If you read my last post you might be interested to know how they came out. So, here they are, dusted with powdered sugar and on the cooling rack…the family verdict:
WOW! These are really good, what’s in them?
And that’s from a man who spreads butter AND nutella on his Pan d’oro and a 5 year old girl who tells me that the meatballs needed just a little more salt and that she wants her basalmic vinegar next to but not on the cheese. To me the texture was pleasingly like a ‘sandy’, both light and tender.
So, if you were feeling a bit gun-shy of trying a ‘healthy’ cookie made with whole-wheat and buckwheat flour, jump right in and give them a try, they’re easy to make and delicious!
Several weeks ago I was at the Italian version of Whole Foods Market (only much smaller). I was getting some nice organic flour for my bread making and on the aisle on the way to the register I ran across a package of ‘mixed seeds’ on sale, it had pumpkin, sesame and sunflower in there (some of my favorites) and then ‘grano saraceno tostato’. Thinking the Italian version of ‘hmmm, well, what d’ya know?’ which is the much shorter ‘boh.’ – I plopped the little package into my basket and went on with my day. Of course when I offered some to my curious 5 year old daughter – “Hey, want some of these seeds on your yogurt?”, her inevitable question: “What kind of seeds?!?” was not to be fobbed off with a quick, “Lots of different ones.” So, I had to lay one of each kind out on the table in a row from smallest to largest, and give them their appropriate names in English and Italian:
semi di sesamo = sesame seed semi di lino = flax seed grano saracenotostato = boh, I don’t know, toasted Saracen grain? semi di girasole = sunflower seed semi di zucca = pumpkin seed
And of course mamma’s “I don’t know” was pounced on. Robin Kay: “What’s Saracen grain?” Mamma: “It must be these little triangular ones that are so crunchy.” Robin Kay: “But is it called that in English?” Mamma: “I don’t think so, but I don’t know exactly what it’s called in English…let’s look it up”
On behalf of mamma’s the world over, I offer my profound thanks to Wikipedia! I found the entry in Italian and went down the language list to English and in a click there it was:
Mamma: “Oh look, it’s Buckwheat, like in Ol’ Suzanna (singing) ‘a buckwheat cake was in her mouth, a tear was in her eye…” Robin Kay: “What’s a buckwheat cake? Can you sing the rest of the song?” Mamma: sigh…
Needless to say the next time I went to the store I bought some buckwheat flour and I’ve been experimenting with using it in bread. Today, because I don’t feel like making something as complex as a cake, I found a recipe for a buckwheat shortbread cookie on the L.A. times website. I made only a few changes based on what I had in the pantry and what I didn’t: I used wholewheat flour rather than white for the 1/2 cup of ‘not-buckwheat flour’, I used brown (turbinado/demerara) sugar and, for lack of walnuts or almonds, I toasted a mix of pine nuts, oatmeal and flax seeds which I then went over a few times with the mezzaluna…
Yes, I know, it looks like a log of compressed wood; buckwheat flour is, well, gray. The dough has to be rolled up and put in the fridge for a few hours before slicing and baking so I’m hoping that, with a dusting of powdered sugar, the finished ‘Saracen grain cakes’ will look as good as they promise to taste (the the bit of dough that stuck to the bowl was delicious!). We’ll let you know how they come out…
I’ve started working on my ‘Sketchbook Project 2013’. I tried once in 2010 (starting late) and couldn’t finish in time. Maybe I’ll make it this year. I chose the theme ‘Atlas’ because I’ve been considering Cultural Atlas as the theme for IPM 2013.
We all come into our adulthood with a series of images, advertising jingles, cartoons, and some language appropriate icons from pre-school coloring pages that helped us learn our alphabet, equivalent to “A is for apple and B is for Ball”.
How the houses were built where we grew up, what form the windows took, the layout and width of the streets and how much of the sky’s expanse could be seen, all form part of an internal cultural atlas that we carry with us. We may remain unaware of how deeply etched these ‘maps’ are until they are challenged by living in a different cultural context.
