Thumbprint Cookies

Mix together

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk (reserve the white)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Sift together, then add

1 cup flour -- sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt

Chill dough, then roll into 1" balls.
Dip them into

1 beaten egg white

Then roll them in

finely chopped walnuts

Place 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet.
Bake 5 minutes at 350°F.
Remove from oven and quickly press thumb gently into the top of each cookie.
Fill each thumbprint with about 1/4 teaspoon

strawberry or raspberry jam

Return to oven and bake about 8 minutes longer, until golden.


When I was a kid, my mother used to make these at Christmastime. They were my favorite.

Pomme D'Amour

Tingle: A Visual Windchime

Crimson crosses blaze blue
Zapotec sky,
illuminating shadows.
Cosmic patterns radiate
celestial tunes that soothe the spirit,
heavenly melodies rich with cosmic symbols.
Dusted with stars and swirls,
delicately painted in silver,
interplay of heavenly bodies
eclipse in array of color.
Crescent moon, stars, sun rising above clouds....

Exercise: Create a poem using only phrases taken from a mail-order catalog. (Written about 10 years ago. Obviously the choice of catalog has a great influence on the outcome!)

Who Has Time?

mixed media collage, 8.5" x 11"
click to enlarge

I didn't do the original sketch. Sorry, don't know who the artist was.

Foot-Stompin'

The fog rolls in, a poet once said,
on the soft little feet of a cat.
Clearly he never met Squeaky
or he wouldn't have written that.

Squeaky is not one to tiptoe.
You hear him wherever he goes.
His thumping clodhoppers betray him.
His whereabouts everyone knows.

I see Squeaky now as he's jumping
from sofa to tables to chairs.
If I couldn't, I'd swear he was living
in the apartment upstairs.

written ca. 1992

Grate!

Let 'em eat cake!

Red Beans & Rice Florentine

Saute gently in a large pot:

1 T. olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, sliced

Drain and reserve the liquid from a:

1 lb. can red kidney beans

Add water to make a total of 2 1/2 cups liquid.
Add liquid to the pot and bring to a boil. Then add:

1 c. converted white rice
1/2 t. cumin
1/4 t. turmeric
1/2 t. salt

Cover and simmer over low heat 15 minutes.
Add the red beans without stirring them in.
Simmer another 5 minutes.
Turn off burner and add:

1/4 lb. shredded spinach

Stir the pot, cover, and let stand a few minutes. 4 servings.

D'Zert Tray

Pardon Me!

Under Pressure: A Pantoum for My Mother

I got your letter last week,
and you're wanting to know....
I have not written a pantoum.
Too many demands on my time.

And you're wanting, too! Know
what a busy woman I am?
Too many demands on my time!
My schedule is very full!

What a busy woman I am!
Things are piling up around here.
My schedule is very full.
How could you know?

Things are piling up around here.
I got your letter last week.
How could you?! No!!
I have not written a pantoum!!!

Exercise: Make Mother stop nagging by writing her the pantoum she wants. (Written about 10 years ago.)

Wack's Toy Boat

Leaves on patio,
not on trees. Raining all day.
Too cold for toy boat.

Misunderstanding

You wrote my stories in your journal.
I didn't write them at all. I lived them, twice:
once in the doing, and again
in telling them to you.
Stories, not acts of the flesh,
were our intimacy:
a passion of words clothed in the soft
silky fabric of our kitchen-table afternoons.
You took them with Scotch whiskey.

You wrote my stories in your journal.
Years later you would hand them back to me:
"Remember that guy you went out with...,"
you would say,
describing some night I no longer recall,
a meaningless date over and gone as soon as
I had shared its every detail with you.

You wrote my stories in your journal,
as if they were some text yours to keep
when, for me, they were
slow delicious teasing, like a dance,
a growing drama, a give and take,
a pushing and pulling of narrative until finally
great gasping spasms--denouement and laughter--
and all of it, as with the flesh-bound,
gone after the climax.

You wrote my stories in your journal.
I didn't write yours at all. I ate them whole,
like wads of cotton candy
spun from nothing and air.
They disappeared on my tongue.
A sweet craving lingered.

You wrote my stories in your journal.
In taking notes, you thought
you learned me like geometry.
You defined me with theorems and formulae.
Years later, you tried to name me:
"This is who you are...," you said, and
described someone I never was.
You didn't notice my surprise.

You wrote my stories in your journal,
but you never read my heart.
I am not geometry, and
my stories have changed a thousand times.

Creepy Halloween Leftovers

Picatso