"Kale" by Jordan Davis + Winter Survival Kale Salad (Guest Post)

I'm thrilled to welcome guest poster Natalie So to Eat This Poem! Natalie So is a writer and photographer living in the Mission District in San Francisco. By day, she is the creative content manager at a tech company.  Occasionally she writes on her blog my daily toast about eating out, food gatherings, and libraries. She is currently working on a series of interviews with artists and creators that makes visible the connection between belief, spirit, and the work we do. If you have a story to tell, please contact her at nataliejso [at] gmail [dot] com.


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Winter is coming quickly. The wind's edges are sharper, dusk falls earlier, and the golden light fades into a grey palette. The arrival of winter has never been easy for me. This became especially true when I moved to New England from California and learned the importance of wool socks and leather gloves for the first time. From November through April, until all the snow had finally thawed and we could go down to the Charles River and sunbathe in what felt like a tropical 60 degrees, winter swaddled my mind and my heart. Sometimes it felt more like smothering.

It takes a hardy Californian to bear the tantrums of New England winter. One winter I made a nightly routine of drinking hot chocolate and eating a big bowl of popcorn while listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue on repeat. In our living room, my best friend and I would lay in our hammock (our "couch") together or paint and re-paint our coffee table, whose layers of pigment were like the growth rings of redwood trees, histories of sadness and joy. 

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We do what we can to survive, to weather the seasons that pass. Sometimes it's a season of life that feels like a winter of the soul, a loss, a heartbreak, a defeat that feels like endless snow; our hearts freeze over and it feels like the thaw of spring will never come. Sometimes it's too difficult to even look forward to the next season, and all we can do is ground ourselves in the rituals that make each passing day a little better. That cup of coffee. That book. That song. That phone call. It's the hope of survival, knowing that bearing the winter is necessary for the blossoming and rejuvenation that spring promises.


Kale

by Jordan Davis

I hear James but can't see him so
I call out his baby name, Jamey-James
and he pops up from behind a plow
bank. We walk down the driveway
past the barn to the fenced-in 
garden, iron rail, green metal grid,
red thread for the deer. The black
mama cat with the extra toes comes 
running past us.                     
                        "The ones buried
in snow are insulated," James
tells me, as if quoting from
"The Pruning Book." He might be.
"If you cut a butterfly bush
down to nothing it grows back
the next year twice as high."

There are five or six tall stumps
of the flat variety, and eight or nine
low curly ones. We fill a plastic 
popcorn bowl and leave as much
behind still growing.

Originally published in The New Yorker, October 14, 2013, p. 52


"If you cut a butterfly bush / down to nothing it grows back / the next year twice as high," says James, in the poem "Kale" by Jordan Davis. The butterfly bush, known as a buddleia, is a deciduous shrub with purple and pink flowers (among many other colors) that blossoms in the summer and fall. However, during the winter, the shrubs die, sometimes all the way to the ground; even if they are not, it's important to prune all the flowers to stimulate growth. Winter is important time for the butterfly bush, as it is with the kale, but for a different reason.

As opposed to the butterfly bush, which dies during winter so that blossoming is possible in the spring, kale grows well in winter and is actually made more flavorful after exposure to frost. Davis' poem is a vignette of winter life on a farm, the daily ritual of gathering from a garden to sustain oneself, an intimate moment of interaction between the narrator and (presumably) his son that becomes a kind of quotidian sacrament—in spite of winter. In this ordinary act, there is much to be said about self-reliance, but the narrator also celebrates a kind of sacred and wonderful connection to the earth and to his garden, to winter and to kale and to his son, all these things in his daily life that sustain him well. With the passing of seasons, with cyclical change, there is death that brings life, and there is also continued growth. 

One of my grounding rituals is eating at Linea Caffe, an espresso bar around the corner from my apartment. On an unassuming corner, Linea is a small space with only standing room and a few tables outside—minimal design with polygon wood panels and red accents. Not only do they serve espresso drinks served in beautiful red Heath Ceramics tumblers, but they also have an impeccable selection of waffles and salads. No pastries, just waffles and salads—creative, wonderful edibles. On weekend mornings, the peanut butter and jelly waffle is a true delight, but for weekday lunches, I return over and over again to the kale salad, a heaping pile of bitter greens massaged in an avocado dressing, with orange wedges, pecans, and fried shallots. Rita, one of the baristas there, assures me that this kale salad, which is also her favorite, won't ever let me down. It doesn't. 

This salad is a tribute to winter and to the wonderful Linea Caffe (and all the wonderful people there), to both seasonal change and to grounding ritual. The creamy avocado dressing, the sweet tang of citrus, the crunch of the fried shallots, and the nutty, toasted pecans make a surprisingly delightful combination. It's a cozy and filling salad that will keep you going, especially as the markets are brimming with kale at this time of year. Like the menu says, “kale is not passing fad.” 

So let this salad sustain you through the winter. Maybe this kale salad can be your daily ritual, one that grounds you as you weather this season and look forward in hope to the next.


Winter Survival Kale Salad 

Linea Caffe uses a kind of baby kale that I cannot seem to find anywhere, but I love this the sprawling flat leaves and purple veins of Russian Red Kale, a variety available only around this time of year. The Napa cabbage, which is milder, adds a nice, brightening crunch to the salad. You won’t regret being generous with the dressing here, whose creaminess balances out the bitterness of the greens. The work in creating this salad lies mainly in ingredient prep; otherwise, it’s mere assemblage. To make it more filling, add in some shredded chicken thigh, which is an optional add-on at Linea. 

