of-the-oven cheddar and onion morning buns and many thanks. We lucked into having a good neighbor, but are doing our best to deserve it and keep up our end of the bargain.

In the pasture, the rival duck and geese factions have mostly declared a temporary truce and are spending their days hunkered down in their respective zones, making dissatisfied noises at the weather and very occasionally making a sprint for food and water. We did, mercifully, get those tank heaters in before the heavy weather.

The hens haven’t left their brand-new coop - the replacement for the one the wind blew down a couple weeks ago - and are, more or less calmly, simply eating, drinking, and laying eggs, weather outside be clucked.

The sheep are also mostly staying out of the weather - no forage outside - warm, fed, and comfortable, but still issuing the occasional discontented baaa and making a circuit around the skating rink of a pasture to see if there’s been a miraculous thaw they’ve missed.

The dogs would like us to fix the weather, please, but will accept belly rubs as a substitute.

The bees, whose hives are wrapped in wool, haven’t ventured forth to offer their opinion.

The garden goldfish aren’t faring quite as well, this being my first, error-ridden year of outdoor fish-keeping, I significantly underestimated the importance of a filtration system, particularly in cold weather, and oxygen levels in the stock tank have dipped dangerously low, a situation I occasionally try to remedy, imperfectly, by removing a little murky water and replacing it with fresh. Three of four remain; the fourth is interred in next year’s tomato plot.

Our silly little rooster managed to injure his leg just before the mercury dropped. We waited a day to see if he’d rally before realizing that our only two choices were to bring him inside, or allow “nature” to take its course (always a questionable choice with farm animals, who aren’t exactly self-sufficient in the best of times.) Reuben now has a temporary apartment in the garage, where he’s enjoying warmth, a little gentle chicken PT, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. He’s gained energy, but whether he’s in hospice, or is now a permanent house-chicken, remains to be seen. It doesn’t matter - the point is that, at least for us, you do everything you can to prevent a creature from dying alone and in the cold.

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A few weeks ago, someone shared a video with me that’s been making the rounds on social media, suggesting that thinking about a particular ancestor can actually trigger changes in our genetic expression. Now, I’m not a genetic scientist and don’t have the training to assess this particular claim. It’s caused me to pause and reflect, however, on all the many ways what we choose to train our attention on influences the reality we live in.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandmother lately.

Grandma Marge was born in 1913. As part of the “Greatest Generation”, grandma’s early childhood coincided with World War 1. She was a young adult and attended nursing school during the Great Depression, married my brilliant-but-difficult immigrant grandfather a year before World War II erupted, raised five children and lost a sixth in infancy, saw her husband deployed to Europe. And yet none of this is what was most remarkable about Grandma.

Grandma, as I knew her until her passing in 2005 at the age of 92, was one of those impossibly sweet women who, in my teenage and early adult years it was easy to write off as naive. She mostly took out her bigger feelings on the baby grand piano in her living room; her candy dish was always full and a pound cake always, somehow, on the kitchen table. At Christmas, the gift box would nearly always contain a crocheted blanket, labor-intensive, colorful, and warm. Although her children might have a different perspective, I can’t remember a single harsh word or negative opinion ever coming out of her mouth.

Now that I’m older and have lived through a few dark, chaotic news cycles myself, my perspective on Grandma is a little different: less wow, you sure were naive and more how on earth did you have the fortitude to keep all that up? In times of constant and world-altering upheaval, Grandma persistently, stubbornly, and without hesitation or exception offered warmth, comfort, and kindness. How many of us could manage this? It’s hard work. Necessary work. I think she knew that each of us is only the sum of all the little actions we take each day - and that society is only the sum of all of us. Whether brighter days or darkness are in the weather forecast, you bake the cake; you comfort the ailing animal; you do everything you possibly can to make the world just a tiny bit sweeter and more compassionate.

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“Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction.”
- Swami Vivekananda, Karma Yoga: The Yoga of Action

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I don’t have any particularly profound act of sweetness to offer you today, except by way of one thing that I do reflexively during difficult times: baking.

There’s a Joy the Baker Brown Butter Chocolate Chip cookie recipe that I used to make so often that one friend just started calling them “Havala cookies.” That never seemed quite fair, but in the way these things go - the version I now make is different (dare I say better? - Joy Wilson, I adore your recipes, please don’t come for me!):

• I no longer keep brown sugar in my kitchen, preferring instead to use white sugar and molasses and adjust the ratios more precisely. These cookies are significantly more molasses-forward than the originals.

• While Joy suggests browning half the butter, I find that browning all of it not only results in a nuttier, more complex flavor, but also gives you a fudgier, gooier center – a good thing! The best balance, in my book: cool the browned butter until semi-solid and then cream it with the sugar, just as you would a stick of butter. It will be a little less fluffy, but no less delicious.

• I’ve reduced the sugar substantially and added some nonfat dry milk powder. The resulting cookies are still plenty sweet, but the nuttiness of the butter and einkorn really shine through.

• My preference and recommendation is to substitute einkorn flour for all-purpose if you can find it: it has a complexity that pairs beautifully with the chocolate, butter, and salt. If you can’t find einkorn, you can try whole-wheat flour, or simply substitute all-purpose.

You’ll want to use the best-quality butter, vanilla, and chocolate that you possibly can; it really makes a difference.

Finally it probably goes without saying, but I’m not classifying these as “health food.” Even the reduction in sugar was made for flavor reasons, not ones of virtue. If I didn’t make my position clear in the epistle above, let me restate it here: everyone needs a little sweetness, particularly in difficult times.

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Just-Sweet-Enough Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter (226 grams)

3/4 c granulated sugar (149 grams)

2 T molasses (42 grams)

1/2 c nonfat dry milk powder (56 grams)

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 t vanilla

2 cups einkorn, whole wheat, or all-purpose flour (240 grams)

1 t salt

1 t baking soda

1 1/2 c chocolate chips (255 grams)

Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling

1. Brown the butter: place in a pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring periodically, until the butter smells nutty and turns a rich brown. Remove from heat and immediately decant into a heat-safe bowl. Set aside to cool in the refrigerator until semi-solid, about half an hour.

2. Beat the cooled butter, sugar, and molasses until light and creamy.

3. Add the egg, yolk, and vanilla; continue to stir vigorously until glossy and emulsified.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and milk powder.

5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir to combine.

6. Add the chocolate chips and mix.

7. Immediately scoop dough (which will be a little bit sticky) into 2-oz balls (or whatever size you prefer) on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate for at least two hours, or overnight.

8. Bake or freeze for later:

   1. To bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the chilled dough balls about 2” apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes, until golden brown but still slightly soft (don’t over-bake - you want that chewy center!)

   2. To freeze, simply scoop your firm, refrigerated dough balls into a freezer bag, removing as much air as possible. When ready to bake, remove as many dough balls as you want and proceed as in 8a, adding a few minutes to your baking time. This is a great party trick - fresh cookies on demand!

9. Remove from oven and top with a little flaky sea salt. Allow to cool on the baking sheet.

10. Find a friend, and sit down to a warm cookie and your favorite beverage. Reflect on the small bits of sweetness in your lives.

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    Below: recipe PDF

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

500KB ∙ PDF file

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