Cooked Poem: Ode to an Artichoke, and some Jong and Child

For Simon
This Cooked Poem on the artichoke was completely accidental. The artichokes just looked so lovely in the grocery store on Saturday that I had to take them home with me. And because they looked so lovely, and complicated, I thought there has to be at least one poem that has been written in the last several hundred years that is about the artichoke. I found “Ode to an Artichoke,” by Pablo Neruda, and then sure enough, Erica Jong has her own poem about the artichoke in response to Neruda’s. She also has one in response to Julia Child’s instructions on the preparation of an artichoke. I therefore decided it would be appropriate to include everyone for this Cooked Poem. The artichoke was grown and harvested, Neruda was inspired and wrote a poem, Jong read Neruda’s poem, ate the artichoke and responded, and she also read Child and responded. Then I read Neruda, Jong, and Child, cooked the artichoke and ate it.

All this inspiration from what is really just the flower head of a thorny thistle.

I decided to dedicate this Cooked Poem to my brother Simon, who is the most passionate artichoke lover I have ever known. Since childhood, Simon has delighted in the ritual of pulling off each leaf, dipping it in the lemony vinaigrette, and then scraping the leaf between clenched teeth to get at the tender flesh.

So I thought about him as I sat at the table tonight, with the rain outside, doing just this.

They really are so delicious.

"Ode to an Artichoke," by Pablo Neruda

The artichoke
of delicate heart
erect
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.

And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a pot.

So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.

Here are sections 11 and 12 from Jong’s poem “Fruits and Vegetables.”

11

(Artichoke, after Child): Holding the heart base up, rotate it slowly with your left hand against the blade of a knife held firmly in your right hand to remove all pieces of ambition & expose the pale surface of the heart. Frequently rub the cut portions with gall. Drop each heart as it is finished into acidulated water. The choke can be removed after cooking.

12

(Artichoke, after Neruda)

It is green at the artichoke heart,
but remember the times
you flayed
leaf and leaf,
hoarding the pale silver paste
behind the fortress of your teeth,
tonguing the vinaigrette,
only to find the husk of a worm
at the artichoke heart?
The palate reels like a wronged lover.
Was all that sweetness counterfeit?
Must you vomit back
world after vegetable world
for the sake of one worm
in the green garden of the heart?

Here are Julia Child’s instructions, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Preparation for Cooking:

One at a time, prepare the artichokes as follows:

Remove the stem by bending it at the base of the artichoke until it snaps off, thus detaching with the stem any tough filaments which may have pushed up into the heart.

Break off the small leaves at the base of the artichoke. Trim the base with a knife so the artichoke will stand solidly upright.

Lay the artichoke on its side and slice three quarters of an inch off the top of the center cone of leaves. Trim off the points of the rest of the leaves with scissors. Wash under cold running water.

Rub the cut portions of the artichoke with lemon juice. Drop it into a basin of cold water containing 1 tablespoon of vinegar per quart of water. The acid prevents the artichoke from discoloring.

Artichauts Au Natural

6 artichokes prepared for cooking as in the preceding directions

A large kettle containing 7 to 8 quarts of boiling water

1 ½ tsp salt per quart of water

Drop the prepared artichokes in the boiling, salted water. Bring water back to the boil as rapidly as possible and boil slowly, uncovered, for 35 to 45 minutes. The artichokes are done when the leaves pull out easily and the bottoms are tender when pierced with a knife.

Immediately remove them from the kettle with skimmer or spoon and drain them upside down in a colander.

Boiled artichokes may be served hot, warm, or cold.

Bite the Apple

I just re-read my last post and I counted nine exclamation points.

Nine.

And this is not including the title, which also happens to include an exclamation point. What could possibly have been so exciting that I was compelled to use an exclamation point nine times in four paragraphs? I’m not entirely sure, but I guess that’s what happens when I drink three glasses of wine while writing on a Saturday night. But I suppose happy, enthusiastic typing on the computer is better than the alternative, right? And some of you know what this alternative is, either because you know me, or because it's something that has happened to you too.

