Stories and Poems

Virgola (Comma) She knows I will wait for her – (I can’t be sure, she?, he?, but So she seems to me – ) ‘Virgola’, Comma, Always the last to arrive At morning tea. I leave my brew resting on The white table and move to terrace: They all know, fluffy and brown-gray, The family… Read more: …some spring tea…

“Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods…” Julius Cesar 2, 1  Shakespeare had a thing for Italian regional cuisine, with many of his most popular dishes having a distinctly Italic flavor. Brutus’ “Skewered Parmesan and Bologna” is one of those, a re-working of the noted international food writer Plutarch’s “Parallel Recipes”. This version,… Read more: The Ides of March – Brutus’ Skewered Parmesan and Bologna with Aged Balsamic Vinegar

Contain an incredibly large, dense mass in your kitchen. Hide it behind a door that says ‘loo’ or ‘bathroom’. Invite a dumb undergrad over, (any faculty will do though economics would be preferable,) telling him or her you want them to take part in a revolutionary experiment. When he gets to your house, have him sit down and then slowly explain to him about black holes. (Don’t worry if you make a mistake or two. He’s dumb, so he’ll never know the difference.) Pour him plenty of beer as you do. When he asks to use the loo, show him to the door behind which you’ve hidden the black hole – but remember to give him the pasta dough before he steps inside.

Though a simple enough dish to make, timing, as nearly always when preparing fish, is essential. The first thing is to take sole filets and lay them flat. On top of each filet place a thin slice of prosciutto. Role the layer whole into loose tubes, fish on the outside, and secure them using wooded skewers or toothpicks. Next, peel and seed the tomatoes and hand puree them into a lovely, fragrant pulp.

“To fry, or not to fry” is probably the most famous recipe line in the world and its chef perhaps the most widely interpreted. When well prepared, “Hamlet’s Fried Sole” has been described by some food critics as being a religious experience. Others note that Hamlet is fundamentally a Sophist cook, pointing to his question… Read more: Wednesday Will: Hamlet’s Pan-Fried Sole

the history of pasta

…if music be the food of love.

Before opening his now world-renowned restaurant The Mab, Mercutio worked alongside Romeo and Juliet in Verona. He and Romeo were best friends, so much so that Mercutio decided to work for a short spell at The Globe not long after the young couple emigrated from Italy. There, his brilliant juxtapositions of textures and flavors were quickly noticed, prompting local chef and food critic Dryden to note that Shakespeare’s kitchen “show’d the best of its skill in Mercutio.” However, unable to compromise his inventive nature into The Globe’s more structured kitchen, William was forced to dismiss him.

Il cafe che le persone bevono dice tanto della loro cultura. In passato, gli americani volevano un certo livello di qualità combinato con una quantità massiccia (lascia il caffettiere in tavolo, amore,) di cafe americano per un prezzo fisso. Oggi invece si comprano tutti i migliori tipi di caffè (non necessariamente il miglior caffè, si badi bene) di tutto il mondo a prezzi esorbitanti, in particolare nei centri commerciali e nei aeroporti. I tedeschi richiedono una qualità superiore che è ben confezionato e la… Read more: Food Story – Il caffe e il destino (Hardy Griffin)

Only an essential, clean sauce can complete an elegant pasta dish as a purple-hued cloud can complete a glorious summer sunset. Not a vulgar sauce like, say, one made with Italian meatballs, those shiny, dirty round mounds of grease that sit glistening on the top of Little Italy restaurant displays calling out to passing Midwestern travelers like sirens to Odysseus’ crew. This dish is closer to the essence of pasta and for that reason I recommend you use only the finest ingredients, Martelli butterfly noodles, the most virgin of Tuscan olive oils, and free–range Connecticut chicken. (Avoid those of New Jersey, as they are often unclean. I know Hemingway thinks such differences are pretentious and without significance but he puts ketchup on his hotdogs. Ketchup. Hotdogs. ‘Nough said.)

Anyone can learn and appreciate but without those conditions…consistency, already nearly impossible in the typical context of wine tasting competitions with a bizzilion wines out of context, is unlikely. I suppose flavor perception might be comparable metaphorically to perfect pitch. Money can’t buy it. But as it seems to be increasingly evident, the notion of removal from context of sensory inputs, of sort of absolute qualia, probably isn’t usually descriptively useful. Maybe ever. Perception, integration and response seem to occur on many levels, use parallel pathways, and therefor per force are contextually influenced. Plus, well, this anglo-saxon notion of absolute point scores and our increasing use of uncouth symbolic representations of wealth…don’t change the fact that a cheap, disdained bottle of acidic, cherry-ish fast-fermented novello is the perfect fermented drinking sauce to accompany a paper roll full of steaming hot roasted chestnuts – and together they make a complex, culinary whiz. You need neither expertise nor wealth to enjoy that. (It might be, of late, better to have neither.)

Drink, food and laughter in word is on – for ninety and nine cents. Or one hundred cents minus one:

10 dishes Will lkely ate: 10 Foods From Shakespeare’s Plays That Shakespeare (Probably) Ate Himself hteysko@gmail.com A Guest Post from Cassidy Cash In addition to the beer you’ve probably heard about being popular in the 16-17th century England (due to the poor sanitation of the water) Shakespeare’s lifetime saw a flurry of culinary oddities grace the… Read more: Wednesday Will – 10 Foods From Shakespeare’s Plays That Shakespeare (Probably) Ate Himself

Why on earth would you want to have to sushi in Rome? With all the traditional alternatives, trattorie, restaurants, enoteche, osterie, pizzerie, regional take-away joints, delis for fresh sandwiches, etc., is your urge for a sushi fix that uncontainable that you just gotta’ have some hunks of raw fish with vinegared rice, a little ugly mound of green wasabi and another little ugly pinkish mound of sliced ginger root? Well, yes.  

But there’s a whole lot more to the bard’s culinary story – the Shakespearean larder teems with intriguingly named foods. How about chewets, gallimaufries, and fools? (That’s small pies, mixtures and spiced, fruity custard for modern eaters.) And do you know your codlings from your carbonadoes and your umbles from your jumbles?

Garlic Pasta Sonnet 116   Garlic Pasta Sonnet 116“And scorne not Garlicke like to some, that think / It onely makes men winke, and drinke, and stink.” Joannes De Mediolano, The Englishman’s Doctor, 1608   Garlic Pasta has become a motto for the recent revival of simple, good, healthy traditional cuisine. The recipe states right… Read more: Wednesday Will – Garlic Pasta Sonnet 116

‘This is what happens when your final degree is a Bachelor’s in chemistry. It was either change careers or that teaching job at Faraway Hills High in Arkansas. Arkansas. What they got in Arkansas? Chickens. Lots of chickens. Lots a’ chicken crap. Not to be insulting to Arkansonians but I figured, definitely not my thing. And then I figured: what’d I do most of the time at ASU? I got drunk. So I thought, chemistry, wine, you know, it fits.’

‘…the tomato, star of earth, recurrent and fertile…’ Pablo Neruda

‘In his recipe, however, Shakespeare does at least change the liquor Belleforest used as well as adding the “Wha’s up!” exchange, taken from the noted add campaign by Bud-of-Weiser, in the opening scene, a second sea scallop dish later in the recipe and of course the ghost of Julia Child.’

Coffee says so much about a culture — in the past, Americans wanted a certain level of quality and massive quantities (leave the pot, honey) for a fixed price. Now they sell the best coffee styles (not necessarily the coffee itself, mind you) around the world for exorbitant prices, particularly in malls and airports.