Shuck

Consider the oyster in its unassuming shell. It has neither the Fibonacci grace of a clam nor the sublime fluting of a scallop. Human prejudices tend towards beauty that does not admit of jaggedness and the rough. Perhaps it is so amongst the animal kingdom. Clams with their curves burrow themselves away from hungry eyes. Scallops lie on the sand, but they have speed to evade their enemies. Oysters grow in clumps, tucked in craggy armor, not giving a damn about passing predators.

Maybe oysters do give a damn about predators. Hard to say, by nature being quiet and sessile creatures. Is it jealousy they feel, abed and watching clams dig in and scallops gambol about the sea floor? This is a topic for serious investigation. Imagine a curious heart immersing itself in an estuarine embrace to visit among the oysters. Filter the water. Share salt with strangers for whom rapprochement begets gratitude. Tuck into bed and dream with them in the interstices of the tides. Patience receives its reward when the shells open. They may be amenable to sharing secrets once their bellies are full.

Secrets. Yes, this is it. Humble exteriors holding secrets. This helps explain the clumps, the ragged shells, the propensity for mud. Appearances deceive throughout all kingdoms, human and animal. The phrase “Do not judge a book by its cover” has many variants among the languages of earth. Yet humans often fall for the notion that virtue and worth are arbitrated by prettiness, shininess, and affluence. Judged by those characteristics alone oysters would seem to have no chance at becoming a regular foodstuff for Homo sapiens. Jonathan Swift wrote, in his book Polite Conversation, “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster”. Gazing upon inelegant shells strewn amongst the mud of the tide line, hard labor is not required of the imagination to understand the genesis of Mr. Swift’s epigram.

But was it boldness that drove the choice? Or was it an overarching hunger? Hunger was likely the prime directive. When the belly scrapes the backbone, who knows what one will do to put space between those two. That includes pulling unlikely manna from the muck. There is nourishment there, and beauty. These things are known by hunger when it exerts itself to open the tightly closed shells, freeing that which lies within. When that hunger transcends survival, the soul can then turn to boldness. It finds things hidden in the mud with secrets to be revealed and shared. Be bold. Shuck the oysters of the self. Drink the liquor, find the pearls, and spread them all before the light.

Winter Feed

Gunmetal sky snow
Melting in burbling iron pot
Fills sunken belly

Gossamer Threads of Cast Iron

A book, a skillet, and a hungry belly were the elements of a personal chemistry uniting in an emotional solution inside my head, the wondrous precipitate of which was to realize the sheer quantity of history held in my possession. The cornbread was fresh out of the oven. Black cast iron skillet gripped in one mitt-clad hand, wire rack held in the other, I flipped the bread over and on to the rack. Perfect. Balance had been achieved and honored. The unctuous sheen of glossy black metal unmarred by stuck bits of cornmeal testified to things right and proper, transfixing me on the spot in the kitchen. Something deep, something ancestral spoke.

Dinnertime had come around as it usually did. It beckoned to me to put down the book* I was reading and head into the kitchen. Hunger took precedence over a fascinating look at food and the people who raise and harvest it in modern-day Appalachia. The "mountain south" was not exactly on my mind as I puttered about, assembling good eats via practice, sense memory, and prized artifacts of the kitchen. Yet its presence hovered about. It wore like a light mantle spread across my shoulders, full of comfort and guidance. The touch was in charge of my hands, though that was in no guise very clear. My back brain was working on it all the while.

I did not grow up in the mountains of Appalachia. But my mama's mama (G-maw) and her people did. G-maw was born in West Virginia, close to western Maryland. She was of the mountains, of a holler. Her extended family, as well as my maternal grandfather, had deep roots clustered in West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. G-maw was a teenager when the Great Depression hit. That in combination with mountain life could not have been easy. It certainly was educational in that it taught her survival skills and granted a kind of wisdom that serves one well in life when making the best of what you have in hand. G-maw carried that experience to her new home in southeastern Virginia where she took up with my grandfather and began to raise a family.

Some of this was on my mind as I read that book. The language used and the descriptions of places, people, and food occasionally jolted me with the shock of the familiar. I recalled mountain topography from the occasional visits in my youth to relatives in West Virginia. The hollers, the switchback roads, the great green womb of trees hunkering by the roadside. Summer evening in a place not awash in light pollution or noise. The notion of snacking on saltines adorned with thick slices of bologna. That last one jumped from the book's pages to gob smack me, as I recognized it right away. As a youth, I ate more than my share. As an adult, the habit faded into memory. What the book did was to bring it back in full force. G-maw used to eat that stuff, and so did my family. I learned it as a tradition even though it was not taught as such.

