Salted Honey Pie

January 26, 2014

Salted Honey Pie | une gamine dans la cuisine

Manifest

Mornings here, I put my French on: underthings, white blouse, a tight skirt.
I dress letter by letter, I wear my accent comme ci.

To the fleuriste, I am charming
with my child-language-syntax,
the way I knock over with my draped elbows
glass shelves and vases, shatter
imperfect verbs.
Astonishingly, I know the word jonquille;
with azaliƩe, I get lucky.

Having said my peace, I clutch a madness of daffodils,
a profundity of azaleas. The bouquet rustles
and down the wet stairs, my shoes and skirt
click and swish. On the Metro
everyone is silent.

~ Lisa Ortiz, from Literary Bohemian 

Meyer Lemon Pound Cake

January 21, 2014

meyer lemon pound cake | une gamine dans la cuisine

Winter, in classic curmudgeonly style, felt we were becoming too comfortable, too...almost-warm for its liking. After about two weeks of normal weather, the mercury is falling. Again.

When temperatures plummet into the single digits (and below!), I reignite a kinship with "The Lady of Shalott." She's been a kindred spirit since I first read Tennyson's poem at the ripe old age of 12. As the deceivingly-sunny raw afternoon trudges into another icy night, I feel semi ethereal. I have no desire to do anything whatsoever. Time drips by, freezes in mid-air, and five hours have suddenly passed while my head was buried in a book. The rest of the world might as well be light years away - it's just me, and the cold, and this capricious dance with the hours. To be perfectly honest, a good part of me relishes the gelid solitude (as long as I know it's not going to last too, too long).

Dark Chocolate Baileys Mud Cake

January 14, 2014

dark chocolate Baileys mud cake | une gamine dans la cuisine


It seemed those seasons swirled
into each other, as if icicles dripped
an April rain, or a blown dandelion
became the snow. In unsown, dew-sharpened fields
I'd blink and be -- a glittering instant -- stilled
in the smells and shimmery whispers of the ripe
and only crop of wheat we ever grew.
In nights so cold our breaths plumed the hard dark
above our bed, I thought of white, taut,
rain-laden clouds and felt, as we grew warm
together under quilts, the long shudders
of summer thunder.

~ Christian Wiman, from section III of "The Long Home," in The Long Home Poems

I spent several hours night-dreaming of summer during last week's "polar vortex." Cold weather does not agree with me, it's a callous lump of black licorice I'd rather swallow than bite into. Needless to say, subzero temperatures shut me down completely. During the coldest of the cold, I huddled under a not-warm-enough electric blanket for hours on end - only breaking out of my cocoon long enough to make coffee, tea and soup, or to toss chopped apples and carrots out to the three rabbits who sheltered inside my garage for a few days.

As soon as the weather reached 20 F, my body had an insatiable craving for something shamelessly chocolate.

 

une gamine dans la cuisine © All rights reserved · Theme by Blog Milk · Blogger