A Literary Feast

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Posts from the “Uncategorized” Category

It’s Not You, It’s Me or Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Posted on February 14th, 2013

Sometimes the reason you can no longer enjoy something is not because it is no longer available to you, or that it has changed in any way, but simply because you no longer enjoy it. Sometimes it’s true: it’s not you it’s me. So it is with me and soft-serve dip. I have many great memories of enjoying a soft-serve ice cream cone with a quick-hardened shell. As a child my family would take me to an ice-cream stand specializing in dip, with more flavors than I have ever seen offered anywhere else. It was a long-standing tradition–if memory serves me correctly, my grandmother had gone there as a child. We would go in the dead heat of summer when I couldn’t eat my…

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Rax Redux

Posted on February 14th, 2013

Goodbye, Uncle Al. You attended all of my first six birthday parties, and we had a blast. I thought you’d never pass away until the end of things, some Jesus of the roast beef restaurant. But you left, and it hurt. Well, I swear I never loved you anyway–good riddance, you old damn reptile. I used the water bottle you gave me all the way into middle school. It sweated mercilessly on hot days, one more awkward accoutrement to prevent me from feeling comfortable in gym class. There were the double-layered nylon shorts (I still don’t know if they ever did fit), the deodorant from Big Lots–Jovan White Musk for Men, and your stupid, oversized “Rax” water bottle. “Rax,” Uncle Al? Really? What kind…

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Many Ingenious Lovely Things

Posted on February 14th, 2013

One of the saddest things about the end of the world—and I’m not being nearly as sarcastic as you think I am—is that one by one, every manufactured food product you used to love will cease to exist. Forever. I’m not talking about the eventual extinction of all things good and wholesome: a fell blight on kale, cutworms leveling the last tomato. An ecological catastrophe on this scale would flush us out with the rest of the bathwater. Mercifully. Because really, who wants to go living in a world without comforting brand-name garbage? Just months ago, nightmare fiction turned horribly real as the final Twinkies vanished from gas stations nationwide. It left me scarred. (You too?) An illusion of permanence, shattered. I didn’t even…

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Mi Amore

Posted on February 14th, 2013

I had big soup plans. Feeling very grown up at 19, in my own apartment in the city with a brand new crock pot, I was going to make my mom’s vegetable soup. This was the kind of dish that carried a family legacy. My mom would make it every Monday throughout the long New England winters I grew up in. It would slow cook all day, simmering until the house was a humid bouillon sauna that each family member arrived home to, stomping the snow off our boots and unwrapping scarves to breathe in the moist, salty air. If you weren’t hungry yet – which after school, yearbook, flute lessons, and (in my dad’s case) construction work that was often unheated or simply…

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Gone, Fishing.

Posted on February 14th, 2013

A storm has started outside. The air is growing white as the breath of it picks up speed. The space heater by my feet churns in a loud hum. Two birds cut the sky through the window, here in this yolk-yellow aerie above Haywood Street. It is my job, for this year, to keep this gambrel-roofed house in one piece. Somewhere south and west, in a winter-dark river, is an eel weir. It is at least a century old. The wind is pushing billows past the glass, long plumes of cold. On a map of the current weather, I can see that my hill town and that other river sit roughly in the same deep purple band of snow. I wonder about the work…

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Wild Goose Chase, Resolved.

Posted on January 21st, 2013

It does not have to be good You do not have to wok a hundred chiles Through immolation on your knees, weeping. You have only to let the soft loaf of your body eat what it eats. Tell me how you prepare, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the dinner goes on. Meanwhile Fieri and the clogged icons of the airways are chewing across the landscapes over the squeeze bottles and the deep freeze the pizzas and the poppers. Meanwhile the Achatz, high in the Alinead air is making foams again. Whoever you are, no matter how lowly, the farm offers itself to your imagination, fat with wild beets, fibrous and exciting– over and over announcing your place in the plating of…

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Ambitious Kitchen 2013: A Resolution for a Better You

Posted on January 21st, 2013

“What keeps me going is goals.” – Muhammad Ali “What keeps me going is the perfect balance of coffee and hard liquor.” – Heather Arndt Anderson   Aim for improved household economy by employing 19th-century domestic science. First step: monthly menu planning using a good old-fashioned bill of fare. Note to self: include more burritos and fewer veal brains than 19th-century bills of fare. Still on the fence about this whole “gluten” thing. Just in case, bake and consume at least one loaf of bread every week. You know, for the sake of science. Try a new recipe once a week. Instead of the internet, use one of the million or so cookbooks you already own. Note to self: resist urge to dropkick three…

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On Eating, 2013

Posted on January 21st, 2013

Drink more water. Make stronger effort to take out the compost before third overflow bowl is necessary. Find tote bag large enough to smuggle the really big bag of Little Lad’s Herbal Corn into movie theater. Redeem self after “seared” tuna incident. Achieve automation with popovers. Like, going into oven while coffee brews automation. Memorize Food Network daytime schedule in order to plan strategic hanging out with grandma time. Aim for Paula Deen; avoid Rachel Ray. Continue to liberate phyto-brothers and sisters from the tyranny of corporate quality standards. Experiment with nettles. Buy second suction-cup soap dish shelf to put wine glass on in the shower. Also use it for coffee mug. Arrive home to aproned boyfriend just putting dinner on the table. Don’t…

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Kitchen Resolutions 2013

Posted on January 21st, 2013

Make something irresistible with quinoa Rediscover beets…including golden Attempt making whole rye bread Have the patience to unpeel all those tiny shallots from CSA share Eat more popcorn Make dairy free toffee Eat the fruit you purchase, thoughts of eating it will not impart any health benefits

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Resolutions for Inveterate Foodies — 2013 Worksheet (please print)

Posted on January 21st, 2013

In the year 2013, I resolve to . . . (check at least 3)   ___ . . . be nicer to people who drink blended Scotch.   ___ . . . admit that sour cream can substitute for crème fraîche.   ___ . . . stop insisting that gastropubs are “over.”   ___ . . . learn to say “grass fed” without smugly narrowing eyes and smirking.   ___ . . . eat quinoa less ostentatiously.   ___ . . . accept that waitresses may not know the exact latitude & longitude of the dollar oysters’ home waters.   ___ . . . refrain from lecturing on yeast ecology every time someone misuses the word “ale.”         ___ . .…

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