Growing up in southeastern Virginia near the ocean is literally hundreds of miles from the mountains. Figuratively speaking, the soils of each were (and still are) two homesteads looking at one another over a river of time. With the exception of college (five years in the Blue Ridge Mountains) and a stint in the Midwest (five years near Kansas City, Missouri) all of my life has been spent in easy driving distance of the coast. My rhythms of life, speech, and eating habits all suffused with the coastal South, even when I tried for many years to downplay or hide my roots. I did not know as a young adult that to practice that sort of self-deception plants the seeds of anxiety and doubt. Seeds that will bloom later. Yes, they will. They catch up to you.

That time was a constant search. A longing I could not explain or fulfill no matter how many questions I asked. On the one hand I was pursuing the American dream mandate of job-marriage-2.5 kids-and a minivan. On the other I was losing sight of where I came from, and by extension, where I wanted to be. Eventually I was at loggerheads with myself. I lacked the insight to find the peace of mind or sense of ease in my own skin that I so desperately wanted. Anxiety, emotional numbness, and a serious digestion related health problem forced me into a corner. My search for escape routes led me smack into the middle of food, eating, and truly learning how to cook. And not just cook for survival, but to cook for some peace of mind.

G-maw passed away while I was a college student. Some years later I received the gift of some cast iron skillets that had belonged to her. I knew little about cooking well then so I had no idea of the magnitude of this gift. Those skillets followed me to my first apartment out of college, my first new house, an apartment and a house as a divorced bachelor, through changes in relationships and geography, to ultimately reside in the kitchen of my apartment not far from the Chesapeake Bay. In all those years, I learned a few things. including respect for that cast iron. The skillets were faithful and true, devoted as dogs tend to be towards those who love them. They helped keep me alive.

They spoke to me, those skillets. For years I did not understand what they were telling me because I balked at giving credence to spirits. To my mind that would have been akin to surrendering to the demons of depression, self-loathing, and melancholy that periodically seized hold of my imagination. The difference lay in the tone and quality of the voices competing for attention. What the skillets were imparting was delivered at a steady, quiet pace. Respectful and attentive, never overbearing or toxic. It was the voice of history, of my family guiding me along a path I was not fully aware of taking.

This is where cornbread stepped back in that evening just last week. I was making it in the very skillet my grandmother had used to make fried fish and hushpuppies for me and her, when I was a kid, washed down with iced tea spiked with lemon. My recent reading in that book about mountain food and people pushed to the fore memories of my time with G-maw. A lush scent of crackling crust and toasted corn filled my kitchen to trigger a thunderclap realization of my ancestry. 

I am more a child of the lowland and the sea than I am of the timberline and the holler, this is true. But the mountains are in my blood, evidenced by DNA and ingrained habits as a human being. I make cornbread in that skillet because that is what my grandmother made in it. The action made sense to me like water makes sense to a fish: you can be surrounded by something that gives you life and be oblivious to it and its inherent sacredness. You know it by its absence. To come back to it is to know comfort and connection. In the instant I flipped that cornbread out of the skillet I dove back into that matrix. I felt my grandmother's hands on mine, saw her smile from somewhere up in mountains much closer than I imagined. I was home, knowing that my heart beats in two places connected by gossamer threads of humble cast iron, well-seasoned by history and love.

---

*Victuals, by Ronni Lundy

Lost Threads

Making a career out of writing about the inability to write seems impossible. Of course, making a career out of merely writing also seems impossible to me, at least. Yet again ideas flit like hummingbirds into the garden of my mind, only to be chased off by the distractions of bad news, social media, and the attendant anxieties. In a world of flashing lights, my mind is a crow: observant, apparently intelligent, and overly fascinated with shiny objects. I am a compliant victim of self-inflicted diffusion.

This diffusion is irritating. The mind unfocused and swirling like a cloud of starlings over a meadow. There is no cure for it, aside from putting everything out of my head and latching on to one thing or thought. In my case, I find that near impossible, too. Most days when I can persuade myself to put down the phone or tablet, the one thing I grab hold of is food. Food and cooking. And thinking about food and cooking. The thing becomes the thought and vice versa.

