Sweet Red Tea Lemonade

I have never heard
that even when the gods held sway
in ancient days
ever was water bound with red
such as here in Tatta's stream..

    ~ Hokusai, The Poem of Ariwara no Narihira



Inspired by a letter a friend had written yesterday, I went to the Morgan Library to sketch Hokusai's painting of the Amida Waterfall (ca. 1832) I've never seen before. (In that scene were friends having a picnic on a promontory overlooking the great cosmic Amida.) It could be I'm recreating that food scene with my picture here, to realize both the poem and the sharing of friendship of past natures by this great painter. Appropriately, I have the cold tea ready infused in ginger and tie guan yin leaves, with raw amber honey; and for the "cherry" on top, a fragrant pomegranate tea bag steeping through in the bottle and creating a two-toned juice "meeting of waters." Of mind. Of sounds fall. I laid out petit mochi cakes, cashew marzipans and crispy jacobina squares for us. And together, quoting another ancient poet I love, Li Po, "made the most of [cool summer]" in this real painting.

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"THESE ARE MY SALAD DAYS...

...slowly being eaten away." No intention of pun can be invoked, but I prefer to write food is a food, good food is good food, no matter what. Watercress (leaf to tail chopped), mix greens, tomatoes and green apples - with lemon vinaigrette, slightly sweetened, and herbs de provence. No bread, just leaves and fruits - two heaping plates and too much champagne (it's a full moon night in the city and the blue river is beckoning "flute"). I balanced the tart profiles of my food with an un-pictured pasta dish, the classic oil and garlic. I had been cooking easy lately, developing from inspiration by other home chefs (like the British Rachel Khoo and another chef, American, whose name I forget, but the article and his technique I read in the NYTimes) a one-pot all-I-need cookware to make my food - even the pasta. In a boiler pot I quickly sizzled tons of garlic in butter and olive oil and fresh cracked pepper and some salt and a pinch of red pepper flakes - key is quickly not to brown or burn them; the garlic must be moist to release its full potential savor - then immediately add hot water (half volume as you would ordinarily; will explain later) in the pot, then turn heat to high to boil fast and add the spaghetti noodles, making sure the pasta is softened by pressing them down gently in the steaming hot liquid and dunking them all under the water to cook al dente - cover for about 5-8mins. Take lid out and check firmness of the pasta, and remember: the liquid SHOULD BE ABSORBED together with the flavors from the oil-butter-garlic-spices and NO NEED to discard excess water - all the goodness had fattened the pasta! Add shredded pecorino or asiago as you wish, and more black pepper, a little more salt to taste, a little more red pepper flakes for more kick and heat. The counterintuitive salad by its side will complement your satisfaction in eating and spending the night alone under the blue moonlight and you will forget momentarily that growing old isn't as bad as this salad is giving you the benefit of the doubt. Hear, hear!

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Food Web

(Photo: A spider's web. At Bai Yen Rainforest, Oct. 2016, 3 hrs by bus N. of Taipei through Jin Shan Mt.; then another hour hike to the secret oasis beyond.)

"Nevertheless, those preexisting structures must at some moment have been created, and this can only been effected by active, expressive speech. Indeed, all truly meaningful speech is inherently creative, using established words in ways they have never quite been used before, and thus altering, ever so slightly, the whole webwork of the language. Wild, living speech takes up, from within, the interconnected matrix of the language and gestures with it, subjecting the whole structure to a 'coherent deformation.'

"At the heart of any language, then, is the poetic productivity of expressive speech. A living language is continually being made and remade, woven out of the silence by those who speak... And this silence is that of our wordless participations, of our perceptual immersion in the depths of an animate, expressive world."  

  

                                                                  ~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous   

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"THE COOK OF HOURS"

Stuyvesant Cove, located a block south from my building, is a pier-side park (rather small) but with an ecological significance. The plants are all native there, and delicate conservation is observed, especially critical to do so for a city like New York. One variety of plant (the milkweed) makes the park a way station for the migrating monarch butterfly, and I imagine from a sky view she sees the East River as a landing sign, and the upwind an agent to her home flower. The summers I am not in my kitchen, I am out on long walks along the water and around this park - and when I say "long" it means sitting under one of its trees to pass time and observing what birds may come; but mostly I let my mind's eye out to sea and think beyond the hours. And just like the butterfly finding my direction, I imagine Rilke: Sit out, write long letters, and then perambulate in the park when the leaves downrain. This morning a turtle dove landed and didn't mind me being there for this season's fruits and seeds in the path. A common sparrow landed on the fencepost across from the rock where I was sitting, and for a second looked me in the eye. At the pier, three finishing lines have been cast. And then all of a sudden I thought of spruce mountains - Acadia National Park in Maine, to be exact - and I don't know why. (It must be a recycling of old memories. And I remember now the nature and seascape paintings of Mardsen Hartley I saw at the Met a few months back, and, yes, he was from Maine. Of course.) And then it started to rain. But I didn't leave the park. Rain is like the complexion of my thoughts... There's still no fish in the line. The cormorant is too deep wading in the river (I always wondered that). And I followed her bobbing over the waves all the way to Brooklyn isle, keeping an eye on its head sticking out. And then she suddenly rose for her wings, in the far light...

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"The Joy of Cooking"

I was in Paris last week and cooked a summer meal for family: champignon mushroom and artichoke frittata, French heart tomatoes-green apples-and basil salad, and for dessert: cooled fruits: cherries, cantaloupe and strawberries mix bowl. The joy began at the farmers market in the 5th district (between the Latin Quarter and Jardin du Plantes) where cousin lives, and there I picked the freshest ingredients a la carte. I very much loved my conversation with the cheesemonger who was in tuned to enhancing my dish's earthiness by recommending the triple cream sheep camembert aged in oak. On Rue Mouffetard was for wine. Cousin picked it incorporating her specificities (dry with sweet notes) and I said that was perfect for the tomatoes with the mild tart of the apples. At her home at last, we had time to chat (with wine) before cooking -  and art versus life was the topic as usual (she's a photographer; I'm a writer), and we go deep into our talk because our histories are forever entwined (she is my favorite first cousin, and I visit her at least 3 times a year; New York isn't very far). 

While I was cooking, she was preparing the table and cutting the bread. It didn't take me a long time in the kitchen to finish, except for the peeling of the artichoke which she had wanted to see done as she'd never seen it before. The "heart," I told her, is what you get from the vegetable, and it takes a bit of an effort to get there. Over lunch with her kids selecting the music ambience (her 11 year old is a work-in-progress composer, attending a prestigious music school, La Schola Cantorum, a poet-pianist to my mind with an ear for atmospheric tunes and melodies suffused with natural feelings - again, so perfect for the perfect weather in Paris and their perfect home; and there's no better way to express love in cooking when joy is all around - a joy that is organic, elemental, tactile, sensorial, intimate, simple, and profound. They were all there.             

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