April In Paris??

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos

It's not yet Thanksgiving, but last week it was already feeling as cold as Christmas-time. And in the cold I started to get a craving for one of my favorite holiday snacks -- chestnuts.

We didn't have chestnuts growing up in the tropics. I actually didn't discover them until just a few years ago, when a co-worker introduced me to them. Oddly enough, she, too, was from the tropics...the Caribbean.

Ever since then, I crave Chestnuts when the cold weather comes. However, for some reason, I can only ever find good ones being sold on 5th Avenue between 44th and 54th Streets.

This weekend, when it was surprisingly cold for mid-November, I certainly wasn't going to hop a subway into Manhattan just to get some chestnuts.

So imaging my pleasure when I found a grocery selling raw chestnuts. How hard can it be to roast chestnuts? I was about to find out...


As it turned out, not hard at all. I just scored the chestnut and popped them into 400 degree oven. After 20 minutes....


Voila!!

Just sprinkle some salt and there you have it. Nice hot, home-roasted chestnuts, no metrocard needed...yum!