Cardamon to carry me to spring

Cardamon Vanilla Pound Cake. Chaiwalla's chai tea. Cardamon gelato on ginger pear crisp.
More pulla.

Since the plan for making it through winter with fondue has been working so beautifully, I've decided on cardamon to get me through March. Longest month. Spring still too far away. Brief warm spells only slight distractions from freezing mornings. 5pm light is still nice, but it's not light out when I leave work. Kale and broccoli rabe and canned tuna have gotten us through, but we still long for spring greens.

Enter cardamon(m).

For the last three years I've made myself this pound cake for my birthday, toasting it as the week goes on and topping it every day with sweetened whipped cream. Milky cups of tea are still getting us through Saturdays without the heat on but I needed something spicy. Sweet. Fragrant. Hopeful. Cardamon.

Fighting Winter with Food Traditions

At the Valentine's at Home Dinner Table last week, Liam and I talked through traditions we want to establish for our family. Liam wants us to integrate traditions that are from our childhood - for him, clamming, boating and hanging out at the beach in Newport. As we talked through summer traditions and travel dreams and plans, we eradicated our pot of fondue au cremant, our new favorite recipe. It's been part of making-it-through-winter plan, along with bringing back the traditions of other places we've lived - gallette des rois (pictured) for example (although this one was stale and returned to Almondine Bakery).

In addition to fondue au cremant, we have relied on grapefruit split in half after dinner for dessert, steel-cut-oats toasted with butter and spiced and finished with milk cooked on Sunday for the week, variations on pasta with tuna and tomatoes from Marcella's silky sauce to a chunkier canned version Jasmine sent our way with olives and chick peas, 2 California stem-on satsumas as an after-lunch snack and of course, loaves of pulla to keep it spicy and comforting when it's 21 outside and 7 with windchill.

Just heard the weather report - he said that we still have significant storm systems that come each year in March. I'm hoping for a snow-free birthday, longer days in just a few weeks and one more month of the woolliest suits until spring rears it's green head.