Pablo Neruda, Blood Oranges, and Sour Cream Donuts

Pablo Neruda knows a little something about love. Entire volumes of his poetry are dedicated to the subject, and I have to ask, does it get any better than this?

“But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.”
― Pablo Neruda

In ancient Greece, odes were accompanied by music and dance, but the romantics utilized the form in a way its most recognizable today, as a tool to meditate on a singular event, person, or object. Odes are not explicitely love poems, but they do require the careful reflection and observation of one thing at a time. Especially the odes about food, I would say Neruda is utterly enamored with the ingredient he's writing about.

In accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, he declared that "We [writers from the vast expanse of America] are called upon to fill with words the confines of a mute continent, and we become drunk with the task of telling and naming." Neruda's odes accomplished this task of 'telling and naming' with great beauty and grace on the page. Just bite into these lines from "Ode to an Orange."

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"For the Buyer of Breakfasts in Salem" by Colleen Michaels + Cheddar Scramble

While waiting at a stoplight last year, I witnessed something that stayed with me. A homeless man stood on the divider holding up his cardboard sign asking for food and money and help, and in the minute before my light turned green, I watched from my rear view mirror as a man extended his hand with a few bills. It was one of those gestures that likely went unnoticed to most, but the kindness of this stranger informed the rest of my morning. I couldn't help but smile, shake off my frustrations, and believe that it was going to be a good day. Reading this poem by Colleen Michaels helped me remember the experience, because her poem captures the joy of doing something for others.

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"Cutting Thyme" by Linda Parsons Marion + Fried Eggs with Herb Oil

After some time away, it always takes a day or so to reestablish myself in the kitchen. Although the refrigerator is usually lacking some ingredient I need or crave, the thought of trekking to the store minutes after unpacking never feels like a worthwhile endeavor. Let it wait until tomorrow.

What follows the arrival, the mail sorting, the laundry starting, the opening windows to let some fresh air in, and the dog walking, is the question of what to eat. Having decided against going to the store, and tired of eating out, I'm left with a few choices that can be made from the pantry, plus anything else that survived our week away in the refrigerator.

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"Blueberry" by Diane Lockward + Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes

We have little choice in the matter when it comes to food memories; they choose us. Of what we do remember from childhood, inconsequential details rise up from our subconscious when the nerves are triggered, whether we're prepared or not.

When there are blueberries, I think of Christmas morning. Before my brother and I would arrive bleary-eyed and still in our pajamas to the living room, my mom had baked blueberry and poppy seed muffins. I also think of my grandmother. When I took a food writing workshop with Dianne Jacob earlier this year, a writing exercise focused on one object we could see from our chair. I chose blueberries, and they became the color of my grandmother's eyes as I remembered her in the kitchen, making goat's milk ice cream on a hot summer day.

This is what I wrote.

"Two blueberries lean together on a white napkin. They are the eyes of my grandmother, piercing me from the doorway in her small kitchen, gesturing that the ice cream is ready. Icy, freshly churned in the wooden bucket, we eat it together on the porch at dusk, and in the first, sloppy bite, is summer's entirety. The long season sloshing around in my stomach, like a caged bird longing to be free."

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"A Winter Morning" by Ted Kooser + Overnight Steel Cut Oats

Except for "the kettle's whisper," mornings are for quietness, waking up slow, easing into the day. It sounds a little dreamy, doesn't it? I know my mornings aren't always this tranquil, but come Saturday or Sunday, it's easier to enjoy spending time in the kitchen just after the sun comes up. And I'd better get to sharing this poem before we get too far into the warmer weather.

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