Less is More in Deep Winter

What is more central than our heart? Think about yourself, a dear friend reminded me recently. You have the power. Who else should have it?!

I feel my heart beating hard and say thank you for all the hard work it has done for me. Tonight I am cooking for you, my dear heart, some good stuff full of everything you love. These oven-roasted vegies are easy cheesy. Take the freshest, most local, most organic things you can find growing under earth, in my case, carrots, pastinake, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, celery root. Wash them good and use the peels to make vegetable stock. I cook from the root to the skin.

Add your favorite herbs – I took my Aegean favorites – laurel leaves and thyme that I gathered near Ephesos – because they remind me of summer sunshine, blue sky and ocean, and my beloved Turkish family, where cooking together has an archetypal, healing, soul-nourishing quality that is essential for me. I try to create this in my little crazy kitchen. Pour some soup stock and good wine over them and bake covered in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes.

Enjoy the light satisfying meal and feel warm all over, even when its freezing cold outside. Because we work outside now pruning the vineyards, it´s important for me to keep the kitchen hearth fire burning.