As I sit here typing from my mother's place (our power is out at home thanks to the ice storm), the top thing on my mind is staying warm and cosy. Up until late last night, we'd been toughing it out in our house with no heat or electricity for 48 hours. Thank goodness for our fireplace! We'd been heating up soup, and even foil packets of leftovers, in our cast iron cookware, right on the hot embers. Now that I'm thinking straight and in a heated home, it occurs to me that hot chocolate would have been an easy treat to have via the fireplace. Just heat up a bit of milk in a heavy saucepan and mix together a batch of  hot chocolate with our DIY mix. No chocolate chips? Try chopped up swiss milk chocolate, (such as Toblerone), which I'm sure many of you have lying around! And if you have power, this is still a nice warming treat right before the holidays. Tell me: What have been your go-to foods during the power outage? Photography: Jeff Coulson