Winter abundance

A glance up at the skyline reveals that the trees have shed their leaves, which I take to mean that autumn is over and we are turning to face winter. My first raw winter and conventional dietary advice tells us that this is when we need to heat ourselves with warm food; soups, casseroles and slow roasts. I am pleased to say that I do not feel this to be so. Moreover there is an abundance of delicious produce available during the season; the shiny fragrant satsuma, dark green winter greens. It is at this time of year that supermarkets have for sale raw nuts in shells; I have found walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts and almonds. This is a real boost as the nut is at its most fresh; they look beautiful displayed in a bowl, forming a connection to the cycle of the seasons. Moreover the fact of having to crack the nuts open, manually, one at a time is an exercise in pure mindfulness and it slows one’s nut consumption considerably, I have found!