#2 in the Poetry Potluck Series, celebrating National Poetry Month 2012.
April’s new picture book will be out in May.
Happy Poetry Month, and three big cheers for our first guest poet, Geisel Honor winner April Pulley Sayre!
Once again we’re calling upon an author named April to kick off our Potluck. You can see she’s pretty excited about Go, Go, Grapes!: A Fruit Chant(Beach Lane Books, 2012), which is a companion book to her wildly popular Rah, Rah, Radishes!:A Vegetable Chant, released last year. Do I love a poet who gets kids excited about their fruits and veggies? You bet!
Many of you know that April and her husband Jeff are ardent, adventure-loving, world-traveling naturalists. April is so fond of vegetables, she’s been known “to clap with joy upon discovering a ripe tomato in her garden!”
“Remember well, and bear in mind, a constant friend is hard to find.” ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder
I like to think of Laura as a good friend. I first “met” her as a shy child who devoured her books, and she’s remained a constant presence in my life as a reader, writer and human being.
I’ve enjoyed deepening my connection to Laura by learning more about the foods mentioned in the Little House books (via Barbara M. Walker’s Little House Cookbook), and making some of the recipes contained in The Laura Ingalls Wilder Country Cookbook (Trophy Press, 1997). Some of you may know that this cookbook contains over 70 recipes compiled by Laura during the 30’s and 40’s when she lived with Almanzo at Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri.
Last year, I made her Chicken and Dumplings and Apple-Upside Down Cake, and two years before that, her famous Gingerbread. To celebrate Laura’s birthday this year, I decided to try her Apple Slump, another of the six apple recipes included in the Country Cookbook.
“Little is nobler than presiding over a kettle of homemade soup.” ~ Marty Martindale, food writer and bon vivant
As you can see if you peek behind Chef Paddington through the dining room window, we recently had some proper snow, something that always happens in these parts during the third week of January.
I couldn’t have ordered more perfect weather for making the vegetable soup that’s included in Melissa Iwai’s charming picture book, Soup Day, a recipe I’d been wanting to try ever since I reviewed the book last year. Of course one doesn’t have to wait for snow to make soup, but in this case it deepened my connection to this sweet story of a mother and daughter in the kitchen.
The recipe is designed with simplicity, common ingredients, and child participation in mind. As the story suggests, asking hungry munchkins to help select colorful veggies at the grocers and later allowing them (with an adult’s guiding hand) to slice the soft ingredients like mushroom and zucchini, enables them to master new skills and develop a sense of pride. Melissa admits this is how she got her son Jamie to eat mushrooms!
“Poetry should . . . strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.” ~ John Keats
We had our first snowfall of the year this week. When feather-light flakes frost bare branches, it’s time for winter daydreams.
My mindscape of choice is London, so it’s the perfect time to share this poem by New Jersey poet Nancy Scott. I love this wonderful example of cooking as meditation. As we gather and combine ingredients, we season with pleasant memories, nourishing body and soul.
Nancy: My husband was a professor and he took sabbaticals on a regular basis. We often lived in London because it was London. Because there was no language barrier, it was easier for the kids to attend the local schools. This poem is set in 1973, when the two younger boys were 5 and 7. No supermarkets nearby and with a very small refrigerator, we went shopping for food almost every day. I know we had a car, but I wanted the kids to burn off energy by walking and helping to carry the bags rather than tearing apart the flat.
“Hampstead, North London” by Sam Burton (oil on canvas)
HAMPSTEAD AGAIN by Nancy Scott
for Billy and Jimmy
On a snowy day, when the neighborhood has gone quiet, except for the plows, I’m peeling onions, stripping layers of fat from a pot roast, sizzling oil in the pan.
And it’s Hampstead again. Grey leaden skies, damp warning its way through our clothes. Along the streets where Keats took a turn, past the chemist, the ironmonger, I’m choosing grapes, lettuce, fresh beets, and tomatoes at the greengrocer’s. You two are juggling oranges and apples. At the butcher’s you kick up sawdust, giggle at pigs’ feet, fake gag at the tongue and the tripe until a stern Brit scolds you both. Short hop to the bakery where a plump-faced clerk greets us: Right wet one we’re havin’. I pay for warm yeasty loaves; you wolf down jam tarts as if you haven’t eaten in days. Then the ten-block walk home loaded with parcels. I sidestep puddles; you splash about like irreverent ducks.
