Frozen

The deep freeze is here, temperatures in the single digits and a scary howling wind which is making the windows in this old house rattle. The wind chimes are loudly playing their song, hopefully they won't fly away. We are surrounded by a foot of solid ice and the snow flurries predicted for yesterday turned into a pretty snowfall that left about an inch on our cleared out walkway and sidewalk, it will stay that way since I don't plan to step foot outside. On weekends Frank has walking duty, which is quick, Max wants no part of this. Shouldn't complain, we could be living in New England (sorry Jen, Shelley and Steve). 

I'm not complaining actually, after all it is the weekend; a long one at that. We have food, we have wine, we have music, we have firewood. No need to go anywhere. The Sunday Times is scattered all around me for lazy reading, then I can move on the new Saveur and Travel & Leisure that just arrived. I'll read a few pages of my latest slow read The Expats, which I'm really enjoying but find little time to get to during the week since my brain comes home a bit atrophied from work and Frank and I have found the joys of binge TV watching, we just completed two entire seasons of House of Cards, or as I like to call it Macbeth-Richard III, in two weeks. Breaking Bad may be next, we'll see. 

In the meantime we'll take the hint from Mother Nature and do some recharging while icebound with no place to go. I am redecorating in my head, when we finally bought our new TV and hung it on the wall in the TV room the armoire that housed the old one was moved to the guest room which meant the desk needed to move out, put that in the library which is very small so now nothing looks right. All of a sudden I'm looking at pieces I've had for years and I hate them, some things need to go. I want to repaint our bedroom, I'm thinking a light olive, something soothing. The basement needs some serious clean out. 

This is why God made Winter. 

And, of course, there's cooking!

Frank's favorite lamb dish, which I've written about before and you can find the recipe here.

Beef shank stew over polenta. 

And for Valentine's, Frank's favorite meal, Rosemary crusted rack of lamb, garlic mashed potatoes with a simple salad...and of course, something chocolate,

Dark Chocolate pudding from The New York Times food section this Wednesday which was dedicated to Chocolate. A redemption of their declining content if ever I saw one!

No Max you can't have any.

Well OK, if you put it that way.