Life of Spice

SPICE RACK FAVORITES
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Magazine page from an unremembered source,
saved for decades in my recipe notebook.

Kind of like opening a spice drawer,
I googled "poems about spices,"
and found so many!
1. All the spices dancing, including the "feisty" peppercorns:

Nine Spice Mix
by Zeina Azzam

"This spice mix is featured in many of the dishes in this book,
lending them a uniquely Palestinian flavor."
— Reem Kassis, The Palestinian Table
First they tango on my tongue,
nimble couples careening,
then together
form an Arab-style line dance
stepping, stomping, swaying.

West Indies allspice dazzles,
berries tangling with cinnamon sticks,
while cloves, Indonesian natives,
lead with a spirited solidarity solo.

Coriander seeds offer greetings in Hindi
as others toast comrades in languages
beyond borders and blockades.

Lifting up sisterhood, sun-wizened nutmeg
starts a sibling dance with mace.
Cumin demurs, then surprises
with subtle exultation.

Queen of spices cardamom,
host of the party, gives a nod to flavors
in hiding: lemony, sweet, warm,
fragrant, nutty, pungent, hot.

Encouraged, feisty black peppercorns
shimmy center stage, organizing
the unique union of nine
for a vivacious global salute.


2. Another long rhyming list of spices, swirling, sacred:

Sacred Spice
by Deb Blakley

Fragrant and beautiful Star Anise
Pepper worth fortunes, crossing the seas,
Garlic to heal you and Cumin to shout,
Cinnamon, sweet as a kiss on the mouth.

Cloves, for preserving and also for pain,
Nutmeg, the bringer of fortune and fame,
Cardamom, Sesame, pale Ginger too,
Swirled into curries, stir-fries or stews.

Comfortable herbs of Basil and Thyme,
Sage and Oregano, Tarragon, Freeze Dried Chives.
Parsley, helping the others to blend,
Rosemary, Lovage, Marjoram, Mint.

Set them to simmer for tincture or tea,
for poison or poultice, or visions to see.
Powerful Turmeric, worker of wonders,
Allspice from islands of sunshine and thunder.

Bark, root and berry, leaf, seed and flower,
pick, dry and sort them, sweat them for hours.
Born of Creation and blessing us twice,
with health and with flavor, sweet sacred spice.


3. Spices as metaphor for a loving relationship,
all the "doors and windows" and spice jars open:

Filling Spice Jars as Your Wife
by Kai Coggin

It seems like all my poems
after this will be different,
they will hold a different weight
like how the weight of my heart
has shifted into indistinguishable float,
into lifting cloud,
into weightless flight tonight
as the rain gently falls
on the summer-heated tin roof,
the din of casual raindrops
and warm low lights glowing
and wind blowing through the house,
we have all our doors and windows open.

We have all our doors and windows open
and I am pouring spices into glass jars,
coriander cinnamon cumin ground sage
and it’s hard to describe this
moment in the confines of a page,
tiny hills of vibrant color
and intoxicating fragrance
and you hear the cadence
of my heart
from the kitchen
where you build the perfect fitting slip-in shelves
for our spices over the stove,
match the colors,
match my colors to yours,
I have all my doors and windows open to you.


4. Cooking tips and life lessons, passed from mother to child;
and the peppercorns again -- this time "wild":

My Mother's Spices
by Margo LaGattuta

Cooking in my mother’s kitchen,
now that she’s gone, gives me
an odd feeling. Sprinkling cardamom
and sweet basil into the chili,
I think of when she last used these
to spice up a beef stew. What
was she thinking as she poured
marjoram and Mrs. Dash onto
her lamb chops? I wonder—
and notice how paprika
sticks until I tap it on the edge
of the counter. Nutmeg loosens like

memory and pours out full
and rich. Mother was shy
with spices sometimes, Don’t
use too much! she’d call to me
while I was joyously seasoning
meatloaf with rosemary leaves.
Don’t make it too hot, she’d
remind me as I minced a garlic clove
or cut an onion with tears in my eyes.

