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This was a fun and different sort of “centerpiece” column! Bears are coming out of hibernation around here, and my family has always had a lifelong love of anything with a bear. Once my father even received a mounted bear head when he left the US Attorney’s office!

Using a few local products that have “bear” as part of the name, I put together this piece. All of these can be made with substitutes if you’re not able to find the specific items mentioned here. And as I say, please do let me know if you find any other “bear” products!

Although Purim has come and gone this year, these cookies are delicious any time! This column was published earlier than usual online this week – I first saw it Monday morning, whereas my columns usually don’t get posted online until late Tuesday – before the print version appeared on Wednesday. However, waiting three days before reposting here it means that it’s now after the holiday, so you can just be bold and enjoy them anytime, or set yourself a reminder for next year, which begins the evening of March 6th, 2023!

We’re in the winter doldrums. Besides the weather, it feels like we’re hardly doing anything as the gray skies just make me feel unmotivated. To brighten things up, I’ve been trying to enjoy the seasonal citrus we get from warmer parts of the country. Just eating a sweet juicy orange is a treat in itself, and I’ve also been using lemons, oranges, and grapefruit in my cooking. In addition to what’s here, I recently found a recipe for grapefruit and rosemary shortbread, two flavors that are so good together. I’m still thinking about the signature cocktail at Greta and Daniel’s wedding that used both grapefruit and rosemary!

On one occasion when I made this when Wilson was visiting – since I know it is one of his favorites – Hank commented on how good it was and asked why I’d never made it before. And then, the very next day, it popped up in my Facebook memories that I had made one year earlier, again for Wilson, when he was here for a visit! But I suppose this means I should make it more often!

Throughout culinary history and across cultures, people have used food as vessels in which to cook or serve other foods. One of my recent ideas used delicata squash to hold creamy orzo with sausage. It would be easy enough to make this vegetarian or vegan, but whatever you do, it is best to use a small pasta shape to get as much as possible into the squash “boats.” Click here for the link to the Berkshire Eagle column, or scroll down.

I am always looking for new ways to use the corn that I put in the freezer during the summer. I’ve posted about a variety of possibilities, which include ways to embellish sautéed frozen corn, corn chowder, and corn pudding, just to name a few. This most recent improvisation has already become a favorite in our house. Although we grill throughout the winter, if you don’t, you can just cook the swordfish in whatever way is easiest for you!

At Guido’s in Pittsfield, this wonderful vegetable is called a Cape Cod white turnip, but I did get some feedback on Twitter that I should have called them Eastham turnips! (Eastham is a town on Cape Cod.) As I write below, I first encountered them as Nantucket turnips. Furthermore, I have seen mention of a similar – or perhaps the same – vegetable called Florida Mountain turnips (there is a Florida, Massachusetts) or Gilfeather turnips (in Vermont, named for a farmer from the early 1900s). Some sources say it is a turnip-rutabaga hybrid, but most people are just happy to enjoy them over their short season.

Some years back the first night of Hanukkah was actually on Thanksgiving Day! I’m not sure if that’s the earliest it can be (in the Gregorian calendar) as I don’t know the intricacies of the Hebrew calendar, but this year it’s a pretty close second with the holiday starting the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

No matter when it falls, I always tell people to make a lot of latkes to freeze for later. Even though they are traditional for Hanukkah, they are so good, and I am always happy to have them as a side dish at other times.

I always like to have a package of puff pastry in the freezer which can quickly and easily provide the base for so many treats, both sweet and savory. Here I decided to use the puff pastry to make turnovers, filled with the flavors of choucroute, and made some modifications for a vegetarian version.

Pasta provides a wonderful palette for so many flavors, but sometimes it’s so easy to get stuck in a tomato-based rut! Italians love pasta with walnuts, and this vegetarian recipe is really quick and easy. I always keep several different kinds of nuts in the freezer, although I do need to make a point of buying ricotta when I want to make this. You can pretty much pull it together in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. You can find my column from this week here, or scroll down!

There is something so comforting about a bowl of soup. And yet, as a child, I didn’t really like soup. I am not sure why, as my grandmother was a phenomenal cook and she used to make tubs and tubs of soup for us keep in the freezer. I think, perhaps, my mother loved her mother’s soup so much that she wasn’t too upset when I showed little interest!

But my kids started on soup early, as did my niece, which I discovered when she gobbled down a curried cauliflower soup when she was just a toddler!

This past week I wrote about pumpkin soup for my Berkshire Eagle (link here), which is just right for the season.