For numerous reasons, lately I’ve been indulging in one of my passions – cooking the food of the Indian sub-continent. I just ran across again William Makepeace Thackeray’s “A Poem to Curry,” quoted by nearly everyone who takes a stab at writing about the mystery of curry, and how it traveled to the nooks and crannies … More The Poetry of Curry, or, a Traveler’s Tale
Black is the colour … “Black is the colour of my true love’s hair, his face is something wondrous fair,” goes a traditional ballad sung in the Appalachian Mountains, with origins likely from Scotland. I started thinking about colors and food when I read of the passing of Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. Heaney wrote of … More Black is the Colour of My … Food
Sometimes life hands me gifts in sly ways. A few years ago, I sat in the sunlit reading room at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, worshiping at the shrine of the M. F. K. Fisher papers, pulling blue files out of green storage boxes, luxuriating in the correspondence between that brilliant writer and Julia Child, … More The Powers of an Unsung Poet: Finding the Universe in a Fragment
The crescent moon rises in the early night sky, a scythe among the clouds, sharp against the fading blue and the sun’s dying light. Cooking by the light of the full moon, the shadows in the corners illuminated, tugging at my mind. I bend low, hunting for a knife to chop the onion, slice the … More Moonstruck, a Meditation on Earth’s Moon
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 …
The journey begins, with a glimpse, through the kitchen window, of golden dust shimmering in sunlight, a phantom shadow darting through the air. Hive-bound, the soaring bee dips and kisses the blue-hued flowers once more. Life blossoms with the promise of fruits and grains to come. Auriferous, gilt-laden with pollen. Honey. Nectar. Food for the … More Seeking Honey, in the Bee-Loud Glade
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
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
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