Lemons, their pitted, nay, prehistoric, skins secreting golden oil, Shielding sourness, evoking memories of a grandmother’s kitchen, A grandfather’s garden. Born in the East, fruitful India, A kiss of cold, albeit fleeting, spawns the yellow Immortalized in stone, paint, and clay. A fruit reverenced, Blossoming from mountain and lake, Urging cooks to slice, pierce, and … More Lemons – Tiny Cathedrals of Gold
From the first gasping breath, when tiny hands claw at air, reaching futilely for an anchor, a rope, air feeds us. Even fish of seas and lakes and rivers seek that building block of air — oxygen. Fire roars when coddled by oxygen and whimpers like a teat-deprived newborn lamb in its absence. Steam, the … More Eating the Wild Air …
Olives, pungent, demanding, a taste acquired. Their beauty belying their bitterness, their hardness. Sunshine and human hands transform tartness into fragrant fruit and nectared oil — fare of peasants, armies, kings, and saints. From ancient, twisted roots comes timeless provender, oily, meaty, food until long journeys’ end. Spread out under the vast sky, waiting for … More A Taste Sweeter Than Meat, More Ancient Than Wine
Readers of Gherkins & Tomatoes / Cornichons & Tomates will see something new in the coming weeks — tiny photo essays. A weekly showcasing of some of the basic components of the Provençal (and frankly French) pantry, enlivened with a blessedly small pinch of poetry, these meditative snippets incarnate my intense desire for fresh, nay … More The Provençal Pantry in Poetry and Photos
If you think that real cooking needs to be resurrected, you’d be right. You can’t exist on McNuggets alone, as the film Super Size Me proved. But if you think we should all go back to cooking everything just like our foremothers (and sometimes forefathers) did, you’d be a bit misguided. Romantic, yes, and it’s … More Forgotten Recipes and Forgotten Cooks
Lemons — the smell of them teases out dreams of sunny days and slower ways, of light twisting through splintery pergolas hung heavy with purple wisteria. And, of course, bees buzzing above the wine glasses and darting through clumps of flowering thyme on the ground below. Lemons — the sight of them conjures up visions … More When Life Gives You Lemons, Dream of Sorrento
Fashionable Fallacy #2: Organic Food** The proponents of all things organic Will lapse into a shuddering panic: “One can never be sure If a substance impure Has seeped into this lab-furnished food.” And yet, nevertheless, They consume without stress What by Nature was grown, Composition unknown, And all the more random and crude. ~~ G. … More A Poet’s Take on Organic Food
The following poetic musings by Alison Luterman come from Bread, Body, Spirit: Finding the Sacred in Food (edited with commentary by Alice Peck; quoted here with permission of Alison Luterman): Strawberries are too delicate to be picked by machine. The perfectly ripe ones even bruise at too heavy a human touch. It hit her then … More Strawberries, a Meditation