To give you perspective, one day last week at work I just could not keep my brain on task. Not that the tasks were onerous, mind you, but they were not grabbing my imagination. Consequently, between queuing up music to stream (a bizarre intersection of electronic dance music and stoner rock, mostly) and desperate attempts to get things done, all I could think of was dinner. Specifically, a good sandwich from this local Italian deli I’ve come to favor. They call it a Roman. It is prosciutto, cappicola, and provolone layered on an Italian roll slathered with hot peppers. Yes, it is delicious, and yes, it had the strength to prop me up so I could power through the workday.

This deli has a television mounted up above the main dining space. I don’t typically cotton to such things when I dine out (hello, distraction, my old friend) but the management mercifully keeps the volume down to a background murmur. Easily drowned out when the place is busy. What is interesting is the set is usually tuned to an Italian station. News channel, it looks like. Even when I can hear the station I cannot understand the announcers, an unfortunate side effect of an inability to comprehend the Italian language. Between the ticker at the screen bottom and the video I can usually get a good idea of what is happening. Most of the Italian words and phrases I know are food related, but a few words I can suss out and the context of the video fills in the big gaps. What I do know from watching is that human misbehavior and mayhem are universal constants no matter where one is in the world. It just sounds better in a different language.

Dinner. Tucking into my goal for the day and watching the world burn in Italian triggered something, shunted my lollygagging mind onto a track hidden in the shadows. I had in my hands the luxury of a hefty meal. In my eyes I had a shipload of migrants encountering a navy vessel somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. No stretch to say chances were good those folks had gone without decent food for days or weeks. My reaction surprised me in its strength and duality, of good fortune and humility. For the first time in weeks, strangely, there was a gap in the cloud of depression which plagued me. The breath caught in my throat, brought on by illumination and disquiet. I chewed and chewed watching the humans on the screen. That the world chews us up, and that we cannot survive except by the destruction of something else. These thoughts would not leave my head, disturbing me and comforting me. Can something be melancholic and uplifting simultaneously? The evidence suggest this is possible.

The story changed. The scene changes from desperation on the water to something involving a beautiful woman and some unfortunate escapades in personal turpitude. Or so I gathered from the tableau on the television. My meager ability for translation of Italian had exhausted itself seeing as it was definitely outside the realm of food. The basic gist I was gleaning from the video. Downing the last bits of the sandwich, it came to me that this meal had hit the trifecta of human fascinations of existence. The great rivers of food, death, and sex intertwined into a roiling confluence that swept me away. I leaned back in my chair, belching quietly.

The news was over. The plate pushed aside, crumbs brushed off the shirt, and a few steps back out into the warm summer evening. I could not divine where this big river would flow whilst I search for the lost threads in my life. The important thing is that it carry you into and through experience. Oh, and enjoy every sandwich along the way.

Darkly Sweetened

A dive through the notes, this stormy evening by the sea. Hail pecks at the windows. In the aureate glow of the desk lamp, this fragment surfaces from the depths of the past. Date unknown, intent unknown. What was in my head?

---

How’s that coffee taste, knowing the custom of adding sugar has its roots in the blood of slaves? All that violence and cruelty just to keep the palates of the wealthy and the mostly white folks satisfied. Maybe it’s easy to look the other way when you don’t pay the true cost for your desires.

What’s the difference between molasses and blood? Coffee and flesh? Rum and bones?

A drink more than bitter even with the sugar, refined as it is from the lives of the oppressed. Tell me, do you feel communion with them as you sip?

Belly Was Young Once, And Callow

A baking sheet, mottled black and brown, lies on the counter beside the stove top. It was never destined for the theatrics of a star restaurant, the knowing hands of a celebrity chef. Its fate was that of a journeyman. This sheet had made its way from an anonymous mill of decades past to the kitchen of my maternal grandmother, herself decades gone from this world. Fate of inheritance landed the sheet in my kitchen, also decades gone.

The sheet is warped. Creases mar the bottom. Little canyons formed years ago, by thoughtlessness and a knife used to divide up some dish long forgotten. That its memory cannot be dredged up is testament to the mediocrity that must have clung to it. This is not surprising. Many years ago the belly was rapacious without commensurate sophistication. It ate with gusto and without much thought. "Fill me!" was its ceaseless demand. This greed carried with it a certain blindness to history, taste, and respect.

Respect. The word settles in the pit of this belly which hangs chastened and wiser now. The naive palate of the past has evolved into something much more discriminating. Discriminating, and rueful. It cannot eat as a youth anymore. Such actions verge on abuse, leaving mild regret at best and acid attacks on the gullet at worst. The belly is much more careful in the thick of middle age. It has to be. Respect is often as necessary to the act of cooking and eating as the addition of salt and curiosity.

