Tag: nourish

Savory food writing.

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For what is home if not the first place where you learn what does and does not nourish you? The first place you learn to sit still and slow down when someone offers you a bite to eat?

— Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees (Ecco, April 30, 2024)

Notes:

  • Kirkus Review of Bite by Bite: …A collection of flavorful memories. Poet and essayist Nezhukumatathil, award-winning author of World of Wonders, creates a graceful memoir centered on 40 different kinds of food, some exotic, some familiar, all evoking recollections of childhood, family, travels, friendships, and much more. “This book is a bite of personal and natural history,” she writes, “a serving if you will—scooped up with a dollop of the bounty and largesse of the edible world.” With a father from India and a mother from the Philippines, some of the author’s memories center on traditional food such as kaong, the fruit of the sugar palm, prized in Filipino salads; jackfruit, her favorite fruit, which she first tasted during a visit to her grandparents in Kerala; bangus, the national fish of the Philippines, served fried as part of breakfast; and lumpia, a deep-fried Filipino finger food, with a crisp outer skin filled with chicken, ground beef or pork, carrots, and green beans. She takes sides in her parents’ debate over which mangoes are sweetest, those from India or those from the Philippines. For her, it’s Alphonso mangoes, from India, “hands down.” Eating lychees reminds her of her 20s, when she lived in Buffalo and would fly to New York City to meet friends. She’d buy a sackful of lychees, eating them happily on a bench while people-watching. Cherries, figs, and maple syrup are among other foods that elicit the author’s lyrical responses. The taste of apple banana, for example, “becomes a party in your mouth featuring a banana host and a sort of pineapple-strawberry DJ spinning tunes.” Her memoir is not unlike halo-halo, a mixture of unexpected ingredients that make for a delectable dessert. “With halo-halo,” she writes, “you never know what you are going to discover and when.”Savory food writing.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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A poet is someone
Who can pour Light into a spoon,
Then raise it
To nourish
Your beautiful, parched holy mouth.

~ Hafiz, “Your Beautiful, Parched Holy Mouth” in I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy: Renderings of Hafiz (Penguin, 2006)

Notes:

  • Poem: Thank you Make Believe Boutique. Illustration: bakanohealthy
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

 

To enter life, be food

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honey-jar

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.
Sometimes the way in is a song.
But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding and beauty.
To enter stone, be water.
To rise through hard earth,
be plant desiring sunlight,
believing in water.
To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food.

~ Linda Hogan, The Way In, from Rounding the Human Corners

Linda Hogan, 66, is Chickasaw. She is an internationally recognized public speaker and writer of poetry, fiction, and essays. Her books Rounding the Human Corners and Mean Spirit were Pulitzer Prize nominees. In poetry, The Book of Medicines was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other poetry has received the Colorado Book Award, Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, an American Book Award, and a prestigious Lannan Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. In addition, she has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Her main interests as both writer and scholar are environmental issues, indigenous spiritual traditions and culture.

Image Source: Jon Brown. Poem Source: Christina Sanantonio. Bio Source: Linda Hogan’s website & wiki.