So to make up for my overly zealous punctuation use, there will zero exclamation points used in this post. This post is going to be very serious, and I will use only periods and commas.

Like this.

I have updated the about page and hope to get around to the cooked poem page soon. Check it out. I guess this is where I would use an exclamation point, in order to convey excitement and urgency, but I can’t. Anyway, writing an about page is hard. It’s hard to sum things up, but I tried my best.

I also decided to share with you those Cappuccino Bars I made on Saturday. They were okay, but they were not great. I can’t lie to you. The flavor was good but they were a little dry.

Anyway, you should go ahead and make them anyway. You’ll probably make them come out better then I did and then you can let me know what I did wrong.

Cappuccino Bars

2 sticks of butter, softened

1 ½ c. self rising cake flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 c. sugar

4 eggs

2 Tbs. instant espresso (or regular coffee, just add an extra tablespoon) dissolved in 2 Tbs. of hot water

Sift the flour, baking powder, and cocoa into a bowl and add the butter, sugar, eggs, and coffee. Beat well and then pour into a greased baking baking pan.

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Cool and frost with the white chocolate frosting. Cut into squares.

White Chocolate Frosting

½ c. white chocolate chips

4 Tbs. butter

3 Tbs. milk

1 ¾ c. confectioners’ sugar

In a double boiler melt the chocolate, butter, and milk. When it has melted remove from heat and whisk in the confectioners’ sugar. Spread over the cake and dust with more powdered sugar.

Changes!

Making some changes over here to Sophie Writes! Bear with me please as I am horrendous and impatient at dealing with all this website stuff, and it is only because of an extensive phone date with Chelsea this morning that things are starting to look a little more put together. I’m learning. But I’ll warn you, if you visit the site sometime in the next few weeks and things are looking a bit, errr, crazy, it’s probably only because for a fleeting moment I reached the threshold of my tolerance with all this and Had! To! Walk! Away!

In all seriousness though, I am very excited about the changes to the website, and to celebrate I made cappuccino bars. They are currently cooling on the kitchen counter and I don’t have any pictures of them. Instead I thought I would post a couple pictures and the recipe for this butterscotch layer cake I made months ago and never shared with you. I know! I have a lot of these posts that never made it to the site unfortunately. But don’t worry; I’m working on fixing this too.

There is a little story to this cake but for discretion’s sake I won’t go into too many of the details. Suffice it to say I was involved in an unpleasant misunderstanding with someone here in town for several years. We share many mutual friends so understandably this affected a large part of both of our lives. I had wanted to clear the air for months but just wasn’t quite sure how to do it. Amazingly, she had been feeling the same way and took the initiative to invite me over one night to a small get together at her house (where all my other friends were going to be as well, of course). As it turned out, the misunderstanding was completely unfounded and silly, and we both lamented the fact it had taken us FOUR YEARS to resolve it. Onward!

This cake is what I made to bring over that night, as a peace offering. The cake was really a bit over the top but is an accurate representation of just how thrilled I was to be finally moving beyond everything. Nothing says I am sorry, I am happy we can be friends, this has gone on way too long, like a dense, sweet, buttery, fattening, sugar filled, creamy frosting smeared cake.

This, or a bottle of whiskey, something we also had that night.

The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Sorry I don’t have photos of the finished product. Yet again, the drinks started flowing as soon as I walked in the door and I couldn’t be bothered with taking pictures of the cake all gussied up with frosting and drizzled butterscotch. Between you and me, I did think it looked rather obscene. Sort of like an overly eager 16-year-old-girl with too much make-up on, who you  feel bad for because she is obviously trying too hard. I can't help it! I was just so happy to be there!

Butterscotch Layer Cake

For the Icing:
1 c. sugar
½ c. cold water
1 ¼ c. heavy cream
14 ounces cream cheese at room temp.

