I ladle on extra sauce.
Roasted peanuts. Onion. Mint?
Fruity heat of yellow pepper.
It’s creamy, spicy, decadent.
I think how far Renee has traveled.
A wide river hides in his smile.
A great cat prowls through his name.
There are mountains in his eyes.
When Renee makes Huancaína,
I taste somewhere I’ve never been.
A sacred valley with ancient paths.
Misty skies and terraced lands.
His gift to us: within moments of tasting,
we travel flavors centuries in the making.
Posts Tagged ‘food’
When René Makes Peruvian Noodles and Huancaína
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, peru, travel on December 16, 2025| 6 Comments »
Let Us Gather in the Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, community, food, garden, gathering on July 25, 2024| 6 Comments »
Let us gather in the garden in late July
when the snap peas are fat and sweet on the vines
and the tiny white cilantro flowers charge
the air with fragrant green. When the sunflowers
have not yet opened, but the cosmos are already
a riot of pinks and white and the nasturtiums
have erupted into spicy orange petals
and the heads of lettuce open and open
as if looking for the edges of the universe.
Let us gather when the onions are beginning
to swell and the kale leaves are big as elephant ears
and the basil is lush and vigorous and flourishing
and it’s so good to be here with our hunger,
not to consume but to be opened by goodness,
to know ourselves as part of this generous
plentiful land. It so good to be here
together amongst the ripening,
to share the living blessing, to welcome
each other into the garden of our hearts,
to nourish the seeds of all that is to come
forming even now inside our open hands.
Dairy Queen Drive Thru
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, father, food, grief, ice cream, memory on July 6, 2024| 19 Comments »
Plain vanilla. Soft serve.
You loved simple things, Dad.
On this day of your birth
I am a pilgrim who arrives
by car at the drive up window
at the closest DQ, an hour away.
There is devotion in the way
I savor the cold. The cake cone
melts on my tongue like a wafer.
There is joy in sampling
what brought you joy.
I ate the whole thing, Dad,
though it was too much.
But I didn’t want to waste
a bit of it. For those few sweet
moments, it tasted like
having you back.
The Welcoming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, friendship, singing, welcoming on June 11, 2024| 6 Comments »
for Moudi
With an open umbrella, he met me
in the rain having walked barefoot
to the place where I’d parked.
He handed the umbrella to me.
In the warm bright home,
he offered me a soft, dry chair.
He served warm bread wrapped
in a green and white cloth
and his partner sprinkled zatar
and olive oil on the labne.
The kale salad was crisp
with sweet chunks of beets
and thick creamy slices of avocado.
And in the warm, rich stew
offered to us in a rounded pot,
the eggplant disassembled itself
alongside chickpeas and tomato.
But before we ate, he served us a story
of a place where people begin a meal together
with spontaneous singing of sorrow and praise.
What stopped me then, while I sat at his table,
from singing? So I sing now,
of sorrow that I let my fear of singing it wrong
be louder in me than the urge to sing.
I sing of praise for the second chance.
I sing a prayer for the courage to learn
how to sing a new song, and the chance
to sing it again. And again.
Kabocha
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, Kabocha, squash, surprise on December 4, 2023| 10 Comments »
Hiding inside the tough and blotchy skin,
is bright orange flesh that turns velvety,
creamy, fluffy and sweet when roasted
or baked or steamed. On this cold day,
the kabocha squash feels like proof
that goodness exists in places
we might not have predicted.
Hard places. Dull places.
Knobby and squat places.
I want to sing kabocha.
I want a voice that orange.
I want a trust in life
that earthy, that sweet.
Ode to the Saltine Cracker
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, grief, mother, son, tears on December 9, 2021| 12 Comments »
Oh, salty square,
oh, bite that turns
to savory paste,
oh, flaky wafers
stacked in long
white plastic sleeves,
you fed the boy
who could never
eat enough,
attended him
through online school,
travelled with him
in his book-laden backpack,
fueled him as he
researched twin-
turbocharged V-8 engines
and fawned over
Italian luxury cars.
Finding you today
out of place
on the shelf beside
my thesaurus,
an unopened box,
I crumpled,
longing for the boy
who would have opened you.
I’d love to clean
your stupid crumbs
from the couch.
All afternoon, I taste it,
this daily salt
that falls to my lips.
The Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, food, fruit, grief, love, mother, pomegranate, ripening, son on October 21, 2021| 6 Comments »
It still had its leaves on it,
the pomegranate she handed me.
And holding that smooth red sphere
in my palm, I felt not only
the jeweled weight of each bright seed,
but also the weight of the many nights
the fruit had hung on the tree,
felt how the nights had slowed the growth
so the fruit could develop more sugar.
Not all things get to ripen.
Oh, this small gift of sweetness.
How it opened in me such red tenderness—
the memory of a boy learning how
to open and eat a pomegranate,
scarlet juice trickling down his chin.
And now. I hold it in awe,
this beautiful thick-skinned globe,
hold it less like a fruit,
hold it more like a love
I was just beginning to know.
Pickling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged canning, food, joy, kitchen on August 8, 2021| 4 Comments »
For hours we stand in the kitchen
and slice cucumbers, peel garlic,
prepare the brine. There is joy
in preserving what is wonderful,
in letting the self believe in a future
when we will pull the jar from the shelf
and remember what it was like
this summer day—as if we could also
fit into the jar the laughter, the pink
of the zinnias up to our waist,
the chickadee song and the warm,
warm nights. To be present
does not mean to ignore the future—
but oh, as we prepare, such joy
in singing along to an old favorite song
on the radio, scent of dill in the air,
summer still unfolding in the yard,
in the jars, in our joy.
Potica
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bread, daughter, food, grandmother, memory, parents on July 23, 2021| 2 Comments »
Sitting in Colorado
I think of my parents sitting
in Illinois,
how tonight in different
kitchens together we savor
the Slovenian sweet bread
of my father’s childhood,
the sweet bread
his mother would make—
savor not just the taste
but the memory of the taste,
the paper thin crust,
the ground walnuts,
the honey.
Savor not just the loaf
but the memory of the hands
that once made the loaf,
the happiness as we ate it,
the communion in the joy.
Tonight, I break the bread
into tiny pieces, eat it slow,
imagine us at the same
loving table now
and years and years ago.
We are alone, not alone.
The bread tastes
like family, like home.
If you are unfamiliar with this Eastern European nutroll delicacy (pronounced puh-TEET-suh), you can read more about it here.
Long Distance Breakfast
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, cake, daughter, food, mom, mother's day on May 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
Because I can’t serve you
breakfast in bed, I’ll
serve you a poem,
and knowing how
you like cake for breakfast,
it will be a sweet poem,
with penuche frosting
swirled atop every line.
And because it is a poem,
we can imagine
that the mug with pictures
of your granddaughter
(due to arrive on Monday)
has already arrived
and that it is filled with
Café Vienna, and laced,
why not, with whiskey,
because, hey, it’s a poem,
and you won’t really
get drunk, just happily
tipsy on all the love
served between the lines,
the kind of love that makes you
lean back into the pillows
and close your eyes
and smile like you have
life’s best secret,
the kind of love that makes you
leap out of bed and laugh,
buoyed by joy, a bit of penuche,
creamy and sweet,
still singing on your tongue.