She dishes up cold-weather comfort

Cookbook author Anne Bramley steams kale for a Renaissance-inspired winter greens tart in her Cambridge kitchen. (Photos by Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)

CAMBRIDGE - Anne Bramley has an easy explanation for why she loves cold-weather cooking. "I was born in a blizzard," she says. That particular storm was in St. Louis, where she grew up. But she has spent time in a number of other cold-weather towns.

As a recent transplant to Cambridge, she is happily exploring the bounty of New England tastes, ranging from apple cider to fresh oysters and clams ("very un-Midwestern") to local eggs and pears. These last two ingredients become the basis for "pears in nightshirts," a dramatic dish that involves slathering pears with stiff meringue, then baking the white covers to a delectable golden brown. Bramley is the author of "Eat Feed Autumn Winter: 30 Ways to Celebrate When the Mercury Drops," a book dedicated to the joys of cold-weather cuisine. This is the hardier side of seasonal eating, an easy task in summer, and a challenge when the ground is covered with snow.

In her kitchen here, Bramley explains that in addition to easy, fortifying dishes like a rustic puff-pastry tart, she is equally stoked about long, slow braises on frosty days. Besides the food itself, there's a second-hand benefit: "I'm all about heating up the house while you cook," Bramley enthuses. "I feel virtuous cooking in fall and winter because I feel like I can turn down the thermostat and just keep churning out muffins and cakes and stews and soups."

Part of the allure of cold-weather cooking is the opportunity to take advantage of hearty ingredients such as Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, parsnips, cranberries, and apples. "I try to enjoy the great rhythm of one season into the next," explains Bramley. "I'm one of those people who operates in four seasons, and who look forward to a thing because you just get it for a little bit." A beef stew simmering on her stovetop is made with ancho chili peppers, cocoa powder, and cubes of butternut squash. When it's time to serve it, she ladles the stew over a bed of amaranth.

"Eat Feed Autumn Winter" draws inspiration from myriad cultures that survive and celebrate winter - in the Midwest and New England, as well as Canada, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and other places. The author also looks to historical periods, which is where she got the inspiration for a winter greens tart studded with sweet currants. The bitter-sweet combination is common in Renaissance cookery.

Her passion for food history is connected to her life as a graduate student and academic. She studies and teaches 16th and 17th century English literature. Anne Bramley is a nom-de-plume taken from her middle name and the name of a British heirloom apple variety. In 2005, she assumed the Bramley persona as she launched a podcast series called Eat Feed. The series revels in brief, delightfully food-geeky segments on such topics as Jell-O or sauerkraut. Eventually, Bramley developed a segment devoted to Midwestern and other "forgotten" American cuisines, including cold-weather cuisine.

Before Cambridge, Bramley spent time in a number of cold-weather towns: Chicago ("I have so many good memories of entertaining during the cold season," she reminisces, "and in Chicago, the cold season lasts, from mid-September to mid-June"); Pittsburgh and Philadelphia; Berlin; and a brief stint in the more moderate clime of Durham, N.C., which she admits ill-suited her. And as of this summer, she, husband Daniel Foster, 1-year-old daughter Oona, and a menagerie of two cats and two enormous dogs all call Cambridge home.

After tearing out and refurbishing her North Carolina kitchen, Bramley moved here and is making do in a kitchen that harks back to the 1970s. It's small and cozy with appliances that are not quite up to date. Bramley reasons the romance will be in the food and the warmth of the company. It's here that she might prepare a simple fondue with local cheese.

Give guests a good reason to come out in the cold, she says. "It doesn't have to be a seven-course event, just say you have the perfect fondue, please come over, please stick on your seven layers and get here."

And for those who demur - or heaven forbid, those who say they'd rather be in sunny Florida this time of year - Bramley is baffled. After all, what could possibly trump a cold-weather gathering?

"It's so cozy, romantic, social. What's better than a sweater and a pot of fondue?"