The Artist in Her Kitchen
By Ethel Paquin
I’m not the cook my grandmother was.
Who could be
hampered as we are by progress.
I have the latest appliances:
Two ovens—one with convection;
a selection of food my grandmother could only dream of;
my grandmother’s recipes, written down at my request,
though she didn’t have much hope they’d help.
She was right.
Even with the latest everything,
I lack the essentials.
“Put some of the good olive oil in the pan,” she instructs.
In my four available super markets are olive oils:
triple A, super pure, cold pressed, first pressed–on and on.
Is one of them “the good oil?”
How should I know?
Where’s the spoon that measures:
“Just enough, not too much,” of anything?
The measuring cup that gauges
tomatoes so the sauce
“looks right?”
I can’t set my timer at “until it’s done” or my glass-topped, digital
range at, “so it doesn’t burn,” or my oven at “high enough.”
I try.
My family likes my cooking.
They ask for my risotto.
Friends praise my Easter Pie.
But I’ve had my grandmother’s Easter Pie
And I know mine is not “the good Easter Pie.”
For that you need the artist.
Wisdom
Copyright 2013 by Joel D. Ash
All Rights Reserved
Human mind that is primal, pristine,
Long before words and pictures are seen;
Largely blank and unformed,
Yet to be thought transformed,
Simply nascent and fallow and green.
Comes writing and numbers and facts,
When opinion and history impacts;
Ideas right and wrong,
Acts dumb and headstrong,
The sage with the fool interacts.
Education and knowledge progress,
Before scholarship doth regress;
Move forward and back,
Distress and attack,
Endless problems – – the world in a mess.
Enlightenment tough to achieve,
The good and the bad interweave;
For wisdom we strive,
What we need to survive,
Shining goal in which all can believe.
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