Serves one as a meal, two as a side

3 cups chopped Russian red kale (about 5 stalks), or whatever kale variety you have on hand. 
1 cup Napa cabbage, shredded
1 small orange, skinned, segmented, and cut into wedges*
A generous handful of pecans, about 8-10
2 tablespoons fried shallots**

*Here’s how to cut citrus segments.

**Here’s a tutorial on how to make fried shallots, but you can also buy them at Asian grocery stores, as they’re a popular ingredient in Vietnamese dishes.

For the dressing:

½ avocado 
2 tablespoons fruity olive oil
¼ teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. While the oven is warming up, chop the kale and the cabbage. The preparation of this salad requires grooming the individual ingredients in order to make the Gestalt whole as it should be. I find that the best way to chop the kale is to first rip the leaves off the kale with your hands and chopping the leaves after. 

Let the rhythm of chopping be a meditation unto itself. The crunch of the cut into a large Napa cabbage is extremely satisfying. Ideally, you’d prepare this salad slowly and thoughtfully, letting yourself ease into daydreams and big ideas. 

Whenever the oven is ready, toast the pecans for five minutes, being careful not to let the pecans burn by checking up periodically. Do enjoy the aroma that the toasted pecans emanate, and you’ll see that the pecans are done by the darker color and shiny oils that have appeared on their surface. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Prepare dressing by mashing the avocado with a fork. Stir in the olive oil and sea salt.

In a bowl, combine the kale, cabbage, orange wedges, and dressing. Use your hands to massage the dressing into the kale, which is as it sounds: gripping and smothering the avocado into the kale, as with massage oil on skin. 

Finish by topping the salad with the toasted pecans and fried shallots. Consume immediately, but leisurely.

Literary City Guides: 3 Great Stops in Minnesota

The state of Minnesota has proven to be a compelling literary destination. The Land of 10,000 Lakes has been written about by Ernest Hemingway in The Torrents of Spring, called home by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and has enough independent bookstores and coffee shops to keep any literary traveler satisfied. From a sassy donut shop in Minneapolis, sidewalk poetry in St. Paul, or cozy, independent bookstores in Duluth, there's something for everyone. 

So pour yourself a cup of coffee and get ready for a tour of this great midwestern state. Amy Rea guides us through Minneapolis, Angela Antony shows us around Duluth, and Kate Selner knows the best stops in St. Paul.  

Living With Poetry | Recipes and Repetition

Living with Poetry is an occasional series where we explore how poetry infuses our everyday lives. Catch up with past features here.


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I've always held on to the belief that recipes and poems are not very different from one another. They both begin with building blocks like a turn of phrase or the turn of a whisk in a mixing bowl. A recipe cooked in my kitchen might look slightly different than in your kitchen, even if we use the same ingredients. A poem read today might resonate more when read again in six months. All of this is to say that I've been thinking about how recipes become part of you, the same way a poem might burrow itself under your skin when you've read it enough times and memorized a line or two. It's about turning over and over.

When we had friends over for dinner a few weeks ago, I set out to make pumpkin mac and cheese as a nod to the new season. I didn't use a recipe, because I've made mac and cheese so many times before that I knew it by heart. This is a time when the kitchen becomes a more magical place, because you're freed from standing over the counter, pointing with one finger at the list of ingredients before grating the cheese. You just move in one fluid motion from grating to whisking to stirring to boiling, and the meal comes together because you're steady.

Also, because you've likely made a mistake or two in the past.

You burnt the chocolate or smudged a word with an eraser. You boiled the pasta for two minutes too long or couldn't conceive of the right word to end the line. You learn. You grow. Wendell Berry puts it well in his poem "The Sycamore."


"Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the wrap and bending of its long growth. 
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose."

-Wendell Berry, from "The Sycamore" 


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It has gathered all accidents into its purpose. I repeat this line again and again and think of writing, of cooking, of relationships, of false starts or wrong turns. It's a powerful reminder that there is a reason for everything.

For its part in this lesson, pumpkin has arrived. It's presence is why I didn't look at a recipe, and instead added a few heaping spoonfuls into the pot and whisked and whisked, and why I found myself realizing that all the recipes and repetition have become something else entirely. The recipes do not live on paper alone. They exist for us to make something of them, to know them, to become something we can trust and love and hold on to.


PUMPKIN MAC AND CHEESE WITH SAGE BREADCRUMBS

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly cracked pepper
1 pound pasta
8 ounces gruyere, grated
4 ounces aged cheddar, grated
1/2 a baguette, torn into large pieces
4 to 5 sage leaves
2-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Melt the butter in a large stock pot over medium heat and whisk in the flour to combine. Cook for 30 seconds, then slowly whisk in the milk. Cook, whisking occasionally, until the sauce has thickened and can coat the back of a spoon, about 10 minutes. Off the heat, whisk in the pumpkin, nutmeg, salt, and a few cracks of freshly cracked pepper. Whisk in the cheese.

While the sauce thickens, bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta for 6 minutes. (You want the noodles to be slightly undercooked; they'll finish cooking in the oven.) Drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.

Add the pasta to the sauce and stir to combine. You'll hear a gooey, satisfying sound as the sauce begins clinging to the noodles. Pour the pasta into a large baking dish and set off to make the breadcrumbs.

Pulse the bread and sage in a food processor until small crumbs form. Add a pinch of salt, then drizzle in the oil until evenly coated. Spread the crumbs over the pasta.

You can prepare everything earlier in the day and keep the dish in the fridge until ready to bake. Before serving, bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and the breadcrumbs are golden brown.