Category: edible

West Coast Poetry Project, Part 2: San Luis Obispo!

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San Luis Obispo Poem

 

for Rachel, who said I had to go to SLO

 

“Let’s just take in this purple

for a moment” and we do

as the line for meats grows

longer and the street fills

up. We thought we’d just stop

to café but we chatted to a stone

man who told us that the market

would be starting soon and here

we are. We types can’t miss

a farmers’ market. We gotta

see the squash and beans

for sale, we buy more apples

and some avocadoes and a pint

of Golden Kiwi raspberries.

A man named Rick asks to take

our picture and we say yes.

We eat our good brown bread

with cheese and talk to Rick

and watch the kids around

eat corn. Kindergarten gymnasts

do their flips and men in camo

are the band. A kid can bounce

in one of three inflated castles

and I want to. The jacarandas

haven’t finished blooming here.

We catch the purple petals

that fall and strew the ground

like rice after a wedding.

We keep our purple vows.

 

 

A poem of farewell (mine).

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Misha’s off to work in a shirt that’s too big

on him but he loves its colors. I bake the bread

 

when he leaves, mist it and cover it, cooling.

On my bike around town my clothes don’t

 

get caught in the pedals. At the café I edit

my poem, the one that’s now eight pages,

 

I drink my favorite coffee. The man to my left

says to his friend, “We’re here to share stories

 

and energy.” His beard is braided. I ride my bike

to the store, I see Christina who makes earrings

 

out of old records, John from Self-Heal, and Jeff

from the fruit stand is my cashier. I treat myself

 

to sushi at the high chair that overlooks the street

and see the Suzie’s truck roll past, the one I rode in

 

yesterday. I’ve lived here three years and the food

I eat is delicious and so much of it I’ve planted

 

with my own short thumbs. I’ve lived here three

years and I get across town on my feet, I’ve made

 

human mistakes and baked foods in summer, heat

overtaking the kitchen, the kitchen that leads

 

to the porch where tools are hung or lean, the porch

that steps out to the yard where we grilled and drank

 

and read our books, the yard we bought a table

and umbrella for, the yard where poems woke

 

the neighborhood, where sunburns sang and worms

were fed on foodscraps. Friends visited and friends

 

stopped by and friends brought food and friends

bought books or art and used up all the toilet

 

paper. We met them and we said come in and now

the nights are warm enough to let us go out

 

into them, the nights we hope will lead us

heavenward into a land we’ll plant ourselves.

 

 

 

 

A baby’s shoe! A baby bunny! A tiny artichoke!

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Not last Sunday but the Sunday before, this tiny Converse sneaker appeared on the ground just outside our market stall. Look at this! A tiny shoe! I yelled. Don’t you think it’s a hint from the universe that you should have a baby? someone asked. No! I said. It’s a hint from the universe that the more I love small, the more small that arrives! 

 

 

My really cool crew wears Converse (Owen in grey, Sara in purple) and I wear Blundstone boots with my pants cuffed because I’m short.

*

The only thing better than a tiny sneaker is a tiny creature, and here below is Little Debbie, or Little Deborah (or Debra, if you like Beck [I like Beck]). She was found at the farm on a Thursday, looking terrified and alone. She’s currently being cared for and will be let back into the wild when she’s a little bigger. But for now she’s so small she looks like a squirrel.

 

 

Here she is in her little box:

 

 

And here’s a small artichoke going bad, plus my feet and Misha’s.

 

 

 

The End.

 

Would you care for a cookie (a very small cookie)?

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I’m not a baker. How I wish I were a baker! But baking is science and all-white ingredients, and I get so bored! And I don’t have cake pans! Or an electric mixer! Or patience.

 

And now it will come as no surprise to you when I say that Misha made the above cookies. Misha’s the baker of the house.

 

 

Honey & elderberries (small things photo).

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Here is a tiny jar of elderberries. Misha’s really into the elder tree right now (for proof click here), and I’m really into small things right now, so I took some elder berries he’d dried and put them in a tiny jar with a rubber lid that I bought at the herb store. And next to it is the honey that I get at the farmer’s market every week, which Sam loves and Kathryn also loves, in fact Kathryn made a honey pie out of that honey. Sam just eats it out of the jar with a spoon. I wish I had a tiny spoon as a part of my miniature collection. Soon, little spoon.

 

 

I like how the honey looks like it’s the proud older brother of the elder jar. Like it’s puffing out its chest a little.

 

Things that are small & grown in Imperial Beach (the series continues).

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Sometimes a day involves burying dead chickens and stripping lemon verbena for tea. Sometimes that day also brings the tiniest of tiny carrots into your life. For me, that day was Wednesday. I was harvesting carrots for lunch with Misha and pulled out a handful, including the tiniest of tinies!

 

 

Here’s a shot of the smallest four, which I brought home (the others were eaten in a salad).

 

 

Then, on Thursday, I planted melons and lettuce and stacked onions for drying. And found a small onion for this project.

 

 

Then, while looking through photos, I found this one that Misha took last summer, where my face is big and shiny and strange looking. But look what I’m holding!

 

 

Onions & tomatoes come from Suzie’s Farm; the carrots are from Wild Willow.

 

Stay tuned for more tiny tinies!!

 

 

Things that are small: farmers’ market edition (photo series) (mine).

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Hello and welcome to the 2nd installation of Things that are small, where I’ll show you a fruit lineup, featuring the smallest of doughnut peaches. Doughnut peaches are like regular peaches that got sat on by very small butts. Perhaps squirrel butts? That’s funny to think of.

All fruits pictured are from Sweet Tree Farms, one of my farm bffs. Annie is their farmer (remember when I wrote about her boobs in a poem?) and yesterday was her birthday. In honor of it we all sang terribly and ate carrot cake. But nevermind carrots! Today is about tiny peaches!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Passover (I’ve been cooking) (image).

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plus I made smashed potatoes with fresh chives and rosemary. the matzoh balls are made with spelt matzoh and coconut oil and the charoset has organic diced sour cherries in it. in honor of tradition, i’ve cleaned the house of (some) crumbs. and i’ll be very, very hungry by the time we eat (it’s not passover unless you’re starved by the process!). happy first night of passover/and happy easter on sunday/& happy springtime coming in/& a very happy full moon to us & plants. amen.