While the roast simmers, I curl up with a book, any one will do, and listen for echoes of lively dinners, when we gathered at the table, forks ready.
Naturally I was curious about Nancy’s roast and asked for a recipe. Apparently she was actually making Beef Paprikash, too complicated a recipe for her poem, so she included a pot roast instead.
Nancy: This is a recipe I’ve used for this dish, but I’ve never been able to replicate the version that I ate as a child. The Czech woman who cooked for us never wrote anything down, and her English was halting. I can remember my mother following Elaine around the kitchen with a pad and pencil trying to capture some of this, a pinch of that, whatever I have on hand, until it tastes right. Mother finally gave up, and we just enjoyed Elaine’s potato pancakes, goulash, sweet and sour cabbage, homemade strudel, kolacky, and other specialties for many years.
Hearty, comforting, and satisfying.
BEEF PAPRIKASH (serves 6)
1/2 cup unsalted butter 3 lbs. beef chuck, cut into 2-inch cubes salt and pepper to taste 5 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika 2 large onions, chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons tomato paste 2 cups beef stock 1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
Melt 1/4 cup butter in a heavy frying pan. Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper and 1 tablespoon paprika, brown the meat for about 15 minutes and set aside.
In a heavy pot, warm 1/4 cup butter, add onions and sauté until translucent, add garlic and remaining paprika and heat for a few more minutes. Add tomato paste, stock and beef. Bring to a boil, then simmer until beef is tender, about 2 hours.
Remove from heat and stir in sour cream. Serve with butter noodles or boiled potatoes.
*
The perfect afternoon: Nancy’s paprikash simmering on the stove, snow falling outside.
It brought to mind studying Keats in college, visiting Keats House as a newlywed, my student who saw Paul McCartney on Hampstead Heath, the famous lines from “When Harry Met Sally”: “there’s too much pepper in my pa-pri-kash.” Oh, the ever widening ripples of memory!
Award-winning poet Nancy Scott, a three time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, has published four poetry collections, the most recent of which is Detours & Diversions (Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 2011). She is the current Managing Editor of U.S. 1 Worksheets, the journal of the U.S. 1 Poets’ Cooperative in New Jersey. Her poems have also appeared in such journals as Slant, Poet Lore, Lullwater Review, and Slipstream. She once spotted Sean Connery browsing the stalls in Portobello Road. (I hope she writes a poem about that someday!) Visit her website for more info about her poetry and work as a collage artist.
Thanks so much, Nancy. Your poem and paprikash were absolutely delish!
♥ Tara at A Teaching Life is hosting today’s Poetry Friday Roundup. Stop by for the full menu of poetical dishes being served up in the blogosphere this week.
♥ Samuel Burton’s original oil painting, “Hampstead, North London,” is available for purchase here. Be sure to check out his other lovely cityscapes and landscapes!
Oh my, but I do love Sara Varon’s Bake Sale! And recently I made the brownies featured in it. *dies*☺
Such a lovely, feel-good story about friendship. This toothsome graphic novel is just quirky enough — a few squiggly degrees to the left of center — to avoid being cloying, overly sentimental, or cutesy, something that can easily happen when your main character is a pink cupcake in a town populated with walking food.
So, Cupcake is living the sweet life — bakes delectable treats at his own Sweet Tooth Bakery and plays drums in a cool band with his best friend Eggplant. Despite having won blue ribbons for Best Fruit Pie, Fluffiest Cake and Most Perfect Cookie, Cupcake gets into a baking rut.
Just so happens Eggplant is planning a trip to Turkey to visit his Aunt Aubergine, who is business partners with Turkish Delight, the greatest pastry chef in the world and Cupcake’s culinary idol.
She is the current Managing Editor of U.S. 1 Worksheets, the journal of the U.S. 1 Poets’ Cooperative in New Jersey. Her poems have also appeared in such journals as Slant, Poet Lore, Lullwater Review, and Slipstream. She once spotted Sean Connery browsing the stalls in Portobello Road. (I hope she writes a poem about that someday!) Visit her 
Jama's Alphabet Soup 