On this, the seventh day of the third month of my first real winter, I can honestly and wholeheartedly tell you I am fucking sick of winter.

Perhaps it is the e-ticket to Los Angeles resting peacefully in my inbox, the knowledge that somewhere in the world someone has stepped out into a sunny day and is right now smelling the fresh-cut grass, and that in a month I will be there standing in the sunlight next to him, or maybe it is the five solid inches of sweater I have to put on every day before my frigid bike ride to school, or it could be the mold blooming on my entryway floor, or the condensation dripping from my windowsills, or the endless procession of days so dismal I have to turn on the lights in the morning.

But at least I am no longer one of those annoying Southern California residents who, when someone starts talking about the misery of winter, just stares blankly, or maybe mentions something about how cold it was that one week in Mammoth Lakes. Now I finally understand the pure genius of wool garments, and the necessity of clinging to every small comfort you can when everything seems gray and oppressive.

Here, then, is a list of things without which I would be a miserable little giantjeanspopsicle:

1. hot baths in a Japanese-style bathtub, which immerses you completely (assuming you are close to Japanese-sized), preferably sprinkled with Japanese-cypress-scented salts

2. lapsang souchong tea, which tastes of smoke and is the closest thing I can get to a roaring fire

3. nabe, a soup cooked in a clay pot on a portable gas range in the living room. The broth is heated and then you add fish, shrimp, tofu and vegetables and after it simmers for a few minutes, everyone helps themselves. Not only does the soup warm you up, but the bubbling broth also helps heat the room. (In an uninsulated, unheated apartment, you take what you can get.)

4. baked apples, so yummy and easy and comforting. This is how I make them:

Baked Apples for Winter Survival
2 servings

2 apples
1 Tbsp butter
1/2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
juice of half a lemon
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel the apples with a vegetable peeler and scoop out the cores with a melon baller, leaving the bottom intact. Place in a foil-lined ovenproof dish. Divide the butter and the sliced ginger and put into the apple hollows. Mix the remaining ingredients and drizzle over the apples, pouring some into the hollows. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove the ginger and serve in small bowls.

The butter melts and makes this yummy, gingery pool around the apple when you cut into it. It's very delicious and satisfying. And your kitchen will smell like warm apple pie for the rest of the night. It almost makes you sad winter is coming to an end... but then you shiver violently and snap out of it.

Note: Immediately after writing this entry, I was caught in a freak rainstorm which lasted exactly the length of my bike ride home, the first drops spattering down as I passed out of the school gates and the final drizzle ending as I stood dripping on my kitchen floor. In between was such a riot of wind and rain that I was left to choose between using my umbrella as a sort of battering ram against the wind as I wove unsteadily from side to side on my bicycle, or not using the umbrella and being soaked, but able to ride quickly. I made the intelligent choice of switching between the two, which left me both soaked and sore-armed, and subject the gawks of passing people sitting snugly in their cars wondering either, "Is that girl going to fall off her bicycle?" or "Why is that girl putting her umbrella away?" Either way, I'm sure I looked grumpy.