sides, salads, and appetizers

kelly polark turns up the volume

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#7 in the Poetry Potluck Series, celebrating National Poetry Month 2010.


        credit: mhthomps.

Okay. Be honest. How many TVs do you have in your house?

Does every member of your family own a cell phone? Everybody with his/her own iPod, laptop, Kindle and digital camera? Does your Wii keep you extra fit? And are you one of those people who simply had to get an iPad the second it went on sale?

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. They help us stop time, save time, waste time. How did we ever manage without them? Champion headbanger/comic-in-training/uber-cool blogger Kelly Polark is here to share a poem from her collection about electronic gadgets, Plug into Poetry. She wrote these as part of an assignment for Heidi Roemer’s ABC’s of Poetry course. Seems like a fun way to take a closer look at all those wires and circuits we’ve all become so enamoured with. What has your TV said to you lately?

THE TV SPEAKS

 

Pretty cool, no? I like all the suggestions except “Clean your room.” I would rather have George Clooney come over and help me with my dusting. ☺

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sides, salads, and appetizers archive

~ jama

Fierce Bad Rabbit’s Carrot and Raisin Salad

Thelma’s Corn Pudding (from Alice’s Restaurant Cookbook)

Korean Cucumber Kimchee (from my mother, Margaret)

Almanzo’s Fried Apples and Onions (from Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

Korean Japchae

Korean Chun (veggies fried in egg batter)

Sonoma Chicken Salad

Pasta Salad with Creamy Pesto Sauce

Sweet Potato-Apple Latkes

Coronation Chicken

Sweet Potato Fries (The Little Big Cookbook for Moms)

 

friday feast: alice and arlo

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“Don’t be intimidated by foreign cookery. Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.” ~ Alice May Brock

Photo of Alice by Howell Conant, Source: NPR.org.

During the holidays, I like listening to Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.”

The “Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat” makes me happy, along with Officer Obie, the Group W bench, and of course, those “twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.”

Dang fine example of the talkin’ blues, a classic 60’s counterculture, anti-war/anti-draft satirical ballad that still rings true 42 years after its release. I’ve been lucky enough to hear Arlo sing it in person a couple of times, and admit to having a crush on him when I was sixteen. Sigh. I wore out the A-Side of my album (some of the best 18-minute interludes I’ve ever had). When the movie came out with Arlo starring in it, I really really wanted to become a hippie, celebrate Thanksgiving with all those people, and help dump the garbage.

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SOUP’S ON: Tanita S. Davis in the Kitchen Interview!

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Recipe for a Delicious Young Adult Novel:

Take one smart-as-a-whip, talented, vegetarian, Thai-food-loving, gregariously introverted, voracious reader and lifelong writer named Tanita S. Davis,

Give her a laptop, quiet time, patience, perseverance, and a husband, David, who just happens to be the world’s best baker,

Allow her imagination to concoct a coming-of-age story about a 17-year-old girl named Lainey, who dreams of having her own vegetarian cooking show;

Add Lainey’s ex-best friend and secret crush, Simeon, who stirs things up by hanging with new friends, taking her for granted, and suddenly leaving home,

Then let everything simmer and stew in scenes that are fresh, biting, sweet, a little spicy, and explosive, every chapter enhanced with handwritten recipes —

And you have, One. Feast. Of. A. Good. Book.

A La Carte, Tanita’s first novel, was just released in June, and I would call it a favorite even if I wasn’t already shamelessly partial to food-related books. The kitchen scenes are engaging, sensual, convincing, and emotionally resonant, and the story of how Lainey comes into her own, despite being treated so poorly by the guy she loves, will stay with me for a long time.

Originally from California, Tanita is visiting today from Glasgow, Scotland, where she lives with David in a converted church called the Angel Building. How cool is that?! Some of you may know that she’s also an avid blogger, reviewer, and champion of YA books, who goes by the name of TadMack. And this girl can cook! I know you’ll enjoy what she’s serving up today:

Read the Interview!

thought for the week

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from THE TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER by Beatrix Potter (Frederick Warne & Co., Inc., 1903)


“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”

~  Beatrix Potter (July 28, 1866 – December 22, 1943)

**BONUS RECIPE in honor of Miss Potter’s birthday:

FIERCE BAD RABBIT’S CARROT-RAISIN SALAD
(serves 4)

2 carrots
2 apples
1 rib of celery
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt
1/4 cup chopped nuts, optional
lettuce leaves

Wash the carrots and scrape with a vegetable peeler. Place a metal grater on a piece of wax paper and grate the carrots, using the large ice-cream-cone-shaped openings of the grater. Put the grated carrots in the mixing bowl.

Wash the apples, but do not peel them. Cut them in half and then in quarters. Cut out the core, and cut the apples into small pieces.

Wash the celery and chop it. Add the celery, apples, and raisins to the carrots. Sprinkle with salt and lemon juice. Stir in mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt.

Serve the salad on lettuce leaves and sprinkle with nuts if you like them.

~adapted from Peter Rabbit’s Natural Foods Cookbook by Arnold Dobrin (Frederick Warne & Co., 1977).