When the rains return and clouds build up, North­west­ern­ers talk about feel­ing cozy. The locals smile about the lumi­nous skies. It’s time to plunge into juicy nov­els, go on a Net­flix binge, or get back to last win­ter’s knit­ting project. Haul out the fleece and the down sweaters. Go for long walks in the rain.

For me the fall weather also sig­nals the sea­son for slow cook­ing.

On rainy week­ends like the one we’ve just had, I take the time for slow-paced foodie projects that will reward us with mouth-water­ing fla­vors:

• Slow-cooked lentil stews brim­ming with root veg­eta­bles
• Savory lentil soups à la Française
• Roasted veg­eta­bles: car­rots, pota­toes, sugar pump­kin, sweet pota­toes, onions and leeks
• Lamb cur­ries, North African style
• Pot roasts and boeuf bour­guignon

When you embrace slow cook­ing, you learn to accept delayed grat­i­fi­ca­tion, wel­com­ing the tan­ta­liz­ing aro­mas that per­me­ate your home as things sim­mer. From a yoga per­spec­tive it’s a prac­tice of “mind­ful­ness for the nose.”

Not Just for Vegetarians

Ours is not a veg­e­tar­ian house­hold. We love poul­try and tasty cuts of meat.

That said, we’ve begun a delib­er­ate quest to cut back on meat con­sump­tion, espe­cially red meats. Despite the self-pro­mo­tional denials by the meat pack­ing indus­try, we’re con­cerned by the lat­est sci­en­tific reports that link increased risk of can­cer to the con­sump­tion of red meats and processed meats.

As a health­ier alter­na­tive to red meats, we’ve begun exper­i­ment­ing with savory veg­e­tar­ian-inspired dishes. This in turn has dri­ven us to go look­ing for exotic spices, nutri­tious grains and fresher ingre­di­ents that will punch up the fla­vors and aro­mas.

Slow cook­ing is a great way to get the tasti­est results from dishes that rely on grains or dried beans. It’s also a very effec­tive way to be sat­is­fied with poorer cuts of meat, or smaller pro­por­tions of meat, rel­a­tive to the veg­etable com­po­nent.

New Discoveries

Star anise

My inspi­ra­tion for this sea­son’s slow cook­ing comes from some cook­books that go well beyond the sim­ple plea­sures of Joy of Cook­ing (listed below.)

Another cat­a­lyst was last year’s quirky Christ­mas gift for my hus­band, a spice dis­cov­ery kit that has brought us year­long joy. (He loves cook­ing too.)

I’ve also been moti­vated by the ease of sourc­ing ultra fresh spices and herbs thanks to local and online mer­chants, includ­ing Ama­zon for hard-to-find ingre­di­ents from other coun­tries.

I’ve exper­i­mented with Le Puy lentils and red rice from Camar­gue, and have quickly used up my trial orders of these tra­di­tional French grains. So much bet­ter than dried out and bor­ing lentils or boxed rice from the gro­cery store chains! Now it’s time to find local stores with bulk sup­plies of these upscale ingre­di­ents.

My new fave source for dried herbs and freshly ground spice blends: Seat­tle’s World Spice Mer­chants (avail­able at Pike Place Mar­ket or online.) Thanks to Pen­zeys and World Spice Mer­chants I’ve been refresh­ing our spice stocks, throw­ing away jars with dubi­ous ingre­di­ents that are too old or faded. I’ve finally learned to ignore my moth­er’s voice whis­per­ing in my ear, “Hold on to your spices until the jars are empty…”

As a result our kitchen is redo­lent with pun­gent aro­mas from star anise, bay leaves, kaf­fir lime leaves, car­damom pods, freshly ground cur­ries, Ras el Hanout and other exotic ingre­di­ents.

These spices and ingre­di­ents lend them­selves to North and East African stews, North Indian style cur­ries, world fusion soups, and France-meets-Morocco dishes.

Some have even spiced up my bak­ing projects. Yes­ter­day’s dessert fea­tured Comice pears poached in a spicy honey syrup with star anise, vanilla beans, car­damom pods and cin­na­mon sticks. The syrup included freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, along with a gen­er­ous quan­tity of cit­rus zests.

Next on my list of cook­ing exper­i­ments: Curry Bread Pud­ding with Car­damom Cream.

My adven­tur­ous hus­band is delighted to join me for the fun of explor­ing new spices and slow-cooked foods from dis­tant coun­tries.

Food for Thought

To learn how to com­bine these new-to-us ingre­di­ents in pleas­ing ways, I’ve relied on cook­books, sup­ple­mented by online research:

• Splen­did Soups by James Peter­son (fea­tures recipes from around the world)
• Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan
• Patri­cia Wells at Home in Provence by Patri­cia Wells and Robert Fré­son
• Euro­pean Peas­ant Cook­ery by Elis­a­beth Luard
• Love Soup by Anna Thomas
• Mourad New Moroc­can by Mourad Lahlou

The Inter­net has been a great source of authen­tic recipes from coastal African coun­tries, Afghani and Mid­dle East­ern-inspired dishes. We’re still enjoy­ing Thai cui­sine, thanks to my hus­band’s child­hood there, but we’re rel­ish­ing this oppor­tu­nity to broaden our reper­toire.

We wish you the savory joys of new dis­cov­er­ies. Happy cook­ing!