Poem : How to Make Gribiche

Picture from Bon Appétit

In one of my many jobs I was briefly a food reporter for a local weekly. It was one of my favorite side hustles I've ever had and it was over really fast. I would sometimes write about making a recipe I'd never tried just to describe the process of making something. I'd then modify the recipe a bit and take some process photos. It was the best part of the job.

I often think about making a cookbook. I don't actually cook all that much, but it seems like a process that I want to engage with. The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook is one of my favorite books ever, so this shouldn't be a surprise.

I used the Bon Appétit recipe for Gribiche written by Ted Cavanaugh for this poem.

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How to Make Gribiche

Is there space? :
: on the counter
: move the mail the bills the ever present keys to the various things

: in your heart

: in the crawlspace behind it

: not dark there that is a wrong impression it is luminescent a cathedral of ribs and fascia

: think about the kinds of calories in eggs then ignore

Tools :

: knife

: a gift from an ex's mother when moving in together a housewarming it is sharp

: it has tasted blood once when slicing a leek it took a finger to the bone

: pot bowl water large wooden spoon

Ingredients :

: whole grain mustard with seeds that pop on the tongue olive oil slightly unfiltered the color of ale white wine vinegar sitting deeply in acid sweetness

: eggs speckled white brown shining in their softness cradled in the palm of the hand until slightly just laid warm

: hard boil then chop into quarters or some other desired percentage this is about aesthetics about what goes in a bite

: tarragon parsley salt black pepper

: fresh old from a garden or found in a store safe in tins that don’t feel expensive or frightening in their closeness to nature

: whichever

: cornichons capers could be there it depends on the type of person the type of cupboard the type of refrigerator

: unlockable thing that refrigerator a doorway like an eye a brain outside the body

Method :

: mix pour over vegetables meat fish

: who just has capers lying around?

: the French

Poem-A-Day #198 : Sonnet for the End of Days

Sonnet for the End of Days

The earth is awake

Opens itself all over then leaves the mouths to hang open
like old wood doors and gates that will not shut in their swollen frames

It Venus flytraps - honeys the corners of its lips

The earth is hungry

All that melting has it in a bulking mood
pre-gaming the workout the salts of bodies will electrolyte it

It is not content to feed on the constant churn of slow-moving rock
or the bursting of dead bodies into it

The earth is needing is in heat is feral it cannot even deal right now

The grinding within is the sound of teeth mid-nightmare
is the refusal to smooth itself the refuting of self

Negation and scorched salting

The earth is a death-throe from knocking itself out

Poem-A-Day #140 : About the Moon

Today's poem leaps ahead a few years. I don't remember the evening that it is about, but I definitely understand the interest in the moon.


About the Moon (6/20/04)

I want to swallow the moon
Take in the reflective disk
so that my belly glows
with all of that stollen light

Odd cold heat churning my insides

The sound of breathing
is like gauze over glass
a softness
you cannot hear
It is reeds
in an old martial arts film

You can taste marsh water poured over rice

The pocked face of night
a circle of yellow against purple
of course it tastes of rice
seaweed and turtle soup