She liked to live carefully, thought
I was a hooligan the way I went
wild sometimes with peppercorns.
Even her dying was careful and slow.
My mother wanted to do it right,
and she lay there for weeks
in Charlevoix hospital after her last stroke.

Always take your time, she once told me.
You’ll want to get the seasoning just right.


5. Perfect for the season, all the red and yellow spices;
golden October the color of saffron and turmeric:

Spice
by Lori Levy

It's the time of year I want to be there, not here:
back east, where the hills flush red as guilt,
as if a secret has been exposed.
But there is no secret; just October
in Vermont. Saffron, turmeric,
chili pepper on the leaves.

It's taken years for me to notice;
only now I can admit
that here, too, the trees break out
in spicy salsa flames—
though it's our winter that sizzles:
November and December
when Liquidambars blaze as brightly
as the maples I have yearned for.
Too long I've missed the scarlet
of crepe myrtles in L.A. . . .

not just leaves turning red,
not paprika, sweet or hot,
but the glow they spark in me—
and whatever in that fervor feels
like revelry, rebellion.
Something fierce unleashed

makes me blush like those hills.
[ellipses in original]


6. Another mother - daughter reminiscence,
a whirl of nostalgic spices:

Whirlwind of Spices
by Anya Patel

A whirlwind of spices
Can make you cough
The powder gets breathed deep into your lungs
It tickles the back of your throat with its wings
A whirlwind of spices
Can make your eyes water and twitch
The particles dissolve on your pupils and make them itch and burn
A whirlwind of spices
Can make you feel nostalgic
your mother is holding your hand as you stir a big pot
A whirlwind of spices
smells like a restaurant explosion in the kitchen
hot and exciting
A whirlwind of spices
Flutters down on your skin
Like someone is blinking on your arm
Someone with spices dissolved on their pupils


7. Another list of nearly every spice,
from Time to Thyme:

The Spice of Life
Esther Spurrill-Jones

Time
Does not
Stop, so I
Will savour life
In all its flavour:
I want cardamom and
Cloves, anise, and cinnamon,
Peppermint, dill, licorice,
Chives, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

O will you be a true love of mine
And be for me the salt and spice?
Burst on my tongue like ginger,
Cumin, garlic, relish,
Horseradish, mustard,
Coriander,
Rosemary,
Sage, and
Thyme.
Favorite Spice Mix Recipes
And tins to keep them in . . .

Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, October 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Spice Mix Recipes
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com


Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Sewing Box Lost Forever

~ Posting nine days late ~
In conjuction with my grandmother's 134th birthday.

BELONGING TO ROVILLA
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

My grandmother's tooled leather wallet.

Mary Rovilla Heidemann Lindsey
(October 8, 1891 - June 14, 1966)

It has been almost five years ago since my siblings, cousins, and I sorted out the storage unit filled with our grandparents' belongings. Grandma died back in 1966 (when I was 9), and Grandpa in 1983 (when I was 26). Mom lived until 2020, so she had 35 years or so to look through all these things, but she declined the responsibility, leaving it all for us kids to deal with. Dressers, tables, clothes, dishes, linens, ancient medicines, sheet music, books, pictures, letters from World War I, memorabilia of all kinds: a hefty chore, but also a blessing of sorts. As my brothers pointed out, maybe it was worth it, just to spend that time with our cousins reliving all the childhood memories that came flooding back, right down to the scent of pine tar soap that wafted from the old locked medicine chest. That was Grandpa and Grandma's house, alright. We inhaled deeply, savored the moment, then tossed out the fifty - year old health and beauty aids.

That's how it went. We had to decide that day what to save and what to throw away. No more procrastinating, as our elders had done. We applied ourselves to the task and wore ourselves out emotionally, making the decisions -- some easy, some hard. Satisfied with the results of our familial effort, we each went away with a small heap of dusty treasures -- and the rest went to the dump. We had to use our own best judgment and trust that we had not inadvertently trashed any valuables. Even I, the most sentimental archivist and border-line hoarder of the family, felt satisfied with the culling and de-possessing (i.e, The Swedish Death Cleanse).