Hunger is here. It is the wolf that sits in front of my spine as I prepare the pot of clam chowder that had entertained my thoughts most of the afternoon. Hunger for that chowder had indirectly led to my use of the baking sheet for my dinner. This because my imagination had been seized by the idea of cornbread as companion to the fruits of my labor at the pot. It was upon a rack resting on the sheet that I would turn out my cornbread after its retrieval from the depths of the oven.

I could not help but think of my blindness to respect as I consider the baking sheet in the white gold light of a early spring evening. The round of cornbread lay resting. In one hand was a serrated knife, on the counter a milk-white plate emblazoned with a large rectangle of Irish butter. My other hand tugged at my lip while the bread cooled. The canyons in the sheet stood out, highlighted by my regret at having marred this humble pan that carried with it the ghost of my grandmother. I struggled to recall why I thought those many years ago that it was okay to cut something out of that pan with a sharp knife, desecrating the pan and inflicting insult on the knife all the while.

The pan, and its twin ensconced in the cabinet by the stove, had been with me for years. Through marriage, divorce, two broken relationships, these humble sheet metal artifacts gave me a constant I did not know I had. And I had never apologized for the day that knife scraped its way across the metal.  Warm against the flat of my hand it brought my grandmother back into my heart, her shade into the kitchen. I cut the bread, careful of the rack and pan. I bowed my head as the butter phased into liquid gold. It was then, basking in the blessing of humble nourishment, that I repented, hoping my grandmother forgave me for the thoughtless youth that had been, and his callowness in the kitchen.

The Skillet Speaks of Humility and Care

You will know in your heart when it has been a good half year since the cornbread was last made. Mild shame on approaching the kitchen, reaching out a hand to grasp the smooth weight of cast iron that last felt human touch so long ago the occasion is beyond recall. The skillet has a voice. It calls to you. It is a pity that you have not answered.

Until now, that is. A bag of corn meal rested on the refrigerator shelf for at least two months. A latent desire to avoid waste was the catalyst for this latest venture into culinary redemption. A supposed absence of buttermilk on the store shelves was a flimsy excuse, a cover for impatience and laziness. You know deep down the attempts to find said buttermilk were halfhearted at best.

The buttermilk was spotted up high in a store you visited for the first time since settling in to your new home. Their reputation for higher prices held you at bay, it is true. Still that store could no longer avoided when it became clear it would almost certainly have buttermilk and other treats not easily procured at other establishments. The prophecy came true. Forty-five minutes and a much lighter wallet later, you were putting the grocery bags in the back of the car.

The accountant may not like it. The belly shouted it down. Hungers have their own imperatives. Treasures were garnered. Pitted olives, plump and spicy. Chubby jalapeño peppers confident in their glossy deep green jackets. The king of cheeses in the form of a craggy block of Parmigiano-Reggiano, the like of which had not shown its tawny face in your house for what seemed a year. The belly will not be disappointed.

The buttermilk is the key player here. The liquid catalyst to a pan full of golden-brown goodness. Memories of melting butter swirled with sorghum coating the grainy cornbread, or a chunk dropped into the ‘pot likker’ at the bottom of a bowl of collard greens, to be spooned up and savored like the taste of heaven itself. You feel these memories. Your stomach rejoices. What feels like endorphins trickling through the brain as you recall the joys of the oven and stove. It wouldn’t be right without the buttermilk.

So it is you gather the wares and the ingredients. They populate the kitchen counter like so many eager helpers waiting to please. Buttermilk. Two eggs. Salt. Baking powder and baking soda. The heavy glass bowl that has followed you for tens of years and thousands of miles, its surface hazed from countless episodes of mixing and scraping. Old friends, sights for sore eyes.

Heat will be needed, of course. You turn on the oven. Ritual demands that a dollop of lard be melted in the skillet as the oven preheats. Into the fridge, out with the small plastic tub. Scoop of fat in hand, you turn to the skillet preparing to drop it in. The skillet perches on the stovetop. A glossy black mirror of reproach and melancholy reflecting your unease at having virtually abandoned it over the summer.

Lard in the pan. Pan in the oven. Its handle feels nearly alive in your hand. Smooth, ebony, sturdy. This is a pan that has survived for over fifty years and is likely to survive another fifty years. It knows itself. It knows you. The silence remains because it understands you are making a good faith effort to patch things up. It knows you have been busy with survival outside the home.

