Have you added a little peppermint to your diet? I’ve upgraded my occasional Starbucks hot chocolate to the peppermint kind, which means a hearty sprinkling of peppermint-flavored chocolate curls burrowing into the whip cream.  I just heard Trader Joe’s has peppermint cookies ‘n cream ice cream, wow.

I’ve been buying those cartons of clementines that show up in stacks at the grocery store about now–the ones with vintage styled Florida advertising on the side, if you’re lucky. They are so delicious when most of my other food is not so fresh these days. They remind me of when kids used to look forward to oranges in their stockings. Like my young days of longing to be Laura Ingalls Wilder (didn’t we all have those days?),  I pretend to savor the sections like they are my only citrus for the winter.

Red Bird Peppermint Sticks from Canoe; $6