Savory rhymes and sweet treats can open doors to who we were and who we can be again.
My dad used to read poems by James Whitcomb Riley to my siblings and I before we went to bed:
“O the Raggedy Man! He works fer Pa
an’ he’s the goodest man ever you saw!”
I loved the imagery and the funny words:
“An' The Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes,
An' tells 'em, ef I be good, sometimes:
Knows 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves,
An' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers the'rselves:”
And I loved the rhythm of the writing:
“Ain’t he the beatin’est Raggedy Man?
Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!”
My dad read to us from an ancient copy of “Rhymes of Childhood.” It’s a little red book with gold letters on the cover, published in 1900. It was my grandmother’s. She wrote in pencil on the inside cover: “Property of Clara Haubold. 1952 Barry Cir. Chicago, Ill, 50¢ reward if return returned” Then my dad had it. Now I do. It’s been read so many times that the cover has come off, front and back, but all the pages are still there, yellowing and stitched together. On some of the pages, random words are underlined in pencil: "little-est,” “welcomely,” “Wunst,” “ruther,” “purtiest.” Some pages are marked with purple crayon. I bet my sister did that — perhaps her own first attempts at reaching people through poetry.
(An interesting aside: Although James Whitcomb Riley had a difficult climb to the top of the literary world and struggled with alcoholism and financial difficulties for the better part of his life, he was so beloved at the time of his death that his body lay in state in the Indiana Statehouse. The only other person to be granted that honor was Abraham Lincoln. Not bad for a self-described “humble rural poet.”)
Later, when we were in junior high and high school, my sister became enamored of poetry. She wrote poems in a blank book she got at the bookstore in the mall and read poetry, often out loud, from a thin black volume that my parents treasured, “One Hundred and One Famous Poems.” (Copyright 1929 — since that’s the year my dad was born, I think this book also started out as my grandmother’s.)
Her taste in poetry as a 16-year-old girl ran from the noble:
“This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: —
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields.”
(Edward R. Sill)
To the maudlin:
“So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamt of the little toys
And as he was dreaming, an angel’s song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue.”
(Eugene Field)
(Trip tip: You can go see the house that Eugene Field rented while he was managing editor of the Denver Tribune. Preserved by Field fan Molly Brown — yes, that Molly Brown — it’s in Denver’s Washington Park and there’s a statue of “Wynken, Blynken and Nod” beside it.)
To the romantic:
“The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.”
(Francis William Boudillon)
I can still see the wallpaper on our basement bedroom and smell the damp. I can still hear her voice reading those poems, over and over, the drama and the laughter. I can still feel the wisdom in the sharing. Some of those lines I can still recite by heart.
By the time I got to high school, I imagined myself too worldly for the books of poetry on my parents’ shelves:
“We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
strike straight.”
(Gwen Brooks)
Too jaded:
“… so they put up basketball and handball courts
and if it were a painting or a photo
you would call it American loneliness.”
(Alicia Ostriker)
And too sophisticated:
“As she leaves content with her dog, its tail wagging
like gossip, I am convinced now more than ever
that I once held hundreds of roses in my hands
the first time I cut open a pomegranate.”
(Kevin Pilkington)
I wrote a poem once, an assignment for an English class in high school. We were studying sonnets. I got an A on it because I got the number of syllables and the rhyming pattern right. But that, of course, is a low bar for a grade. I’m sure I thought, because of the poetry in my childhood home, that I would be good at such an exercise, but I wasn’t. The poem, about lost love, something I obviously knew nothing about when I was 17, was — in a word — terrible.
“Within the whisp’ring of the wind, I feel
The powerfulness of your gentle touch,
The magic of your kiss that will reveal
That human life cannot move love so much.”
Really. What does that even mean?
My uncle was a poet. He wrote rhymes about the great wide-opened prairie and the small town that informed his life:
“The wild geese have completed their long journey north
We’re serenaded by the meadowlark’s melodious refrains.
Wildflowers that mingle with the green prairie grasses,
Provide beauty, when it’s springtime again, on the Plains.”