However, just as I was dropping off to sleep that night, a sudden stray thought disturbed my peace of mind: Grandma's Sewing Box. Halfway through the day, one of my brothers had held it up, "Look what I found!" I had not laid eyes upon it nor even thought of it for decades, but there it was, exactly as we remembered, about 12" x 16" and 6" deep, covered in a faded lime green fabric with small orange hexagons and maybe a line-drawn snowflake design inside of each hex. Kind of a cross between calico and Art Deco and Pennsylvania Dutch. A definite keeper for the "save" pile. What a treat it would be to open it later that evening -- like a time capsule -- to see what had been hidden away inside all these years: my grandmother's scissors and thimbles, her last bit of embroidery or mending, her older brother's pencil drawings, her own fashion designs on scraps of paper, maybe a card or tiny present that I myself had given her.

But where was it? I knew for certain that it was not in my "save" pile or anyone else's. What had happened? Someone else called my name to "come and see"? Another task caught my attention? Another choice to make? Whatever it was, I had missed out the crucial step of setting that treasure box aside, and now it was gone from me forever. I cried myself to sleep that night, and many nights after, before gradually accepting the finality of the loss.

After that, I started playing this little game in my head whenever I need to part with some bygone artifact; I look at whatever it is I can’t decide about and say to myself, “If you can live without Grandma Lindsey’s sewing box, you can live without this.” Sometimes it’s easy — like a pile of plastic hangers. Other times, more of a struggle. Whenever I start to grieve some valuable (to me) object that I have lost in one way or another, I simply compare it to the sad mistake of losing the sewing box. For example, of all the things I've thrown away with no regret, I kind of wish I'd kept my Weekly Reader collection, along with my junior high art portfolio; but I can live without them, right?

As usual, literature can help. A couple of years later, while reading of a lost pearl earring, my heart broke a little more, but also healed a little. On a forced train ride to a Japanese internment camp, on top of all her other losses, the mother loses a favorite earring, and her little son asks:

"What did it look like?"

"It looked like a pearl," she said.
"It was a pearl."

"Maybe it rolled behind the seat."

"Or maybe," she said, "it's just gone.
Sometimes things disappear and
there’s no getting them back.
That's just how it is.” (p 86)

~ Julie Otsuka ~ ~
When the Emperor Was Divine~
In my case, the sewing box -- like the pearl earring -- was just gone, and there was no getting it back. That's just how it was. Yet all was not lost. Fate may have deprived me of one keepsake, but it gave me a couple of others instead, both handmade by Rovilla.

1. My cousin Larry Foster wrote with some exciting and heartfelt news: "I was going through some of my Grandmother Elizabeth Miller Taylor's things and found a doily that your Grandmother Rovilla made for her in 1965. It was stored in a glass jar along with a note explaining its history. We think you or another direct descendant of Rovilla should have it."

Elizabeth and Rovilla were beloved first cousins, known for exchanging gifts, letters, and visits over the years. Elizabeth's daughter Josie (Larry's mother) and Rovilla's daughter Mary (my mother) were favorite second cousins. And thanks to the carefully kept records of our ancestors and the miracle of facebook, I have been able in recent years to meet up with Josie's children -- Larry, and his siblings Cindy and Jeff. How kind of my third cousins to pass this family treasure back to me! Here is Elizabeth's note:

Gerry had the idea to keep the doily on the countertop
underneath our electric kettle, since that was Rovilla’s
original idea when she gave it to Elizabeth.

2. Back on that fateful day at the storage facility, one item that made it safely to the "save" pile was this quilt, wrapped in a brown paper bag, finished to perfection but apparently never used, now hanging on the wall in my guest room:

Did my mother even know that this quilt existed among her mother's things? I don't think so. I feel she would have told me about it if she had known. If she had looked inside the bag, I think she would have taken the quilt out and maybe kept it folded at the foot of her bed. My guess is that when Mom cleared out Grandma's closet, she stored the quilt without any investigation. This note, in Rovilla's writing was attached:

