I was watching a film biography of Jack Kerouac on VHS tape Saturday night, and a clip from a late 1950's TV show featured him being interviewed and later reading an excerpt from his masterpiece novel On The Road — at the chapter when he finishes his travel story and thinks about his friend responsible for showing him the world. The poignancy in their journey at last were the layers of distance left behind when all was said and done, and there's no meeting again; for when old age or death couldn't take it back. Kerouac defined his generation as sympathetic: "beat" out the poet in you; you who had suffered much and had come this far.
The relevance of poetry to this blog is an inevitable seed. Approaching ten years history in writing about food sublimated by literary musings embodies the cook and the poet as one. Eating is beside the point of writing. And it takes me places other than alone. I make a simple syrup of pineapple sugar and spring ginger. The pumpkin seeds were sun-dried first (next to the seashells outside) and then roasted the next day in the pan. Between prepping and plating, I am the kitchen bard planting these sonorous letters to myself when I've come home. And a refreshment poured in an iced highball glass can blossom again, like a gathering. But Ovid said that love is like a garden in the heart. I had painted our small wine country farm in watercolor on a sketchbook because I knew the gatherings would end someday. It’s been years since and behind us now, when I had left that piece of love in New York on our dinning table.
In the city I cooked well, especially on winter nights and mornings. Green papaya soup for the soul; grapefruit sourdough pancake in cast-iron steaming of maple. Home-spun ramen (Shinobi-style) bowl in miso and scallions shoyu broth; and dense-thick challah French toast charred perfectly in Beurre D’Isigny. Remembering the Christmas eve before we hit the road to spend the holidays with good friends in France, I took a last look at the candle by the window in our bedroom (a Yuletide symbol to illuminate our home while we're gone) facing the East River. Our train finally arriving at the platform in Brive-la-Gaillarde, Anne was already waiting outside with her family to welcome us — and what would be an unforgettable feasting and vacation with them in our past life.
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