Approaching the Winter Solstice
and to all a good night...
Hello,
Here we are on the doorstep of the Winter Solstice — the longest night, the biggest dark, when sensible living creatures go slow and hunker down. Here in the Pacific Northwest, one of the northernmost geographical points in the continental US, we get (just barely) half the number of daylight hours than we enjoy on the celestial flip side in summer. And by daylight, I mean overcast, stormy and cold. My every mortal fiber suggests that maybe this would be a good time to take a nap.
I may not be able to pull off napping through the entirety of the next couple of weeks, but I do intend to rest and restore. There will be much reading, various kitchen creations (see below), and hopefully a day or two in the garden. I’ll be back in your inbox on January 3rd and we’ll welcome the New Year together. Until then, embrace the dark as a curtain hiding our undone chores, then light a candle to create a circle of warmth. I’m so very glad you’re here.
xo Lorene
Seizing Citrus Season
Periodically I’ll reference the notion of saving something for my Index of Delight. Citrus holds pride of place in my list of things that make my days better, brighter, and more delicious. (Not everything in my index is food but curiously the scales tip that way.) Deep dark winter is the time to wring every last drop of better, brighter, and more delicious from each and every knobby fruit. There will be Poppyseed Lemon Cake from Deb Perleman of Smitten Kitchen, “Fragrant with lemon and loud with butter.” Ruby red grapefruits are waiting patiently on the kitchen counter to attain their highest and best calling in a batch of Grapefruit Marmalade. And then there’s Citrus Salt, a recipe — really, more like a simple project — that appears in my book Color In and Out of the Garden.
What do you get when you combine an edible rock with the essence of the sun? A seasonal salt that brightens everything it finishes.
Bonus Project
Cultivating Amaryllis
Anticipating the first glorious bloom on an Amaryllis is, in my eyes, one of the best parts of winter.
The beefy bulbs are typically available through nurseries and mail order catalogs around the holidays. Potting up a gnarly bulb the size of a small grapefruit and bringing forth a blossom as dramatic as an amaryllis — in midwinter no less — sounds daunting, but it’s easy.
Shop Talk
I’m quite fond of my one-woman post office and this has been a busy shipping season thanks to all of you. The shop will remain open and stocked (with the exception of the 2025 in Living Color calendar) for all your color desires during my brief hiatus.
a year ago
Rest & Retreat on the Winter Solstice
Hello, As the year winds down, the days grow darker, and the news darker still, it’s all too easy to want to take to my bed with the covers over my head. However, light is coming. Even a tiny spark illuminates the dark. Leonard Cohen once observed: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Twas Twixmas
Hello, Twixmas, the week between Christmas and New Years, is a sort of limbo, we’re finishing up one year and have not quite made it to the next. Traditionally, this is when we’re told to list things we’d like to do differently over the course of the coming 12 months, 52 weeks, and 365 days. Personally, I find such musings often lead to defeat and discou…
Happy Winter Solstice Lorene! Thank you for all of the helpful links. I love a good marmalade! Grapefruit Marmalade will be fun to have through the winter months. So many go sounding recipes at that website!! :-)