In the Beginning...

With the poetry blog in hibernation, I"m starting this place to acknowledge the degree to which cooking has taken over my creative energies n the past few months. Having long been a by-the-book cook, requiring the security of exact measurement and published recipe, it's astonishing to find myself venturing off from the printed instruction and experimenting (with so far yummy results!). Something recently clicked when I realized that ingredients are media of form, texture and color just as the art I've spent years in conversation with. That language too possesses a physical and sensual dimension that the analytic nature of postmodern poetry seems too distant from, and that these qualities build a process of composition partially by accident, partially in reference to well-known tropes, mingles the creative act in the kitchen with the creative act on the page to me. As I've joked to people who've asked me how my writing's going lately- it's not, but I'm cooking, and more people seem to "get" my cooking. I wish more of us could undo our training as readers to "get" contemporary poetry, as process of getting that I would argue is in no way dissimilar to eating a meal.

So off the page it is. The first glimmer of this step came a few weeks ago when I thought to use up some whole grain couscous leftover in the fridge by using it to make a rice pudding. Having never made a rice pudding before, I scooted around online to see what the basic parameters of rice pudding are.. and was delighted to discover that it is a dish that nearly every culture around the world claims and makes its own: with coconut milk and mango in Thailand; with aborio rice and candied citron in Italy; with pistachios and rosewater in the Middle East; with cardamom in India; and arroz con leche throughout Latin America. My North African version featured dates, cinnamon, honey and almonds. It was also made with skim milk since I cook a low-fat bias.

Constraints are a useful part of an artistic process, I've found.. continuing to put one in a place that forces choices and innovation. In the gasto realm, J and I start out as vegetarians who make an exception for fish. Add to that the desire to eat low-fat, organic and seasonally. In the last few weeks, I've been cooking with an eye toward omitting wheat, gluten and dairy as well, at the recommendation of my acupuncurist. So what to eat? Plenty! And I've got a weekend of catching up to do.