What a storm! I still have no idea how much snow we got: wind speed was high and the drifting severe. But our electricity never even blinked, so I spent much of the day cooking and reading, with a midday jaunt into the blowy. Tom and I and our across-the-street neighbors appeared to be the only hardy souls in town, waving at each other as we slogged into the ice-whipped gale. On the unplowed streets the only cars out were, of course, the exact cars that should not be driving in a blizzard: underloaded Econoline vans spitting snow on slight hills; elderly Cadillacs fishtailing around corners. This is a town crampacked with sensible Subarus, and not a one was on the roads.

Before the blizzard hijacked the schedule, Tom's parents had been planning to visit, and that meant I had a refrigerator full of dinner-party ingredients to use up on the two of us. So I made a giant snowbound feast. In the morning I put together a dessert I'd never tried before: a coconut blancmange--a milk-based gelatin, cousin to a pannacotta--which I served with creme anglaise. As you can see, it looked pretty spectacular when I unmolded it. 

For dinner I made one of Julia Child's leg-of-lamb recipes: painting a simple mustard-based sauce on the meat, then roasting to medium rare. (See more here about the incredible Maplemont lamb grown by master farmer Amber Reed, whom I've known since she was a kid.) Alongside it we had rice with wild mushrooms (from my autumn foraging) and bok choy with miso and fried sesame seeds. It was a top-notch meal, with significant leftovers, which is not a bad thing, considering that I'll be teaching this afternoon and immersed in a poetry workshop tomorrow evening and will be glad to have some quick options.

So today: much snow shoveling in the morning, much zooming in the afternoon. I'll let you know how it all goes.