If only it was dated. Rovilla was very good about documenting heirlooms and writing dates on photographs, but not this time. It could have been no later than the mid - 1960's, but who knows how much earlier? I love the note because it features Rovilla's lovely cursive style; but, as you can see, the straight pen was rusty and, fearing damage to the fabric, I removed the note, photographed it, and stored it carefully -- can you guess where? Neither can I! As a coda to today's theme of loss, the note itself has become one of those troublesome items, stored so safely that I have outsmarted myself and forgotten where I put it. Will it come into my life again? Will I find it in a family scrapbook or photo album? Or is it just gone for good -- like the sewing box and the pearl -- as poet Elizabeth Bishop says, "filled with the intent to be lost":

One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

by Elizabeth Bishop (1911 – 1979)
Poet Laureate of the United States, 1949 to 1950
Pulitzer Prize Winner, 1956
See previous post: Lost & Found

Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Autumnal Auth

~ Posting eight days late ~
In conjuction with the Autumnal Equinox.

FALL ARRIVES
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

This tribute to Tony Auth
is drawn from two previous Quotidian Posts:
Equinox: Growing Darkness
and September Morn

No one could capture the arrival of fall quite like Pulitzer Prize - winning American cartoonist Tony Auth (1942 - 2014). When we lived in Philadelphia, it was always a treat to open the Inquirer around this time of year and see how Auth would capture the end of season. Always humorous, yet poignant, Auth knew how to convey that keen sense of sadness that comes with leaving the shore and returning to school, not merely because the fun is over but, more significantly, because life is urging us on at its own pace, not ours.

As C. S. Lewis writes in The Screwtape Letters: "The humans live in time, and experience life successively. To experience much of it . . . they must experience change." Thus, Lewis explains, God has given us the seasons, which strike a balance between our need for change and our longing for permanence: "each season different yet every year the same. . . . always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme."*

Here are a few more end of summer Auth favorites that I have been saving in my scrapbook for many years. I appreciate Auth's implication that in addition to the inevitability of seasonal change, a bit of each season is always lying just beneath the surface of every other season as well (click on each cartoon here and above to enlarge for details):



As my Grand-dad Lindsey always used to say
on the First of September:
"September morn
when the woodbine twineth
and the whacky - doodle mourneth."

~ This Google Doodle captures the spirit! ~

Around this time of year,
my brother Bruce always reminds me to listen to
*Mother Earth and Father Time
from the animated Charlotte's Web
~ sung by Debbie Reynolds ~

I think you'll find that the "immemorial theme"
of the song matches right up with
Tony Auth's drawings and the C. S. Lewis passage.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

by Mary Oliver (b 1935)
Contemporary American Poet
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1984
Most recently: Swan: Poems and Prose Poems, 2010

this poem found in The New York Times, 5 November 2010

Next Fortnightly Post
Travel delays expected!

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Late Summer Cranes

CRANES FLYING TOGETHER
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

The Cranes

We thought they were gulls at first,
while they were distant-
The two cranes flying out of a natural morning,
They circled twice about our house and sank,
Their long legs drooping, down over the wood.
We saw their wings flash white,
Frayed at the black tip,
And heard their harsh cry, like a rusty screw.

Down in the next field, shy and angular,
They darted their long necks in the grass for fish.
They would not have us close, but shambled coyly,
Ridiculous, caught on the ground. Yet our fields
Under their feet became a fen: the sky
That was blue July became watery November,
And echoing with the cries of foreign birds.

By Anne Ridler

The Sandhills

The language of cranes
we once were told
is the wind. The wind
is their method,
their current, the translated story
of life they write across the sky.
Millions of years
they have blown here
on ancestral longing,
their wings of wide arrival,
necks long, legs stretched out
above strands of earth
where they arrive
with the shine of water,
stories, interminable
language of exchanges
descended from the sky
and then they stand,
earth made only of crane
from bank to bank of the river
as far as you can see
the ancient story made new.

By Linda Hogan

The Flight

We are two eagles
Flying together
Under the heavens,
Over the mountains,
Stretched on the wind.
Sunlight heartens us,
Blind snow baffles us,
Clouds wheel after us
Ravelled and thinned.