As the lard melts, the dry ingredients are blended gently in the glass bowl. A smaller bowl holds the buttermilk and the eggs. These partners in joy are whisked together. The resulting liquid has an appeal that cannot be explained. The urge to lap it up is strong. Almost as if it were an odd health drink, a tonic to buck up a distressed stomach while revitalizing a tired liver. But you won’t drink it. You know it is destined for the cornbread. This is a nobler fate for eggs and buttermilk.

Ticktockticktock. The oven creaks and softly groans. A quick peek confirms the shallow pool of melted lard is ready. The wet and the dry are brought together in a union of soon-to-be tasty alchemy. You slip on a mitt and grab the searing hot handle of the skillet. Quickly, quickly, the batter is poured into the skillet. That music of sizzle and pop fills the kitchen. Toasted corn aroma caresses the nose as you smooth the pupal cornbread into the pan. A swift bow to the oven god and the skillet is back on the rack to complete its journey to nirvana.

Ticktockticktock. Impatience mounts. The kitchen air smells of corn and crust. Your belly growls softly. It is a tiger cub anxious to be fed. A faint thrill of anticipation arises as the skillet is lifted carefully from the rack and placed on the stovetop. It is at this point you will know if the cornbread likes you, wants to give itself up to your plate.

It is here that you shake the pan. If the bread slides easily back and forth in the pan, grace has been granted. If it does not slide...well, then it may be that penance is required. A small prayer. A shake. And another.

The bread does not move.

Another shake. Perhaps a slight change in position is registered. But the cornbread stubbornly refuses to move. Your heart sinks a little. Still more shaking and the bread tenaciously clings to the pan. Well, you are for it now. Nothing to do but put the mesh rack over the skillet in preparation for flipping it upside. Good luck and godspeed with any luck it will pop right out.

Tonight there is no such luck. The disk of cornbread falls to the mesh with a tearing sound. Slight sinking stomach to see the large bright yellow patch surrounded by a ring of golden-brown deliciousness. It stuck, no doubt. The good news is that it is only a thin layer of crust that pulled away from the bread. Another quick flip brings the bread upright with a beautifully done top.

The stuck stuff is a different story. You know you have to get it out of the skillet as soon as possible. Over to the sink to douse the screeching hot pan with water. Follow it up with a bamboo spatula squeegeed over the bottom.

Joke’s on you, son. The stuck on crust comes away like a silk robe sliding off a smooth shoulder. A few swipes and nothing remains but for the sodden clump of grainy bread lying in the sink.

You hold the skillet up close. The residual heat warms your face, which is reflected faintly in the glossier patches of skillet. Listen closely and you hear a voice speaking softly in questions and remonstrances. A gentle sadness suffuses your stomach and heart. The skillet has you in the culinary hot seat, and you know it.

It knows you know better. It knows you have been busy with the big picture of recovery and survival. It does not hold these things against you. What it does want you to remember is that you need to take care of the things that will take care of you. And if a seasoned cast iron skillet filled with the spirit of love cannot make you pay attention, the kitchen god will not tolerate your whining if that skillet does not act in accord with your wishes.

You know you are lucky. To have that skillet. To be able to create goodness with it, and the desire to do so. These are quiet blessings.

The skillet goes back on the stove to cool down. The cornbread, slightly worse for the wear, steams gently on its perch of wire mesh. You cut a slice, plate it. Two pats of good butter accompanied by a generous flourish of sorghum drizzled over effectively gild the lily. The first bite confirms what you suspected: excellent cornbread, but you are damn lucky to have it.

Damn lucky. The next batch will be made soon, and the divinity within the skillet shall be properly acknowledged. You swallow another bite washed down with a humble prayer: You will not forget to take care of the things that will take care of you.

Fading Memories of the Feast

Chicken and dumplings in the bowl, the aroma wafting up and around Sonny's face. Caressing his cheeks like a lover but he didn't stir. A spoon jutting from his right hand, left hand idly resting on a small dish of collard greens. Staring out the window, through the chipped paint letters, sweet tea sweating in its glass. He got to thinking he was too old to be alone eating collard greens. They were not "good" bitter, anymore, just bitter.

Things taste strange when their roots are ripped from a soil a man no longer recognizes as his own. Sonny dipped his head, took a desultory swipe at the chicken and dumplings. It was good, he reckoned, even with the aftertaste of memories of grandma Annabelle. He often teased Augie Midgett, the owner of the joint, that the chicken and dumplings tasted good "but that ain't how you make it." All the funnier knowing that he, Sonny, rarely could be bothered to make them at all.