(Max Malone)
My niece is a poet. She writes “modern” verse about heavy subjects like agonizing breakups and eating disorders and genocide. A young woman in a baby doll dress and bare feet, she performs them at open mic nights and national competitions and has reached some level of notoriety in the poetry community.
“I loved you until the end
There was this one day I cried the city of Venice in my coffee mugs
just hoping my tears would replenish my electrolytes
Alas, you have left me dehydrated
with eyeliner stains on the inside of my goggles …”
(Kayla Stephenson)
But after that one-and-only pedantic sonnet, I never wrote another poem.
I went to college and then to work; and although I became a writer, at some point, I guess, I got too busy to let poetry in, too wrapped up in prose and news and a computer click-click-clicking its way to a deadline.
But then a funny thing happened. I stopped for a moment and took a deep breath and the poetry crept back in:
“At the edge of the city, in the company
of crickets, beside the empty clothesline,
telephone wires, and the moon, tonight
my life is an old friend sitting with me
not in the living room, but in the light …”
(Richard Blanco)
April is National Poetry Month, a beautiful time to sit in the light with an old friend.
The Pie
I was looking for a special treat to put on our Easter table and I came across a recipe for Carrot Pie. Pie made from vegetables is an intriguing idea, and really what could be more enticing to a big ol’ bunny than carrots? My theory is that any custard-ish pie seasoned with nutmeg and cinnamon is going to taste like a pumpkin pie. This pie proved my theory wrong. It didn’t taste like pumpkin; it tasted like carrots — sweet, juicy carrots that remind you, in case you’ve forgotten, why the bright orange root is almost always a perfect bite. The grated carrots gave the pie an unusual texture, and the spices and lemon extract tempered the sweetness. It was really sweet, however, so instead of topping it with whipped cream or ice cream, we served it with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of brown sugar.
(In case you were wondering, James Whitcomb Riley did indeed mention pie in his homespun poetry:
“Honey’s the goodest thing — Oo-ooh!
An’ blackberry-pies is goodest too!
But wite hot biscuits, ist soakin’ wet
Wiv tree-mullasus, is goodest yet!”
I think he was wrong. Pie definitely beats biscuits.)
The Recipe
CARROT PIE
(or Easter Bunny's Sweet treat)
Crust for one 9-inch pie plate
1¼ cups peeled and grated carrots
¾ cup sugar
1½ cups evaporated milk
3 large eggs, well beaten
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Sour cream and brown sugar for garnish
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place the crust into the plate; trim and crimp the edge.
In a large bowl, combine the the carrots, sugar and milk. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and lemon extract and blend well.
Pour the filling into the crust, place in the oven and bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 45-60 minutes. (The original recipe for this pie said bake for 30-35 minutes, but at 35 minutes it wasn’t even close to being cooked through. My pie cooked close to 60 minutes. When you make this interesting and delicious treat, you should probably start checking around 35 minutes, but expect it to be in the oven much longer.)
Let cool completely before serving.
Garnish with sour cream and brown sugar.
Will keep, covered, for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator.
WHOLE WHEAT CRUST
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour or unbleached whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
¾ cup (1½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) cold vegetable shortening
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) cold vodka
½ cup (8 tablespoons) cold water, plus extra as needed
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt and sugar until everything is thoroughly combined. Add the butter and shortening and cut the mixture together using a pastry cutter until it forms small pea-size crumbs coated in flour.
Pour the vodka evenly over the dry ingredients, a few tablespoons at a time, using a rubber spatula to press the dough together. Add the water, a tablespoon or two at a time, and continue to press the dough together to form a large ball. If the dough doesn’t come together or seems dry, add a little extra ice water a tablespoon at a time until everything comes together easily. (Be careful to work the dough as little as possible; otherwise the crust may be tough.)
Divide the dough into two equal balls; press each into a disk, wrap each in plastic wrap; and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to two days before rolling out. If you only need a bottom crust, as with this recipe, you can freeze one of the disks for up to three months and use it later.
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