The image above is a small panel of black steel on which I drew with white gold leaf and rust converter. The image is of the sky, something I love watching change where I live in Northern Italy and also something I miss from my birthplace, Texas. I tore the soft, cardboard cover while trying to insert the rigid panel and then glued the torn bits back together and sewed over them with turquoise thread. Thus, the subtitle of the book, “Embellished Errors” refers both to my way of making art – often so impatient to see the results of an experiment that paper is torn, fingerprints are left where glue and ink have smeared that are then ‘fixed’ by pointing out their presence and letting it become part of the work, sometimes even the focus – and the series of, sometimes painful, decisions that have made the beautiful and densely embellished ‘stuff’ of my life so far.
I hope that my readers will enjoy the upcoming ‘visual poetry’ and that poets interested in submitting poetry for International Poetry Month next January will keep this theme in mind.
My sleight of hand grows tepid, shaken
kept unbound, it withers down
the coins invariably end their trail
somewhere behind the ears of a child…(excerpt from Petty Magicks)
—
American poet Tim Seibles’ book Fast Animal became available in February and I found this review at Ringside Reviews the most engaging of the five that I read. The reviewer, Micah Ling, cited a poem entitled Dawn which I found on-line at eleveneleven journal. Here’s a taste:
So, I thought about death and the dying
it requires and the idea of lying
face-down somewhere: I thought
it’s just too much—the not
knowing, the anytime anyplace
of it: my heart running
out of gas—me: tagged
by a bus—my well-meaning self
clipped in the urban crossfire.
Or the giving up on everything,
the world a banquet of good reasons
for clocking out and chomping the black
sandwich. But I thought but…(excerpt from the poem Dawn in the collection Fast Animal)
Finally, American poet and playwright Octavio Solis premiered his latest theatrical work Cloudlands (a musical for which he wrote the script and lyrics in collaboration with Adam Gwon) at the South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa, California. It received this glowing review in the L.A. Times. We hope that he’ll have time to keep writing poetry now that it’s in production.
Here are a few more updates to let readers know what this year’s IPM poets have been up to since February. If you missed the first ones, click HERE to find out what’s new with Gilles-Marie Chenot, Maxine Beneba Clarke and Chris Fillebrown.
Meanwhile…
Australian poet Brad Frederiksen has been posting a fabulous series of written and visual poems, photographs of natural and digital ‘ready-mades’ and other intriguing explorations of word/image/sound. My favorite so far is a jazzy riff on power-stations and paranoia whose staccato language had me running this one through my head to the tune of Miles Davis’ So What:
they say it’s a brown coal power station.
so what.
they say it “supplies approximately 22% of
Victoria’s electricity needs and
8% of the National Electricity Market”.
so what.
they say it burns 2,400 tonnes of brown coal per hour
and turns it into coolable hot steam.
i’m paraphrasing here.
so what. (excerpt from: it’s a power station. so what)
To see the image, the capturing of which this poem tells, click HERE for an epic visual commentary.
Italian poet Giacomo Gusmeroli kindly sent me a copy of his latest bookLucore d’acquewhich is a real joy, I’m hoping that someone will take up the project of translating more of his work. He tells me that he is busy at work on another book in which his IPM poems from this year will appear.
Danish poet Christian Stokbro Karlsen very generously sent me copies of his latest books, including “FJERNARKIV”from which this year’s IPM poem was selected, that have inspired me to try and learn some Danish. He’s currently working as an editor along with writing poetry for his next book.
After a serious illness in February and March, Texas poet Tom McClellan is back to his keyboard and editing engaging, round-table discussions on life, politics, and the nature of things via his e-newsletter (available by subscription with highlights posted at http://tommcclellan.wordpress.com/) while writing the occasional poem:
Holy Saturday, 2012
Sunrise and a trailed bar of cloud above
The blazing sun, a gold coin caught in the tree.
Across the sky another coin, the moon
… Chock full of hope and promise, glowing silver in the sky.
Some time later in the dawn
A brave falcon strides the wind
Like Christ forever on His way
Arriving all debts paid.
I’ll be back tomorrow with one last update on what the other poets have been up to. Happy reading!