Another swipe, another swallow. A shadow fell across the table. It was Margot, the waitress. She held a pitcher of iced tea over Sonny's glass. Angled as if to pour. He met her tired eyes with his own.

"You okay, hon?" she said. "A little more tea?"

Sonny nodded. "I'm tired, Margot. Workin' is wearin' me out, I reckon. But I'm okay." He smiled, but it failed to reach his eyes. Margot looked at him, raised an eyebrow, and topped off his glass.

"You wouldn't be fibbing me, would you?"

"No, ma'am." That grin again. Margot paused, hand on her hip. His own hands twitched with jealousy at the sight. She sighed.

"Aw, now, then you better explain that to those hangdog eyes of yours. I'll let you off with a warning this time, Sonny." She smiled at that last statement, turned and strode over to the server station. Sonny watched her go, admiration layered over sadness and desire.

Sonny looked down the bowl. Still half full, and with an appetite that just took the last bus out of town. He took two more spoonfuls, set it down. He could tell his heart wasn't in it, and by association, neither was his belly.

He raised his head. She chatted with a customer, silhouetted in the dusky sundown light coming through the window. Broken hearts need to eat eventually, Sonny thought. He hoped his would get its appetite back before she found someone else to call her darling. He wanted to know how to be hungry again, and sated.

Cooking for One

One good thing about teaching yourself to cook is that it is a portable skill. As long as you can get your hands on food, heat, and at least a pot, you can feed yourself anywhere. Keeping the wolf of hunger away from the door is an imperative of survival. We all should cook at least to survive. I do, sometimes. By such means, live long I might. Prosper? I lack confidence in prosperity.

Outside the cottage tonight the sea is calm. Weeks of rough surf, waterspouts, seventh waves that hit as second and even third waves have left the headland in a bedraggled state. Watered gold sunlight is casting deep shadows upon the beach debris. Clear enough and comfortable enough for a post-prandial stroll along the strand, I think. Flotsam and jetsam capture my imagination.

Time enough to amble, that is, if I can swallow what remains on the plate before me. Finishing the meal seems iffy at best. One of my favorite dishes, chorizo and eggs, getting cold on the side table by the window. Ordinarily that plate would have me in the kitchen on the run. I find its scent tiresome this night. The storms that pounded the cottage pounded something out of me. Arms like lead, a belly gone indifferent. Still, the prime directive commands me to eat. Chew. Swallow. Mechanical.

The plate and fork go in the sink. Later, I'll pump some water in, do some cleaning. For now I am content to step outside. The sand damp and cool under my feet. A breeze rests its hands on my stubbly cheeks, redolent of brine, iodine, and the death-odor of small creatures trapped in seaweed. Like pluff mud to a Lowcountry native, it is a scent that brings me somewhere closer to home. A compass to the rudder of my soul.

The beach is pocked with moguls of seaweed, foothills of sand and samphire. Nearing the tide line pebbles and fragmented shells dig into the soles of my feet. The sensation brings to mind that I should hunt for shells, sea glass, items of interest. My daughter and I, we have a hoard of found delights and curios we have collected over the years stretching back to her early days of walking with me along the rivers, creeks, and oceans I adore. A well-preserved scallop shell or dusky gem of glass is a wonder to hold in the palm of one's hand.

At the water's edge cold foam beards my toes. A quietness emanates from the surf. Unsettling, welcoming. How can this be? The storms, of course. Or was it one long storm oscillating its ferocity over what seemed like months? Either seems equally plausible. I kneel to dip my fingertips in the water, raise them to my mouth. The liquid is chill and gritty. It also tastes tired. No vitality in the brine. I imagine a vampire would say the same of my blood. Bad weather begets bad blood, whether in the veins or in the ocean.

I understand the sea in its loss. Fury and sorrow are exhaustion incarnate if they come for a protracted stay.

A lone gull flutters to the sand opposite a clump of seaweed between us. Beady eyes offer up a quizzical stare. The gull blinks. It opens its beak in a silent cry, leaving me to wonder if it had a question for me. Or an answer to a question of my own.

Tell me, friend gull, does the sea grow tired of crashing upon the shore? Turbulent, voracious, yet never sated? Does the sea lose its appetite when left to cook alone?

