Best Winter Foods

Memories of winter in Rome always include a nostalgic image of a seller of caldarroste, roasted chestnuts, on a busy street corner in the city center. For the obscene amount of 3 Euro, passerby could purchase some late fall flavor in the form of 11 large chestnuts.

Biting into the warm, slightly powdery nut is a timeless sensation, shared by adults and children alike.

These days, my husband and I purchase chestnuts for $3.99 a lb in Brooklyn. We make sure to pierce each chestnuts, hitting the nut within the shell, then baking them at 425 F for about 20 minutes.
Simple but delicious!

2. Winter Truffles

Best found in November, these pricy treats are a delight to true lovers of truffles. Winter Truffles are more flavorful than their summer counterparts, because they are picked after they have reached full maturation. Nowadays, truffles can be purchased online a well. Start saving!
Thanksgiving is approaching, and Truffle Turkeys were quite popular with the rich in the late 17th century, so much so that the Italian composer Rossini is rumored to have said:
"I have wept three times in my life," Rossini admitted. "Once when my first opera failed. Once again, the first time I heard Paganini play the violin. And once when a truffled turkey fell overboard at a boating picnic."

Trivia: Truffles are aphrodisiacs!

3. Chicken Soup

This is a classic, and I always do as my mother does and keep my soup as natural as possible, with no soup mix or other additives.
Skin half a chicken and place in 6 quart pot. Randomly slice in two carrots, one Zucchini, and a celery stalk. Add one or two fwhole onions and half a parsley root for taste. Fill with water and bring to a boil, then add fresh parsley, plenty of salt, some black pepper, and cook on low heat for 90 minutes or more.
Enjoy!

4, Chocolate!

Winter is when we get to let ourselves go in the name of comfort and keeping warm. No comfort food is better than a good dark chocolate, nice and bitter if you share my tastes, or light and nutty
If that is your preference. I have yet to find better chocolate than the Swiss variety.

5. Kasha

If you're of Eastern Europe origin, you've probably had a bowl of real buckwheat or barley, possibly in your grandmother's house. Kasha has to be stand on the stove cooking as long as possible, and could be made crunchy or soft. The soft version is said to be more authentic. Russians like to eat it with smoked meats and sausages, accompanied by a nice loaf of black pumpernickel bread. Try to purchase your Kasha in specialty stores, as the supermarket variety is but a poor imitation. Buckwheat could be substituted for regular wheat or corn wheat, also found in ethnic stores.

6. Vodka…

Err…go easy on this, my friend.

Other winter staples include oranges, which are horribly overpriced in the States, squash and pumpkin, oatmeal and farina, nice hot tea and real live garlic.