The Pioneer Woman

Today is Haibun Monday. The subject is recipes, a short prose paragraph with a haiku following. If you wish to read more of these, please visit  dversepoets.com

Are you familiar with the TV cooking show "The Pioneer Woman"?  Ree Drummond's routine consists of cooking and serving up comfort food for her hardworking husband, four kids and friends. She manages to finesse easily a several course meal while sharing tales of daily life on their large cattle ranch in Oklahoma. She loves to cook a big cowboy meal and take it out to the group putting in a hard day's work. Imagine huge breakfast burritos filled with sausage, cheese, eggs, hash browns, topped with roasted tomatoes and jalapeno chilies, or mouthwatering fat bacon meatball sliders with barbecue sauce. She may make their favorite spicy ribs and beans dish, lemon blackberry bars, or cheese-chive muffins, even prepare watermelon granitas for refreshment. After preparing in her kitchen, she wraps the meals in foil and places food in convenient containers in a box. Along with the dog and food in the van, she drives out to the feed barn, a green pasture, or the large black, charred area of land burned the season before. It is her life's joy to plow her way through life in this manner. Her reward is not just the smiles, but often gorgeous sunsets on the way home, sometimes making her late to kids' activities.

Overflowing ponds,

abundant rains in the spring,

marinated blessings

Hunger games..

Nothing to eat or drink,
rations depleted -
perhaps a kind farmer's 
wife nearby
would offer goat's milk,  
porridge or potatoes with rye
 ..to soak in water from a pump -
life savers for fatigued men 
miles from home, 
bombs burst in air 
Veterans' Day, D-day
old movies play,

Soldiers gone to battlefields 
on the other side of the globe, 
where every day 
futures end in hunger, 
of aids, or war 
thirst for a free land - 
Somalia...not even 
stone soup to survive..
days before they perish, 
less if dysentery, 
takes longer sometimes, 
to run a touchdown play 

Meager portions, 
not enough to go around;
nevertheless, 
a stranger can become a friend found
But for no good reason
they can't get away
..for lack of sustenance..

They used to say - all the rice in China,

was nourishment enough,
might even decide 
the outcome of a war

Sometimes life has little 
chance at all..doctors say 
when there's no appetite,

it takes time to die,

months, weeks, 
could be days, 
Pot eases the cancer,
hugs the pain,
but for no reason, it's kept away
A body tortured for days on end,
bleeds, swells.. it's too much
How do you measure life, 
a candle snuffed...
how many will die of old age..

A spider weaves for food,
a scorpion stings
In America, however, 
SOME sit daintily on pillows, 
dressed in lace, 
wearing fine hats...
unlimited food and drink
Do they know fasting..
of  Ramadan..
Do they think ...?  of scant
clothing or food of hungry babes?
The grapes of love wait..
to be picked and fed to all...
not politically withheld 
....for no good reason.




dversepoets.com

Distinctive crab cakes...

....again, I am a little late to post (and I keep tweaking) to http://dversepoets.com    busy taking care of grand kids over the weekend...plus, I'm slow...but the practice is helpful.  Everyone wrote about food in one form or another and the poems are delicious if you want to read them...although mine won't be among them.   We will be off on another topic and more brilliant offerings by the team there, so why not stop over for a visit?:  ;)

In shadowing depths of the sea
where no man has been before                                                                                         
live the Native Alaskan King crab 
their habitat 'til ..
..nets lift them ashore

Oft' claimed by many a restaurateur
to make the world's best crab cakes 
from the banks of South Carolina 
to the Costa del Sol...
..allow me to tell you what this cook makes:

Crab cakes should be mostly ribbons 
and chunks of fresh crab leg meat
mixed with bread crumbs and 2 eggs to begin 
Adding cilantro, big pinches of thyme, rosemary..
Saffron, a generous pinch a treat

Cayenne and turmeric for added flavor
Add 1 1/2 cup of silky mayonnaise
Include finely chopped white onion 
multi-colored peppers the same...
to awaken sleepy taste buds from their daze

Crispy on the outside and hmmm - buttery on the inside
suffused with a generous helping of smooth sherry
Shape like nests, then dip in hot virgin olive oil
full bodied texture yet with the lightness
of angel hair to marry

The distinctive aroma transforms a sometimes 
hectic time into a blissful warm atmosphere 
enticing appetites to new life
Slicing lemons to the side...a languishing 
mood in the kitchen..enjoy a stout beer..

Serve with coleslaw, Chardonnay, and a smile
Present with fresh baked bread and butter
a stylish corn on the cob and I'll take all bets
the finished intertwined crab rosettes
deserve a hand of applause  

The meal a perfectly satisfying whole
Abiding an edge of a delicate quintessence
Wild sensations exude while eating
..some claim, a new climactic lease on life
Classy and sensual, above all the rest

Believed to appease the pickiest of tasters
considered loveliest of feasts
these melt in your mouth sublime crab cakes
will fill your soul with song...scents of
orchids and myrrh...
..which leads one to fall directly to sleep..

by klr