WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE: LUNCHTIME

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Crab, Food, foodie, Gettin' Crabby, I Love Lunch, Lunch, phoneography, postaday, postaweek 2013, Stern-House, the Musical, weekly photo challenge

It’s phonoegraphy month, and what do we love to photograph with our cameraphones? Food, says WordPress Michelle. So why fight it? This week’s theme is “lunchtime.”

Be honest. Do you really care what I had for lunch? I admit it, I’m a foodie, a Feinschmecker ~ I live to eat, in a let’s-go-to-Gettin’-Crabby-at-the-Stern-House-I hear-they-do-a-mean-crab-plate kind of way.  (And, while we’re being honest, it’s true~ I really do care what you have for lunch.  Do tell.)

Yet even in a world of galloping hyperbole, it’s a struggle to find thrillingly edgy words to describe my lunch at Gettin’ Crabby.

Mmmmmmm.  Crab. Just a short scuttle from the happy kitchen to me.

But for this guy, gettin’ a crab fix takes work. Some serious commitment is involved here.

Ah, the thrill of risk and reward.  There’s no quit in that guy.

Love lunch?  Sing it loud.

Toni 3/17/17

A READABLE FEAST

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advertising, best tweet of the Superbowl, braciole, cooking, dunking in the dark, Food, guacamole, Joseph Bathanti, Kevin Young, Nemo, poems, poetry, postaday, postaweek 2013, social media, The Hungry Ear, winter storm

Tuck in your napkins, people.  Today’s post is all about food.  Food in verse, that is.

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Sometimes poetry is more than just poetry.

The Hungry Ear is a collection of poems that celebrates the pleasures and sorrows of food.  Kevin Young cooked up, er, edited this book.  He says that, much like the best meals, the best poems are made from scratch.

I like the sound of that.  It’s the way we do things in my kitchen. Fatto a mano.

My Grandmother made braciole.  I bet poet Joseph Bathanti’s did, too.

Braciole is a Sicilian dish and, yes, it starts with a hammer.  Unless you have a butcher in the village like Lina’s.

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Braciole by Joseph Bathanti 

With the cast iron claw

hammer – burnished

silver in endless

bouts of fire, forged
in Manfredonia,
Puglia,

by my blacksmith
grandfather, Paolo
Battiante, arrived

at Ellis Island
on the Luisiana,
out of the province

of Foggia, 1907,
where his name
was altered, like so many,

the hammer secreted
in his tunic –
my mother pounds

on butcher block
flank steak to temper,
then lays on each softened tongue

olive oil, garlic, parsley,
salt and pepper, before
trussing them into scrolls

bound with string
from Stagno’s Bakery,
and dropping them

into the incarnadine majesty
of the sauce to roil
the rest of our lives. Amen.

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Here’s a Poetic à la carte menu to whet your appetite ~  

Butter   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/1902

To Eat of Meat Joyously  http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/eat-meat-joyously

Speed and Perfection http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/hirshfield_speedandperfection.html

Artichoke  http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7611

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Food is pop culture. It’s who we are.  It sustains us.  It connects us.  So does poetry.

Finally, an Homage to Guacamole. Make some today. If the timid-but-stormy Clownfish is torqued to the limit, tomorrow we’ll be dunking in the dark.

Do you have a favorite food poem?

Or one you wrote from scratch?

Toni 2/6/13

TEN REASONS WHY IT’S MERAVIGLIOSO TO BE ITALIAN DURING THE HOLIDAYS

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Befana, caffe corretto, Christmas, Christmas Eve, eel, Epiphany, Feast of the Seven Fishes, Food, Happiness, Italian tradition, memoir, postaweek2012, Prosecco, shepards, zampognari

My Big Italian Family savors every moment of life.  They are jolly, laugh-launching and absurdly generous….especially with hugs and food.

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It goes without saying ~ no one goes hungry.  The celebration begins on Christmas Eve, December 24 and does not end until January 6, The Feast of the Epiphany.  It’s all about The Family… and The Food.

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Ten Reasons Why it’s Meraviglioso to be Italian during the Holidays

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10. La Vigilia di Natale

Italians abstain from meat the night before a major holiday.  Christmas Eve is The Feast of the Seven Fishes. The origin of the seven is somewhat of a mystery. Some say it comes from the number of sacraments; others say it relates to the phase of the moon (seven days). My grandmother called it di magro (magro means “thin”).

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9.  Zampognari

On Christmas Eve, the zampognari, shepards in the parish, dress in costume and play Christmas tunes on their bagpipes.

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8.  Capitone

The long, fat female eel that is grilled until it’s brown and crunchy, then salted ~ delizioso.

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7. Midnight Mass

Italians attend midnight mass and later enjoy panettone, the dome-shaped fruit cake that originated in Milan, with a glass or three of Prosecco, a straw-colored sparkling wine.

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6. La Befana

On January 6, The Feast of the Epiphany, Italians get gifts. The presents come from La Befana, an old crone with a hairy mole on her chin who rides around on a broom. La Befana flies through the sky, sweeping away last year’s troubles and bringing the hope of a sweeter, brighter New Year.

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5. Caffé Corretto

Italians drink Caffé Corretto or corrected espresso. They put sugar in the espresso, stir and drink. And always leave a little of it at the bottom of the cup ~ so they can add grappa and swirl it while the cup is still hot from the espresso. Felicemente.

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4. Pasta e Fagioli

A bean and pasta soup, hearty comfort food that Italians eat on Fridays during Advent.

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3. Panettone

This is the traditional Italian Christmas Bread. It’s divine for breakfast with a big schmear of mascarpone cheese. Or after dinner with a glass of Marsala. (I saw Giada make French toast with Panettone.  The recipe is on Toni’s page.  Do try it.)

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2. What Italians Do Best, Italianissimo

Such a seductive culture ~ art, balsamico, apertivo, digestivo, caffe, carnevale, limoncello, gelato, l’olio d’oliva, opera, parmigiano-reggiano, pasta, pizza, vino, and, yes, even burning the pin feathers off chickens and saving the feet for soup.  Everything is better in Italian ~ especially the over-the-moon-elating singing, hugging, yelling, kissing, talking, talking, talking.

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1. There Is Always A Place at the Table.

And it’s covered with a pleasure lode of Love ~ Zia Mary’s fried peppers, Grandma’s C’s ravioli, Nonna’s baked onions, Uncle Dom’s sausage and pigs’ feet, Uncle Joe’s cheese, Joe the Store’s pasta, Uncle Al’s vino di casa, Auntie Joanie’s baccala, Mom’s stuffed anchovy peppers, Grandma G’s fish gravy, Grandma R’s rice and “scrapmeat”, Auntie Angie’s zeppole, Auntie Dolly’s pie, Auntie Mary’s Christmas cookies and, always, always, bottles of homemade wine.

2013 is here ~ wear some red, clean the house.  Buon Capodanno!

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Toni 1/1/13

Arrivederci, 2012….