Gretel

I have some questions about this one. Mostly, is it good? Also, is it too dramatic? Do you think the first half of the third stanza is okay? I'm thinking of changing it, but I haven't decided what I would change it to even if I do. Anyway, the more advice, the better!

***

She gasps in gusts of damp pine needle air
for breakfast.
She says, reciting on a static loop,
It’s better this way.
This way, she can only taste the Earth,
the soft, sopping, cradling, zero calorie zero fat sky and trees and dirt.
She says that that's enough but her eyes

don't agree.

And she falls,
she crumbles, flutters whenever

an attack of cooking wind blows near her.
Gingerbread houses, she thinks,
and fights to keep her breath from leaving her throat.

She can’t stop her hands from shaking

or her mind.
At night she quivers delicious nightmares.
Her heart wanders dreams to cushiony bread soaked in olive oil
and zesty garlic. Bowls of pink
and chocolate ice cream. Cheese sliced so
thin it melts over her tongue in seconds.

Artichoke Hearts
PeanutButter WhippedCream
BreadSticksFriedDoughTubsOf

FrostingDon’tEvenBotherWithACakeGiveMeAFuckingSpoon.

She says indulge is the most terrifying word
the one that makes her fists pound,
beat at her mirror.

Our House Bistro

This is from about a month ago. It's a restaurant review of Our House Bistro, in Winooski, near Spinner Place. Yay. (Maybe. You guys get to decide that.)

***

Our House Bistro was tiny, wooden, and cozy. It was warm in the way a small house, its fireplace blazing softly, might be. It had the welcoming atmosphere of a place that had been there for decades, comfortable in its own existence. It didn’t feel like it was just opened last May. It may have helped that the owners, Matthew Pearsall and Maggie Barch, have been cooking for years. Their catering company, The Spice of Life, is not only number one in Vermont, but also specializes in the same sort of, “twisted comfort food,” that Our House is steadily becoming known for.

Still, the little restaurant was almost empty. It was early. Out of the eight or so tables, only one was occupied. Four people sat around their tall round table in their tall wood chairs. In front of them sat glistening glasses of maroon wine and plates of colorful food— red and green salads, crusty golden sandwiches, and creamy, creamy yellow ravioli. My mouth watered.

Amber and I were led to our table quickly by a friendly waitress who smiled. The table was big enough for more than just the two of us; we each had an entire booth to lounge on. The waitress left, and when she came back she was holding two sparkling glasses of ice water, and one big jar of it for refilling. After handing us menus, she left once again.

We were spellbound, staring at the menus. Visually, there wasn’t anything particularly special about them—there were no bright, impeccably arranged photographs of food, but the descriptions sounded voluptuous. We were silent, running our eyes down the choices. I imagined the grilled cheese— inches of gooey white Vermont cheddar enveloped by crunchy golden brown bread, dipped into startlingly red homemade tomato soup. I pictured the Caesar salad— crisp, juicy green lettuce coated in everything cheesy and garlicky and wonderful. I wondered what the butternut squash ravioli could possibly taste like.

In the end, I decided on the Twisted Macaroni and Cheese. A friend had personally recommended it and, as far as comfort food goes, nothing can ever beat a steaming bowl of mac n’ cheese. Amber chose a plain hamburger, medium rare, with fries. And with that, our food was ordered and we were waiting. We took the time to really look at our surroundings.

Another couple had made their way into the restaurant, but it was still largely empty. On the walls, shelves, and tables were black and white photographs of babies, weddings, family reunions, and first days of school. Their faces smiled and laughed from Fifty-Years-Ago. Across from us was a small but, we were told, quite popular bar, its wall filled with assortments of wines, gins, vodkas, and rums. If only we were 21.

Our food came about fifteen minutes later. Mine was in a little black skillet, probably the same one it was made in. Amber’s burger was on a plate, but her French fries were wrapped in newspaper, just like in Angela’s Ashes, the grease already starting to soak through. We started eating, ravenously.

The noodles were cavatappi. They were longish, squiggly, fun, and coated in the pale, pale off-yellow cheese sauce. Most of the yellow was from the butter, which pooled in shiny gold puddles wherever they would fit. I’m not a butter person, but it looked delicious, if terrifyingly artery clogging. I quickly speared a noodle with my fork, and as I brought it up to me, gloopy, shiny strings of cheese followed. I spun the cheese—it had to have been mostly mozzarella—around and around. I must have spun it fifty thousand times before the final thread of cheese broke and my noodle was covered. There was no doubt; this cheese was real.

As Sean Michael Gallagher, a kitchen manager, said, Our House Bistro doesn’t use tons of crazy ingredients; they use high quality, simple ones, and then they use them right. “We put a lot of love in everything,” he added. All of this together, he said, separates Our House from other local restaurants. It is also what scored them a glowing review in Seven Days. Gallagher said that that review was the best compliment the restaurant could have hoped for.

I tried not to think of the calories as I ate. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help shoving in the warm comfort food. I grabbed noodle after noodle with my silver fork, spun the cheese around like never ending spaghetti, and gobbled it up. At the same time, it wasn’t the best macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had. Not according to my taste buds, at least. I’m one of those people who buy the sharpest cheddar in the store, and then eat half the brick in one sitting. (I can’t let myself buy cheese too often). So, perhaps it was just that the cheese was very mild, but I thought that, somehow, it actually didn’t taste cheesy enough. It looked cheesier than I would have thought possible, but the warm butter almost overtook it. But, I can’t complain. All in all, it was delicious, addictive, and I adored the long stringiness of the cheese.

