beejayw1
08-01-2003, 09:31 PM
I stumbled across Slow Food, a poem by Mary Makofsky. (here's the link: http://www.literal-latte.com/excerpts.html Look around the middle, under 'Poems'.) It expresses what a lot of us feel about cooking.
Here's an excerpt:
Others take out
fast food--
three minute specials
wrapped in thin paper
like gifts that don't fit.
I like my food slow--
tomatoes in Mexican colors
sliced on a wooden board,
red onion wrapped up
in itself and cabbage
tight on its core
as scholars circling
a question.
I like to wash lettuce
each leaf front and back
like washing both sides
of a child's hand, touching
veins like rivers running
through green valleys.
I like curls from scraped carrots
scattered like remains
of a haircut beside the sink,
the flavors and aromas of a stew
mingling like good friends
who haven't seen each other in a long time,
dried beans plumping in water,
the simmer they need
to cook without breaking their skins,
peppers split open and their seeds
clinging like mussels under a pier,
the spirals of apple skins, beets that bleed
royally into their cooking water,
the musk of grapes boiled for jelly,
the alchemy of baking, eggs and milk and flour
blended, rising like some angel
emerging gold and fragrant from the oven.
The marriage of flavors--
basil and tomato
potato and paprika
ginger and garlic sizzling in hot oil
Here's an excerpt:
Others take out
fast food--
three minute specials
wrapped in thin paper
like gifts that don't fit.
I like my food slow--
tomatoes in Mexican colors
sliced on a wooden board,
red onion wrapped up
in itself and cabbage
tight on its core
as scholars circling
a question.
I like to wash lettuce
each leaf front and back
like washing both sides
of a child's hand, touching
veins like rivers running
through green valleys.
I like curls from scraped carrots
scattered like remains
of a haircut beside the sink,
the flavors and aromas of a stew
mingling like good friends
who haven't seen each other in a long time,
dried beans plumping in water,
the simmer they need
to cook without breaking their skins,
peppers split open and their seeds
clinging like mussels under a pier,
the spirals of apple skins, beets that bleed
royally into their cooking water,
the musk of grapes boiled for jelly,
the alchemy of baking, eggs and milk and flour
blended, rising like some angel
emerging gold and fragrant from the oven.
The marriage of flavors--
basil and tomato
potato and paprika
ginger and garlic sizzling in hot oil