Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do- or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so.

February, in my kitchen is the time of year that you can almost always find a pot of hearty soup or chili simmering on the stove, a piping hot casserole chalked full of Hatch New Mexican Chilies resting on the counter or low roasted meats with a colorful array of root vegetables caramelizing in their own sweet empyrean.

The best part of putting food in a pot and over a fire is the intimate ritual of tasting, watching, smelling and stirring. Before you know it you’re mixing up a little bit of your soul in each dish that you create whether by recipe or from scratch. This is not an enigma this is the invent of your own distinctive “taste”. When it comes to cooking you have carte blanche in your kitchen and full creative power to create your own food legacy.

I recognize someone’s “taste” like I recognize the smell of their home. It’s a sensual thing, this cooking thing. To acquire the sensibility to experience others tastes one must also experience the culinary smells that creep around every corner; the smell of bacon frying in the morning, the familiar smell of roasted garlic mixed with sweet tomato sauce slowly simmering on the back of the stove or maybe the smell of coffee mixed with a wood burning stove. All of these smells invoke such a powerful part of my memory; that part of the memory that heedlessly embraces February, the end of winter and the anticipation for new life in the spring.

What does February evoke for you?
What will you create today?
What’s the first thing you smell in your kitchen this morning?
What is your first taste of the day?
What are the first sounds you hear today?