The Book of Me
The book of me would include you of course, but not you now, not the white guy in a suit at town meetings or water board meetings or real estate or Republican meetings. This story stops with the boy with long blond hair, wearing tight striped pants and a butterscotch leather jacket, standing on a bridge over a sign that says No Standing On Bridge.
On Friday Afternoons
On Friday afternoons I cook my mother's recipes. Say, Brunswick stew and hoecake, or chicken paprikash with kasha. Of course I've morphed these recipes — I've added an array of vegetables to the paprikash: bell peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, along with the chicken and lots of good paprika. The sherry, the dill, the tamari — those are mine too. And the kasha? I rarely make kasha but if I do it's my own technique. I can't exactly recall her way but I know she toasted the buckwheat in a frying pan and somehow an egg was involved and chicken stock. I am channeling my mother when I cook these foods, emotional alchemy. Far away, my brother makes his version, with no vegetables, but maybe an onion, and he always makes kasha. We both put sour cream on top, but I also use yogurt if I feel like it and he never would. We remember our mother in different ways.
