A Literary Feast

Posts from the “Uncategorized” Category

Goat

Posted on March 16th, 2012

Inside, two opposing principles create a marbling, an ebb and flow of grey area. One night I chose to move with a certain sobering moral, to flow with a particular darkness that resides in all creatures. Wavering, drained, I felt the darkness pull a sob from way down deep, as if the night mirrored my heart and my insides. Following the obscurity was meant to recollect ancestral ritual and perhaps with experience, it will. This first time, however, the black sky wrapped me in cold and ripped away the tension and adrenaline seething through my veins until I felt an unbearably heavy emptiness. There was nothing left in my hands but the weight of the gun. Her eyes had shone black before me; they…

Hunting For A Woodless Veggie Burger

Posted on March 16th, 2012

Even if you’re not livin’ la vida vegetarian, it’s hard to go wrong with a veggie burger. Despite being invented in the 80s (the decade that brought us poprocks and fried mozzarella sticks), veggie burgers have successfully made the transition from food trend to…well, just food. I’d love to maintain foodie cred and say, breezily, that I have a fabulous from-scratch recipe that I make with ingredients plucked fresh from the garden. But while the mind is willing, the flesh is weak — and that weakness is named “Boca.” Up until recently, I was totally cool with frying up one of those frozen suckers in olive oil and dropping it on a bun with some ketchup, LT&O for the occasional instant dinner. So what…

Notable And Potable Vol. 18: This IS Your Mother’s Bone Luge

Posted on March 16th, 2012

Since becoming verbal at, may I say, a precociously early age, my daughter has thrown down an amazing amount of information as she’s explored her varied and sometimes offbeat interests in life. I’ve routinely served as a sounding board, sometimes an eager participant, and, on rare occasion, a victim. Looking back, I realize that while her interests have seemed to diverge, there is the common thread of experimentation in all of them. The gathered and infused herbs that consumed her in childhood and were often tested on me, regardless of actual need, evolved into the spun sugar tents and perfect crepes I and my dinner guests got to consume as she grew older. These passions have been neither fleeting nor in any way superficial,…

Sea Meat

Posted on March 16th, 2012

My favorite watermelon region is the stratum of tart, crisp, pale pink flesh that starts just above the rind and extends for about an inch. When I was nine I ate my watermelon with a paring knife. My mom would eat the sweet, gritty, seed-filled mouthfuls of the melon’s core and then donate the remains to me, her weird kid. With my trusty blade I would slice off thin strips and hold them up to admire their translucence before munching away on the marvelous texture. One time, a thought popped into my head and I said it out loud after preparing a delicate fillet– “Sea meat!” That was pretty much it. No one heard me and I was never asked to clarify the term…

Big Buck Hunter Down Under

Posted on March 16th, 2012

A few years ago, I got to go to Cape Town South Africa to light a theater show. It was friggin great. Once the show was up and running, I had my entire day free to explore. On any one of these days I did everything from walking around the markets, to hiking around Table Mountain, to swimming with penguins on Boulder Beach. Food was only a small problem, as most places were only open for dinner after the show started. HOW WAS I GOING TO GET THE CHANCE TO EAT SOMETHING CRAZY? I was told to go to a very popular restaurant called “Mama Africa” on my day off where I was told I could sample some local cuisine…and local fauna. It was…

The Birthday Gift

Posted on March 16th, 2012

I had worked all day making hundreds of loaves of bread by hand. I was tired after driving four hours to Yosemite with overnight backpacks, cigarettes and enough food to last for two days. I was ready for some sleep. We got into our campsite at 11:30pm cranky, hungry and bickering. We rolled out of my pickup, donned our headlamps and set to constructing the tent. We were arguing about which pole should be inserted first (we did it wrong every time, no matter whose idea it was) when we heard a mighty “WHUMP”. We swung our headlamps over to the truck; “my backpack is gone!”. Of course it was MY pack; I carried the food on trips. And now this could only mean…

Stalking The Wild Hungarian Bitters

Posted on March 16th, 2012

In 1790, one Mr. Zwack, court physician to the Habsburgs, presented his latest medicinal concoction – a dark, herbaceous, and probably frightening bitters – to no less prestigious a drinker than Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. Legend has it that after taking one sip, the Emperor said to the expectant Zwack, with superb Old World tact: “It’s very… unique.” (The Emperor died a month later. I imply nothing.) I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I think there’s no better way to translate the admittedly more dignifying “Das ist ein Unikum!” that named a living legend among digestifs. Unicum, the national drink and perhaps the national pastime of Hungary, is an acquired taste that even seasoned bitters-lovers might find themselves unwilling to acquire. For me it…

Caramel Apple, Dulce Filled, Burning Spoon

Posted on February 14th, 2012

Caramel apple, dulce filled, burning spoon, Dark smell of nori, wrappers dark and bright, What secret flavor is clasped between your layers? What primal palate does crab touch with its pincers? Ai, Love is a journey through all dive bars, Where closeted air tastes sharply of fermented grain: Love is a war of lightening Two recipes ruined by artificial sweetness. Lick by lick, I drink your tiny infinity, Your margarine, your almonds slivered, your Maillard villages, Ribs generate fire, transformed by heat’s bite, Smoke pink through the marrow channels of blood To precipitate a nocturnal consummation To be dinner, eaten by fridge light in the dark.

The Best Part, Give Or Take

Posted on February 14th, 2012

February wears a suit of gray. Not the fitted darkness that is December or January. But rather a frayed and abrasive mist which enters the void and hovers. Low. Ghostly, at hip level or lower. Its skin is a clammy blanket that covers open nerves and spring creeks of thick blood. Bone is cold and marrow chilled. Gray is blue if pigment could only trespass, frigid dark. Gray is all. Dark again. Drip. The branches underside skew darker than that of their drier sliver top-skins. Damp at midday still, brushing cool surface clay and channeling moisture to hang suspended. Setting sun yields black now, underneath, inhaling earth colorless and dead. Truth reveals this to be the business end of February. Gray forms the shadow…

Notable And Potable Vol. 17: The Spirits Are Willing, And The Flesh Is At Cocktail Week

Posted on February 13th, 2012

Being the cocktail festival neophyte that I was, I went to Portland Cocktail Week with stuffy journalistic goals of remaining focused, attentive, and slightly sober. In retrospect, I did pretty well– filling an index card with notes during a noontime blind tasting of eight tequilas held in a room warm with bodies and practically damp with agave fumes, achieving a buzz just enough to get me doing live band karaoke and befriending a man who designed a robot, partying with said robot, waking up feeling spunky enough to start my day with a mezcal tasting– and so on. I had managed to achieve a harmonious tripartite homeostasis with my intake of nutrients, water, and spirits, and I held onto it. Until the last day.…