Winter

I’m sort of a snob when it comes to trying new recipes. I just seem to like my old tried and true ones best, and it takes a lot for something new to grab my attention. I had to have the recipe for this dip after I tried it on Super Bowl Sunday 2006. Garth is a die-hard Steelers fan, so it was an exciting day. Everybody always brings something for the party, and this was my friend Kim’s contribution. Being a good southern girl, I love anything with black-eyed peas in it, but for you folks who are right now turning up your noses at the idea of eating black-eyed peas, all I can say is just try it. In fact, maybe I should name it something else for those skeptics. How about Pea Dippy?

Hunters say that venison makes the best chili. If you don’t have a hunter in the family, farm-raised venison is another option. The controlled diet of farm-raised venison results in a rich, meaty flavor that is only mildly gamey. At Fallow Hollow, Martha Goodsell recommends this recipe for her tougher cuts of farm-raised venison.

Suzanne Stack regularly updates and modifies her menus to take advantage of the rich, vibrant flavors the time of year offers. The butternut squash for this dish is grown at Blue Heron Farm, just down the road from the 1903 farmhouse she has converted to one of the Finger Lakes’ most charming restaurants.

Sled Dog, a malty, full-bodied craft lager with notes of caramel and chocolate, is the key ingredient in Wagner Valley’s version of Carbonnades Flamande, Belgium’s rich national dish. The hearty stew is an excellent bracer against our cold, snowy winter days in the Finger Lakes.

The concentrated, complex flavors of Cabernet Sauvignon provide a good match with chocolate. Chef Arthur Kelly Jr. has incorporated cocoa as a savory flavoring in a Finger Lakes take on the traditional French dish.

In Quebec, only two real game meats can be legally sold, caribou from the great north and hare snared in the winter. The taste of these meats is surprising at first, the incarnation of the word “gamey,” but like truffles or blue cheese, it becomes what you crave. Many little classic Parisian restaurants offer this dish in season, and there are as many ways to cook it as there are chefs. The basics are wild hare (lièvre), red wine, shallots, thyme, and garlic. The rest can vary. At Joe Beef, we use both hare and rabbit. D’Artagnan (www.dartagnan.com) ships in-season Scottish game hare that we have tried. It’s gamey all right, but it’s the real McCoy. If you can’t find a hare, you can use all rabbit. Count on two days to prepare this recipe. It should yield six to eight portions, and it freezes well.

Here is another great dish from the repertoire of Nicolas Jongleux. We used to scoff at people who said they knew how to make a great dessert that wasn’t too sweet. But as you get older and the espresso and the social cigarillos have started to erode your taste buds, you find yourself liking bourbon, lemon, and dandelion. This is a perfect little dessert in that fashion. It’s zingy and alive. We burn it with a blowtorch. If you don’t have one, just use your broiler. Heat it to the max and put whatever is holding the grapefruit right under it. Don’t forget dry rags or oven mitts and an ovenproof vessel.

Hot, it’s beef stew. Cold, it’s jellied beef stew.

Here is another of our kitchen staples, which tastes like an extraction of the essence of onion soup. Awesome on liver, veal, beef, or even schnitzel, it’s the taste of winter in Paris.

This recipe, aka Kälte Glühwein trinken für Freunde im Sommer, was inspired by a box of German mulled wine: it depicted a blond, deliriously happy family sitting down to a few cups of this mulled tea. Serve in highball glasses.

This drink started as a vinaigrette for razor clams, and it still is. But with scotch, really cold, it’s awesome. If you have a juicer, it’s the best. If you don’t, a blender and a sieve will do. Chervil is one of those herbs that you can’t cook, and if you buzz it in syrup, for example, you will end up with something more akin to soup Florentine than a cocktail component. Serve in a lowball glass.

Back in the day, when there was Sally Wong, when there was yellow pepper, and when there was tuna, David was doing endive salad and roast chicken. Although nonrevolutionary, this salad is always delicious. It’s on the menu often, especially in the winter when the garden is under a snowbank and the Parc Vinet Salad (opposite page) is a distant memory. Use Stilton in this salad; it works much better than other blues.

Pounding beef into thin "Milanese"-style cutlets makes portions look even bigger than they are. This recipe also works well with veal, pork, or chicken.

This dish flips conventional Southern cookery on its head. Rather than cooking greens nito submission, they’re quickly brined to soften their texture and mellow their bitterness, then married with the sweet, salty, and creamy elements of a composed salad.

This flexible salad relies on pantry staples and long-lasting veggies, so it’s easy to keep the ingredients around for making on the fly. It’s also the perfect place to use infused olive oils, especially herby ones like tarragon oil.

For this salad, Brian likes to mix the moist, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes—such as Garnet or Jewel—with drier, yellow-fleshed varieties. Ask your produce merchant to point you to the right types if you aren’t sure. After roasting and cubing the sweet potatoes, Brian tosses them with a mix of bitter chicories, a nutty sherry vinaigrette, and fine shavings of sheep’s milk cheese—an inspired marriage of contrasting textures and flavors. Serve with pork chops or a pork roast for a winter dinner.

A colorful platter of crudités and dip is a sure crowd-pleaser for a party—or simply as a snack. As an alternative to lemon-thyme dip, serve the vegetables with the white-bean dip on page 51.

PARSNIPS HAVE A DEEPER, MORE SOULFUL FLAVOR than carrots, and this hearty root vegetable takes center stage in our version of a carrot cake. Sweet and spiced with ginger and cloves, this moist cake makes a great birthday cake or anytime cake.

AFTER WALKING BY A BIN OF LOCALLY GROWN, knobby brown sunchokes one autumn afternoon, I became curious about this unusual ingredient. Also known as Jerusalem artichokes, they taste like a cross between an artichoke heart and a potato and are at their best in the fall and winter months. If you can’t find sunchokes, substitute Yukon Gold potatoes.

THIS RICH LAMB STEW is perfect for cold winter nights. It leaves out the traditional potato in favor of mushrooms and oregano, which provide a wonderful earthy flavor. A final twist comes in the addition of soy sauce, which intensifies the taste of this satisfying dish.