We are like eagles,
But when Death harries us,
Human and humbled
When one of us goes,
Let the other follow,
Let the flight be ended,
Let the fire blacken,
Let the book close.

by Sara Teasdale
Also Autumn & Flight & Flight & Faults

~ Wedgwood Bell Kutani Crane ~

And this song:
Cranes Flying South
Sung by Petula Clark (b. 1932)

The dew in your hair
The rain on a river
The cold morning air
And cranes flying south

We ran through the trees
And into the valley
And stood on the breeze
Like cranes flying south

To leave the world behind us
The coldness of despair
The chains that try to bind us
Will vanish in the air

So touch me again
And drink at the fountain
Then over the mountain
Like cranes flying south . . .

Next Fortnightly Post ~ Celebrating the Autumnal Equinox
Delayed until September 22nd

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

At the Clavier

THE CLAVIER
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~
Clavier = a variety of keyboard instruments,
including harpsichords, pianos, organs, and virginals.

The Music Lesson (c. 1662–1665)
aka Woman Seated at a Virginal
aka Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman

by Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675)
Vermeer's "The Music Lesson"
explained by Meryl Streep

This post contains all of Goethe's suggestions for a good day:
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song,
read a good poem, see a fine picture
and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words."

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) ~

Firstly, a fine picture -- as seen above & below:

Susanna and the Elders (1751)
by Pompeo Batoni (1708 – 1787)

and to follow -- a little song,
a good poem, a few reasonable words.

Secondly, the song:
Click to hear
"The Well-Tempered Clavier" (1722)
by J. S. Bach (1685 - 1750)
explained by Karen Rile


Thirdly, the poem:
A hard one to grasp back in the 1970s, and still
many mysteries of perception to grapple with

Peter Quince at the Clavier
I
Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna:

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb

In witching chords, and their thin blood

Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

II
In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned--
A cymbal crashed,
And roaring horns.

III
Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines,
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

IV
Beauty is momentary in the mind —
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body's beauty lives,
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of Winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scrapings.

Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise. (1915)

by Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955)
Set to music: by Dominick Argento


Fourthly, a few reasonable words
from blogger Ira Fader,
bringing Stevens' poem into the 21st Century


Fifthly, fun - fact movie tie - in:

In Galaxy Quest, Tim Allen's character plays a character named Peter Quincy Taggart. That character is named after the character from Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Quince, who was the leader of an incompetent acting troupe made of skilled laborers.

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, August 28th

Between now and then, read ~ more Stevens on FN & QK
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Happy Birthday Anyway

~ Posting slightly early ~
In honor of Victoria Amador's birthday!

ECSTATIC EMILY
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Nope! Not exactly!
Unfortunately, a latter - day writer -- not Emily! --
has faked the second half of this quotation
and attributed the entire passage to Dickinson.

I could tell you the whole story,
but this wise blogger already
figured it out TWENTY (20!) years ago!

I only happened to notice it this summer
when I purchased an appealing birthday card
and wanted to verify the original poem or letter
in which these words first appeared.

The Wrong Way
Don't be fooled!
Apparently, even "Brainy Quote" is not always so brainy:

The Right Way

As you can see, Dickinson's intended message has more of an edge than the late 20th C feel - good re-write. It is a poem of warning, and nowhere does Dickinson use the word "ecstatic." She advises the reader: be ready or you'll miss your chance!

Poem #1055
The Soul should always stand ajar
That if the Heaven inquire
He will not be obliged to wait
Or shy of troubling Her

Depart, before the Host have slid
The Bolt unto the Door —
To search for the accomplished Guest,
Her Visitor, no more —

Additional Misattributions

As I keep asking my friend Victoria
~ whose birthday we celebrate today! ~
"Is nothing sacred?"

Or must we perpetually fall from innocence,
no matter how old we grow?

Perhaps the answer to that question is "yes,"
and perhaps it always has been,
which is why Dickinson says:

"We turn not older with years,
but newer every day."

All we can do is the make the best of it,
and have a Happy Birthday Anyway!
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, August 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Not Older With the Years
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com