The synchronization of the waves with my heartbeat lead me to believe this may be true. The sea piled on the sand all the wrack which it could not bring itself to consume, left to decay under the sun. The gull has been watching me as I mumble these things to myself. It lets loose an aural shard of a shriek while launching itself into the purple sky of sundown.

The shriek rings a bell. Realization in a flash. In the rays of dusk it is no longer the belly that cannot bring itself to eat. It is a heart sated with love gone wrong that has no appetite. It is full, it cannot swallow. Not yet. This is a matter for time to decide.

I was unaware my face was buried in my hands. I peeked between the fingers, half expecting to be swept away by a rogue wave. Yet the sea remained sluggishly undulant. It was then I saw the shell before me. Buried hinge end down, the rippled edge of the scallop beckoned me forward. I tugged it gently from the sand.

The scallop shell had survived the storms intact. A smoothness upon the surface indicative of a long tumble in the sand only hinted at the recent turbulence. I traced my fingers over my face and arms wishing I could say the same. The shell I rinsed in the surf, its destination the treasure jar belonging to my daughter as a fine addition to our volumes of history.

We would share the shell when I saw her next. The vision of her delight at its muted otherworldliness would sustain me until then, I thought. Perhaps then my heart would be less full. She and I would not speak of cooking for one. Instead, we will write a story of beauty found in the calm after the storm, casting loneliness aside as it decays in light.

On The Salubrity of Garlic Burps Versus Chewing Chalk

It was the heartburn that had me reaching for an extinguisher. Not for the first time had my taste for red beans led to a rebellion in the esophagus. This particular revolt was robust in scope. While the pain was far from crippling, it resulted in a certain lack of cheer and patience on my part. The roots of this crisis were in New Orleans, Louisiana. That the cure, or part thereof, slipped in from Korea was a bit of a surprise. Hunger will do that to a body.

Lunch on the day had been a leftover pot of red beans. It was hanging around from an earlier midweek meal and looking forlorn as my belly contemplated getting a sandwich for something to eat whilst errand-running. Two things changed my mind: I was famished (in spite of the chorizo omelet that was breakfast) and the only currency in my wallet was nostalgia for the bills that got away. An easy equation to solve by heating up the beans and setting to.

Ah, red beans. Of the many delicious dishes to come out of New Orleans, red beans is one for which my imagination fell hard. With the exception of gumbo, when I hanker for things Cajun or Creole, red beans is the dish of choice. There is no recipe for it yet which did not hold some attraction for this belly. 

The attraction is not always mutual though. There is no real malice in a good pot of red beans but the aftereffects on this eater often put him in mind of a spat with one's beloved. Maybe the belly is just older and crankier, I don't know. But this batch of red beans brought the pain after lunch. The fire crept up on me as I was driving to a local Asian market (an earlier visit to which was chronicled here) to pick up some ingredients for the night's dinner.

Upon arriving at the market, things became complicated. Fire in the chest, shopping on my mind, and damned if I wasn't getting hungry in the midst of it all. Then I walked through the door to fall victim to the usual ecstatic discombobulation of All The Things. I did myself no favors by visiting sections previously unexplored, including a Middle Eastern section, the seafood counter (Oh.my.god. Story for another time.) and the meat counter. Focus was slipping fast and I had nothing in the basket yet.

Strolling the refrigerated cases brought me to the kimchi. The jars of kimchi. The BIG jars of kimchi. And not just cabbage. There was radish and cucumber kimchi. Plus, some kimchi new to me that was pickled fish and shellfish. The belly growled as it settled upon the snack it so desperately seemed to want.

I bought a big jar of kimchi. Perfect for that impulse buy mingled with a disregard for heartburn.

Discipline of a sort reemerged as Japanese noodles and a bottle of chili oil ended up in my haul of swag. No sesame seeds or sesame oil yet even though those items had been the impetus for the visit. The dull burn in my chest added its own urgency to the situation. Oil and seeds were swiftly tracked down to wrap things up. Arriving home to settle this matter of the imperative of the belly. Still a fire in my gullet and a growling in my tummy. Heartburn versus appetite. I was hungry, so I ate.

Some may think that kimchi with chilis would not be the most efficacious balm to apply to a case of heartburn. In the abstract, I would agree with them. That seeming contraindication looped around my brain while the kimchi worked its way to my stomach. Sips of fresh-brewed jasmine tea served as lubricant between swallows of pungent cabbage. Any anticipated squabbling between the kimchi and my aggravated esophagus failed to materialize, at least not while I was standing in the kitchen.

