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Sweet potato latkes and ruby applesauce. |
Happy Winter Solstice! Happy Hanukkah! Let's celebrate. The shortest day of the year is finally upon us. The darkest point in the turning of the seasons will tomorrow tilt toward light. The balance in power has shifted. Daylight gains. The darkness recedes, inch by inch, minute by minute. Light is reborn. Pretty powerful stuff. No wonder so many cultures have celebrated this in a myriad of ways (see Nika's list of Mid-Winter celebrations and her beautiful photos).
For Hanukkah- no matter how you spell it- it's also about light. An eight day Festival of Lights, in fact, and food is intricately woven into the tradition. Because Hanukkah celebrates the fortuitous finding of a flask of olive oil (a small amount that would, maybe, last a day, but miraculously burned for eight dark nights) recipes for celebrating are cooked in oil.
And that brings to me to one of my all-time favorite foods on Earth.
Latkes.
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