For the cake:

1 c. unsalted butter, very soft
7 Tbs. brown sugar
½ c. sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/2 c. self-rising cake flour
2-4 Tbs. heavy cream

Grease and line 2 8x2 inch cake pans.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make the icing first by dissolving the sugar and water over low heat, remembering not to stir it at all while you do this. When it is dissolved, turn up the heat and boil it until it turns a dark golden color. This will take about 10-15 minutes.

Take off the heat and slowly whisk in the cream. Place back over for another minute, whisking until it is smooth and combined. Cool, and then refrigerate until you need it.

Put all the ingredients for the cake except the cream into the food processor and pulse until it is smooth. Scrape down the sides and then pulse again, this time adding a couple tablespoons of the cream. Check the consistency; if it is runny then stop, otherwise add 1-2 more tablespoons of cream.

Divide the batter into the two pans and bake for about 25 minutes. Turn out of pans and let cool on a wire rack.

Beat the cream cheese until softened and then add a cupful of the caramel. Beat gently to combine.

Put one cake layer on a plate. Using a spatula spread just under half of the icing over the top. Place the other cake on top and then ice the top of that cake with the remaining icing. Using a teaspoon drizzle some of the reserved caramel over the cake.

Cooked Poem: The Eggplant Epithalamion

The poem selected for this month’s cooked poem is from Erica Jong’s Half-Lives, and is a poem devoted entirely to one of my favorite ingredients, the eggplant.She has many poems about food in fact, and this morning I had a difficult time picking which one I wanted to use. She has one about borscht, one on carrots, and one on Chinese food. Her first published volume of poetry is actually titled Fruits and Vegetables, and has, not surprisingly, poems all about onions, avocados, artichokes, and rice.

This morning I vacillated for a long time between her poems “Chinese Food” and “The Eggplant Epithalamion.” Eggplants are out of season I thought , and I should wait until August when their round little bodies have ripened in the garden, along with the tomatoes, parsley, and basil. But when I thought about making pork filled won tons, on such a beautiful spring day, I realized that I should make what I want to eat. Baked, garlicky eggplant just seemed so much more appealing, and so “The Eggplant Epithalamion” won.

The Eggplant Epithalamion

“Mostly you eat eggplant at least once a day,” she explained. “A Turk won’t marry a woman unless she can cook eggplant at least a hundred ways.”

-Archaeologist Iris Love, speaking of the cuisine on digs in Turkey. The New York Times, February 4, 1971

1

There are more than a hundred Turkish poems

about eggplant.

I would like to give you all of them.

If you scoop out every seed,

you can read me backward

like an Arabic book.

Look.

2

(Lament in Aubergine)

Oh aubergine,

egg-shaped

& as shiny as if freshly laid-

You are a melancholy fruit.

Solanum Melongena.

Every animal is sad

after eggplant.

3

(Byzantine Eggplant Fable)

Once upon a time on the coast of Turkey

there live a woman who could cook eggplant 99 ways.

She could slice eggplant thin as paper.

She could write poems on it & batter-fry it.

She could bake eggplant & broil it.

She could even roll the seeds in banana-

flavored cigarette papers

& get her husband high on eggplant.

But he was not pleased.

He went to her father & demanded his bride-price back.

He said he’d been cheated.

He wanted back two goats, twelve chickens

& a camel as reparation.

His wife wept & wept.

Her father raved.

The next day she gave birth to an eggplant.

It was premature & green

& she had to sit on it for days

before it hatched.

“This is my hundredth eggplant recipe,” she screamed.

“I hope you’re satisfied!”

(Thank Allah that the eggplant was a boy.)

4

(Love & the Eggplant)

On the warm coast of Turkey, Miss Love

eats eggplant

“at least once a day.”

How fitting that love should eat eggplant,

That most aphrodisiac fruit.

Fruit of the womb

Of Asia Minor,

reminiscent of eggs,

of Istanbul’s deep purple nights

& the Byzantine eyes of Christ.

