First Aid for Deep Winter Blues

Too cold and too dark for you still? Too many long, dreary months to wait until Spring?

Let's "fast-forward" the seasons a little. It's really easy with a little non-industrial light and magic.

First of all, don't wait for Valentine's Day to plan a romantic evening.

Order our Chicken Breast DaVinci, a puff-pastry wrapped boneless breast filled with creamy spinach and imported gruyère cheese, or Chicken Breast Ana Luisa, a boneless breast filled with swiss cheeses dotted with ham and artichoke hearts. Both come with our mouth-watering Madeira Sauce.

Buy a lovely white wine to complement them. Mondavi Sauvignon Blanc or Fumé Blanc will be a liquid dose of summer; Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc is also a good choice. Then search out some baby vegetables, including tiny new potatoes, to simply steam and dress with melted butter and chopped fresh herbs. If you can get fresh asparagus, you really know what you're doing. Nothing on a menu evokes spring better than fresh asparagus. Elegantly-thin stalks are available early in the season.

For appetizers, start with 2 or 3 soft cheeses served with crackers or baguette slices. If you can find ripe melon (it will be fragant at the stem end if it's ripe) serve 1" wide slices, the rind trimmed off, wrapped in paper-thin sheets of prosciutto.

Visit a fine bakery or confisserie to shop for desert (something luxurious and decadent, perhaps with berries. In Grandmother's day, these would have been prohibitively expensive "hot-house" berries). Deliberately try to choose something that's out of season. If you like to make desserts, go with a whiff of orange or lemon groves to suggest the warmer climes - a Meyer lemon tarte, or a soufflé au Grand Marnier.

Grandmother called this kind of activity "forcing the season." She said that especially when you wore your new spring outfit when there was still dirty snow everywhere and relentessly grey weather chilled the soul. We call it "first-aid" for deep-winter blues.

To set the mood for your evening, you might choose flowering branches for the table, a forced blossoming of branches pruned from a spring-blooming shrub or tree. Good florists have them in the winter months, just ask. It doesn't take many to create the right effect, and you'll need to group them loosely in a vase in order to see your dinner partner thru them. What did the poet say? "...mon fiance enver les branches en fleurs...."

Around the centerpiece, light a grouping of votive candles. A mirror placed under the centerpiece or on the wall next to the table will double flames and blossoms both. And of course, solid white or pastel table linens are essential. Dinner music? whatever connotes moon-lit tropics for you.

The whole point is to trick the senses with a little sincere misrepresentation of the season. And if your senses are properly beguiled, the rest of you will happily follow....

If you have any experiences you'd like to share, write us at info@dinnerdirect.com.

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