How She Cooks

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. -Fran Lebowitz

This much is true .
Sometimes a meal involves
the popping of box tops,
things prepackaged or
McDonald's drive-through.
Taco Smell.
Buffet diners.
All you can eat.

But sometimes,
long weekends end.
Everyone is depleted.
A kid floats in the tub,
another hovers over homework.

The kid in the tub says,
"Next time you are at the store,
buy ginger snaps and
creamy white frosting.
In Russia,
they call this parenky!?!?
It's very good!"

And the child,
leaving homework
to do laundry,
passes the kitchen
and asks,
"Is it time yet?
Are you making dinner now?"

How she cooks.

Removing the plastic
from the cow that once was.
(But long weekends mean,
we need iron.)
Red meat that once roamed free,
now ground round.

She frees it from the plastic,
awakens it with things of the earth.
Rosemary.
Thyme.
Oregano.

Fresh spices,
crumbled down her palm,
off her fingertips,
bringing the beast back to life.
Sacred beef.
Careful, the pan is hot.

Corn meal melds in a bowl
with milk, eggs and rosemary.
Then into papered tins
set aside.
Oven preheats.

Water set to boil with
seasoned oil.
Pine nuts.
Angel hair pasta waits
standing on end.

Salad bowl is seasoned
with lemon grass vinegar
and paremesan.
Greens torn, not cut.
Tomatoes diced,
everything romping
in the same bowl.

The spices linger
on her fingertips,
pressed now to her nose,
the pot steaming her face
as stiff angel hair relents
to the roiling boil.

Tomato sauce, three cheeses,
marry the beef in a field of thyme.

The cornbread stiffens now,
warming through in the oven.

The salad rests.
The child dries.
The other folds a shirt.

The table is set.
Three become one,
joined by the cornbread,
the salad, the angel hair pasta
and the sauce.
Everyone drops their eyes
to their laps,
taking pause,
ever thankful we are
at our table,
mindful of those seated
in remembrance of those not.

This is how she cooks.
Sometimes from popped box top,
McDonald's drive-through,
Taco Smells
and buffet restaurants.
And sometimes not.

Now, please pass the maple butter.

-couldn't resist, this close to thanksgiving, hauling out this piece and reworking it a bit. we seem to always "meet" in our kitchen, on the norm, but also during times of "regrouping." i know when i originally wrote this piece i was cooking for three (myself & my youngest and second eldest daughter). my eldest was living out west and my grandmother had passed away. there were marked spaces left at the table ... and yet, when we cook, whether we are home or apart, it seems to always draw us back together, "as if" we are all there, present and accounted for.