I returned to my workstation, graced by a short series of garlic-flavored hiccups. A sated belly makes for a pleasant working experience even at the risk of an odoriferous workspace. A few minutes into my late afternoon labors it sank in that my chest was no longer burning. A faint prickle, but no burn. I no longer felt the need to reach for the cherry-flavored chalk that seems to never be far out of hand these days. Maybe it was the tea, maybe it was the kimchi that helped knock back the pain. It is an experiment worth repeating, because I'll take garlic burps over chewing chalk any day of the week.

Gochujang Made Me Do It

It was a trip to get three things. Three. A loaves and fishes minor miracle that I walked out of the store with as few as I did. Yet...three things. Curiosity, hunger, and some free time conspired against discipline, hence the haul you see above.

The original plan, as scribbled on a torn scrap of notepaper, outline the procurement of soy sauce, water chestnuts, and gochujang. For those who are not familiar with gochujang (and I was not until sometime last summer) it is a spicy, pungent condiment originating in Korea. Traditional ingredients are red chili peppers, rice or wheat, fermented soybeans, and salt. I had eaten it before last year but did not know it as an ingredient.

Food and cooking are never far from my mind. Reading and researching as much as I do had brought the gochujang into my awareness. Not surprising considering how much I was hearing about it. It took on the character as an "It" ingredient in cuisines outside of Korean. While it may be unavoidable that it ran the risk of being the latest trend it fired my imagination immediately. When that occurs, there really is no choice but to track it down for research purposes. Tasty, tasty research.

There are a number of Asian markets in the area where I live. One of those markets happened to be within easy striking distance of my mid-week errand running. My mind and my belly rejoiced at the coincidence, so with small shopping list in hand, it was off to the store.

Confession: no matter the culinary traditions of a particular market, I tend to regard them like kids regard candy stores. The stuff! The things! The food! This one was no different. Well, no different in my reaction to it. Different certainly in the scope and type of offerings as compared to the average "American" market. Any pretense to a plan abruptly evaporated in the face of the goodness I came upon.

Mind you, a lot of it was not immediately apparent to me in terms of the "CONDIMENT" or "BAKING" aisle of the stores I typically frequent. There were plenty of signs in English, but more predominantly in Chinese, Korean, and possibly Japanese. The shelves themselves had little tags listing the products in English, but what most fascinated and amused me was that many of the products were faced so that the labels read in the language of their origin. This is just the sort of thing I enjoy when I am doing research. It invites engagement and attention to detail.

That engagement really came into play as I wandered up and down the aisles. Every Asian cuisine known to me was represented in the astonishing array of products. China. Korea. Japan. Thailand. India. Pickled radish. Dried seafood. Kimchi and not just of the cabbage variety. Preserved mangoes. Millet, sorghum, and black rice. Potato flour and dried noodles of all types. I wondered if the hand basket I carried was adequate to my ambitions. A pallet loader would have been a better choice!

Discipline began to crack. The basket grew heavier. My ambition swelled, damn near drowning out the small voice crying out to "Stick to the plan!" Eventually, I came to and the bubble popped as I realized that I had everything except the gochujang. I was standing in an aisle that was one long wall of soy sauces and bean pastes. Scanning the shelves I could not locate the elusive condiment. This is where my near non-existent knowledge of written Chinese, Japanese, and Korean truly hampered me. Where was it, this gochujang?

That is when it dawned on me. I realized I was looking at a wall of Chinese condiments. I had made the naive mistake of assuming that fermented bean paste is fermented bean paste, so naturally it would be on the "bean paste" aisle. However, what I wanted was Korean. Embarrassment crept over me as I sheepishly slunk over to the Korean section. Down to the end by which I had passed without registering the wall of gochujang there. 

A whole wall. Of gochujang. Right there. Deep red goodness in small jars to little buckets to big pails. I quickly placed a jar in my basket thereby completing my collection. A fine collection, indeed. I hoofed it up to the counter before I could be tempted by anything else. As I waited to pay I knew I would be back soon. But next time, I'll remember that geography, culture, and language are crucial to understanding what my far-away neighbors like to eat...and what I hope to have the privilege to share with them.

Magpie Tales 296: Appetites Obscura

Joachim Beuckelaer, 1560 via Magpie Tales

Incipient feast before our eyes,

Ignorant of the scandalmongers afar

of whom, it is said, do spread the truth

Anesthetized by full bellies, flushed loins

Citizen ears deafened by lust, greed, anger,

Blindly we face murderers in the bedroom