“POWER” copyright Matthew Broussard 2009 all rights reserved
Just so you know, 17 people are confirmed dead and I know that, for the families of those who have died, it’s 17 too many. For a family member or close friend, even one is too much. However, context is important. I live in the ‘grey’ area of the map above and have yet to feel a single jiggle in my 3rd floor apartment. That said, friends as far apart as Milan and Venice have said they felt the quake and it’s aftershocks. I’ve heard about both quakes from concerned friends and family in the U.S. who’ve watched newscasts like this one on National television: note the title for this news segment “KILLER QUAKE SHOCKS ITALY”
Since this is in small towns and villages it will be hard to know how much DEATH AND DESTRUCTION this quake has wrought!
You’d think it were the Apocalypse. 17 people have died since the first one last week (which is terrible) but an average of 8 people per day die in traffic accidents in Texas* and, in that big one in Aquila in 2009, they lost almost 300**….sigh, context is everything and the news media distorts to fit their needs like a wet sweater.
My heartfelt condolences to the 17 families who have lost loved ones in these latest Italian earthquakes and to the likely 72 Texas families who have lost loved ones in traffic accidents over the same 9 days.
For anyone who’s been feeling that spring-time urge to read poetry or creative prose; over the next few days I’ll be giving you an update of what some of the writers from IPM 2MXII have been up to:
Gilles-Marie Chenot is as prolific as ever and, for anyone who reads even a smattering of French or has the time to poke around and find the works he writes in English, his website is like getting lost on the streets of Venice: a transcendent pleasure that makes you forget about time in its immediate, pressing sense and instead, re-imagine history as a fluid while peering through the water at the roots and flow of things:
On fleurit ce qu’on veut
En l’éternel printemps
La rivière coule au pied d’un roc
Pas une molécule qui ne sourit
Devant les stèles qui rendent hommage… (excerpt from“A LA SEVE”)
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the incoming poetry editor of Social Alternatives journal and continues to write and speak boldly about social, artistic and personal issues:
packing bars / & radio waves
doesn’t seem to mean a thing
they just want to see the paper
where r you publishing your poems
Chis Fillebrown has been writing a serial novella about the cracking open of the suburban life of Phillip Young. Anyone who has tried to comfort a crying baby, made a to-do list, waited in a Starbucks or in a hospital, will find his images resonant:
Coffee shop crowd, taking coffee orders took less time than making the cups of coffee ordered, resulting in a crowd relieved of its money but heavy with a collective expectation of coffee, fresh hot coffee, shoulder to shoulder, not really mingling with not really friends, jitter of anticipation, Brownian motion, all ears listening to orders called out, all eyes watching cups placed on the counter quickly removed, waiting… (excerpt from part 12 of “The Father of Caves and Clear Water”)
There are now 20 installments available and a new one available each week. You can check his website every Monday or subscribe to his FB, Twitter or RSS feed updates to keep updated.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more up-to-date poetry news; meanwhile, happy reading and enjoy your Monday!
Peter wrote this great piece about Calabria (one of the regions in Italy that has affected me deeply and been a profound font of creative inspiration). Please take a moment to read it along with some of his other posts which include great photos of Italy.
Cancer is a rotten blight on mankind but it strangely brings out incredible responses in some people. Unfortunately someone we know, a family member actually, passed away last night after a long battle with cancer. Having only met him a few years ago at his very large calabrian wedding in central italy, it is sad to think of his young wife and son grieving.
This wedding was my first real entry into the madness that is a deep southern italian family. The openness and warmth i felt from every member of this massive family will never be forgotten. As the partner to a prodigal son of one part of this huge clan, I was invited to their wedding a few years ago (very few if any outside the immediate family knew we were gay). I had only met a few of…
PLACE table, D.I.S.D. chair, and painting by Matthew Broussard
Matthew Broussard’s press preview event at GWEP public&media relations new space, Guendalina bla bla was a great success, here are a few images (courtesy of Davide Campi) from the exhibition which will be open to the public for the first time today from 3:00 to 7:00 pm – click on the address below for a map:
Bonnie McClellan-Broussard 