It has to be said, though, that the price was up there. The macaroni and cheese was twelve dollars, which is far more than I, as a fairly broke college student, want to spend on any sort of meal. I had a lot of fun eating out with Amber, and I enjoyed the food, but I don’t see myself coming back any time soon— at least not while I’m paying.

As we got up to leave the tiny restaurant, I noticed for the first time that it was completely full. All around me, people sat at their tables, eating, waiting, and laughing. As we walked out, a couple was waiting, ready to take our spot.

Italian Sandwiches

This is actually something I did for homework. It's for my class on food writing. But I just finished it and think it came out kind of okay. Tell me what you think!

***

It was a tradition when I was a kid-- my dad standing in the kitchen, hovering over the cutting board. He would slide his bread knife with the black wooden handle sideways through a loaf of golden Italian bread, halving it lengthwise. He would turn the top half around, so that the bread-y sides of both faced up. He would sprinkle the bread with his simplest homemade salad dressing-- just olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. “Put on more!” I would say. I loved salad dressing, and I ate it on everything, but especially on bread (and spaghetti.) In Ashley Land, the world I made up when I was six, perhaps hoping to influence parental meal choices, you drank salad dressing with supper instead of milk.

My dad would slap on slices of Genoa salami, ham, hot capicola, provolone cheese, and leaves and leaves of lettuce. On one half of the loaf, he would add tomatoes, onions, and peppers, because my mom and dad liked that kind of stuff. The pickles were always popped on last, so that the juice seeped into the bread. Then, my dad would put the loaf back together and cut it into five, one cut for each of us, and stuff those sandwiches into ziplock bags.

Then, we’d go somewhere.

In the summer, we would go to the beach. My brothers and I would play in the water. Adam and I would go in as deep as we could manage. We’d go in over our heads, and when mom would make us prove that we could still stand and thus were in no danger of drowning, we’d fake it, treading water with only our feet so that our shoulders stood still above the ocean’s rim. Matthew, five years younger, would watch from the shallows, making drippy castles and catching hermit crabs with his tiny, chubby hands. We’d get hungry pretty quickly; swallowed salt water only goes so far. So, we would race to the shore, showing off how fast we could swim underwater. We’d dash to the beach blanket that was really just a towel and soak it with dripping sea water and sand. We’d beg to please please have our sandwiches now, please.

The sea salt of the air would intermingle perfectly with the vinegar salt of the sandwiches. I would take little bites and run my tongue against the soft, salad dressing soaked insides of the bread. I would chomp on the cheese. I would crunch on the lettuce. I would lick my lips. After a few bites, each breath of air tasted like Italian bread and salami.

Matthew would start to tear off bits of his sandwich, throwing them to the seagulls that were slowly surrounding us. They would lunge for the bits of food as if, instead of just coming back from stealing potato chips from some now crying toddler, they hadn’t eaten for weeks. And Matthew would lunge for them, joyfully yelling, “Duck!”

Other, colder days, we’d go on hikes, bringing our sandwiches along. My dad would shove them into his backpack, and I’d stuff the pockets of my overalls with chocolate kisses. We would walk past scenic salt marshes and trees with soft pine needles. My mom would remind us to be careful not to trip over the roots that scattered throughout the paths like funhouse stairs. My dad would warn us to beware the Clamaconda and the Giant Tick, monsters of his invention that always made us roll our eyes. Adam and I would pick up kindling for later, and fight to find the best walking stick. We would snack on chocolate.

After a while, we’d stop. On all of our walks, we had a favorite stopping point-- the wooden tipi forts of the South Trail, “the pit,” of Indian Lands, and Doane Rock by the Salt Pond Visitor Center. Doane Rock was our favorite. Adam and I had finally learned to climb it when we were six, and thought that by then, we were pretty much experts. Even though Matthew was little, he could still climb some of it. We thought it was the tallest thing in the world, and we always wanted to eat our sandwiches at the top. Our parents never let us, though. They always made us eat at the picnic bench five feet away.

The sandwiches always seemed to taste different away from the beach. The air wasn’t salty; it was crisp and tasted like leaves, earth, and pocket-melted chocolate. The sandwiches were of more of an unexpected taste, foreign to the woods, though definitely welcome. The pickles were more noticeable. They turned the insides of the bread into lime green mushy salty goodness. Adam thought it made the bread look like alien’s skin, but I didn’t because I never really liked aliens, and that matters when you’re eight or so. I adored nature, even then, but I was still a girly-girl. I would ignore all mentions of aliens and, as I sat at the picnic table eating, I would pretend to be an Indian princess, the Pocahontas of Cape Cod, instead. I knew that Indians probably didn’t eat Italian sandwiches back then, but that was one of the sorts of things that don’t matter when you’re about eight. And, anyway, I loved those sandwiches. I loved the salty taste of the Italian spices, and the chewiness of the bread. I loved sitting outside with my parents and brothers, laughing and eating the same beautiful thing.

I can’t remember the last time my dad made an Italian sandwich on a family loaf. Adam and I are away at college, and when we are home, we’re working. Matthew’s a teenager in high school. Quite naturally, he’d rather play video games or go to the movies. When I go to the beach, it’s with my friends. When I go on walks, it’s almost always just with just one of my parents. When I go with my dad, we don’t bring food. Sometimes we’ll stop at a store afterwards. With my mom, we bring chocolate from Trader Joe’s. We talk about when we were little, when everything was as simple as cutting a loaf of Italian bread into five.