friday feast: grated cheese and other delights

It’s the last Friday in March, and I couldn’t be more excited.

It’s almost time for the second annual Alphabet Soup Poetry Potluck!

Beginning next Friday, a different good-looking, exceedingly charming poet will drop by each weekday to share an original poem and favorite recipe in celebration of National Poetry Month. You probably already know these people have a way with words, but wait till you see what they’ve got going on in the kitchen! Can we just say spicy salsa, lemony goodness, and the soul-stirring aroma of melty chocolate and almonds? I cannot wait to serve up all the wonderful literary and culinary treats they’ve so lovingly created for the occasion. Talk about food for the body, mind and spirit!

Before they get here, though, I’ve got a little Spring cleaning to do. After reading Marilyn Annucci’s cool poem, I decided to sort and pay closer attention to my cooking utensils — allow them to take me on emotional, even sensual journeys through my psyche. If you see me flinging my head back with reckless abandon in the near future, you’ll know why. Grate on!

Dvortygirl/flickr

DESIRE UNDER THE CHEESE GRATER
by Marilyn Annucci

Open the kitchen drawer—
I want to be idle as a tea ball. I want to lie
beside the wooden spoon, the carrot
peeler, the five plastic cups that fit one
inside the other: tidy travelers to the counter.
I want to be reckless as measuring spoons—
to fling my big, smaller, small heads back,
dream of ginger, of cinnamon,
sprawl akimbo on the tack paper.
I want to be called dramatic by the corn cob holders,
poor things, how they can only jab and stick;
so what if I want to be picked up.
Let me be. The way butter becomes a yellow river,
a place for the garlic to shout and moan;
how the onions give over to shine and sigh,
I want to be turned over and over
in competent kitchen hands.
I want to be surprised.
I want to grow shy as an egg poacher.

~ from Luck (Parallel Press, 2000). Used with author’s permission.

And now, for the first (and last) time ever on any blog anywhere, a peek inside two alphabet soup kitchen drawers (please try to contain your excitement)!

TA-DA!!

Cooking tools:

Do you like my Spam spoon rest?