Winter. From Nigel Slater's "The Christmas Chronicles":

"I love the crackle of winter. The snap of dry twigs underfoot, boots crunching on frozen grass, a fire spitting in the hearth, ice thawing on a pond, the sound of unwrapping a Christmas present from its paper. The innate crispness of the season appeals to me, like newly fallen snow, frosted hedges, the first fresh page of a new diary. ... Without their leaves, deciduous trees take on a sculptural quality; we get the opportunity to see their bark more clearly, the dance and flow of their branches, their character and form. ... Some things actually smell cold. But there are also smells ... that we connect with this season alone. A tray of mince pies in the oven; an orange studded with cloves ... or a shallow dish of potato Dauphinoise, calm and creamy, baking.

"Eating winter -- the food of fairy tales: Gingerbread biscuits with icing like melting snow, steaming glasses of glow-wine; savory puddings of bread and cheese and a goose with golden skin and a puddle of apple sauce. There are stews of game birds with twigs of thyme and rosemary; fish soups the color of rust and baked apples frothing at the brim. Winter is the time for marzipan-filled stollen, thick with powdered sugar, pork chops as thick as a plank, and rings of Cumberland sausage sweet with dates and bacon.

"Ginger, aniseed, cardamom, juniper and cloves. The caramel notes of maple syrup, treacle, butterscotch. Fruits dried on the vine, and preserved in sugar. Ingredients too that hold the essence of the winter months: red cabbage, russet apples, walnuts, smoked garlic, chestnuts, parsnips and cranberries. Winter cooking is clouds of mashed potatoes flecked with dark green cabbage, roasted onions glistening like brass bed knobs and parsnips that crisp and stick molasses-like to the roasting tin. The food of the cold months is fatty cuts of meat ... that we can leave to braise unhindered in a slow oven, with onions and thyme, wine and woody herbs, plodding silently towards tenderness."