I remember the borders of egg & dart

fencing us off from the flowers & fruit

of antiquity.

I remember the egg & the tongue

probing the lost scrolls of love.

I remember the ancient faces

of Aphrodite

hidden by dust

in the labyrinth under

the British Museum

to be finally found by Miss Love

right there

near Great Russell Square.

I think of the hundreds of poems of the eggplant

& my friends who have fallen in love

over an eggplant,

who have opened the eggplant together,

who have swum in its seeds,

who have clung in the egg of the eggplant

& have rocked to sleep

in love’s dark purple boat.

For a long time I steered away from cooking eggplant because how to prepare it always seemed to elude me. It wasn’t until the last time I was in Italy with my grandmother that I started to cook it and realized that eggplants are not as intimidating as I had thought. I would buy the little eggplants at the market and when my grandmother would get up from her afternoon nap she would slice them and salt them and leave them to rest under a dishtowel on the kitchen counter for me. Often I would just grill them on the stove top with some olive oil, and we would eat them for dinner sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, chopped parsley, more olive oil, and salt and pepper. Once, I prepared them this same way and then topped them with leftover Bolognese sauce, which was delicious since the eggplant’s meaty flesh can stand up so well to the heavy tomato sauce.

But since Jong’s poem is all about Turkish eggplants, I thought I should try to make something less familiar. And since Turkish women are supposed to be able to cook eggplant 100 different ways, I figured I should make more than just one eggplant dish. So I made two. As the eggplants baked away in the oven this afternoon, my apartment was filled with their earthy, moody scent.

Both of these dishes were simple and relatively easy to make. The Turkish Eggplant Salad is surprisingly light and airy, and tastes delicious sandwiched between a piece of pita bread. I chopped up the eggplant into chunks, but I think it would also work to puree the whole thing in the food processor and make it more into a spread. The baked eggplant recipe came from a North African cookbook, and the filling is wonderfully flavorful and satisfying.

Turkish Eggplant Salad with Garlic and Yogurt from Fay Levy’s International Vegetable Cookbook2 medium eggplants (total 2 to 2 1/2 pounds)

2 or 3 medium garlic cloves, finely minced

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons lemon juice

5 to 6 tablespoons plain yogurt

salt and freshly ground pepper

cayenne pepper to taste

Cut the eggplants in half and prick several times with a fork. Bake at 400 F for about 1 hour. When done, eggplant’s flesh should be tender and eggplant should look collapsed. Remove eggplant peel, cut off stem, and drain off any liquid from inside eggplant. Chop flesh into cubes with a knife.Transfer eggplant to a bowl. Add garlic and mix well. Stir in olive oil, lemon juice and yogurt. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper; season generously. (Salad can be kept, covered, 2 days in refrigerator.)

Aubergines Farcies (Baked Stuffed Eggplant) from Kitty Morse’s The Vegetarian Table: North Africa

2 medium eggplants

3 tbs. olive oil, plus olive oil for drizzling

1 onion, chopped

4 tomatoes

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 c. dried bread crumbs

1/3 c. Parmesan cheese, grated

Handful of parsley, minced

8 basil leaves, chopped

1 tsp. harisa or red chili paste

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the broiler. Trim the stems from the eggplants and cut in half length wise. With a sharp knife, remove the flesh, leaving a 1/4 –inch-thick shell. Chop the eggplant flesh and set aside.

Brush the inside shells with olive oil and place in an oven proof dish. Broil them until they turn light brown, 4-5 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a skillet, heat a couple tbs. of the olive oil and cook the onion, until tender 6-8 minutes. Coarsely chop two of the tomatoes and add to the onion. Add the eggplant, reduce heat, and cook until the eggplant is tender, covered, 8-10 minutes.

Transfer the eggplant mixture to a bowl and mix with the garlic, bread crumbs, cheese, parsley, basil, harisa (or chili paste), salt and pepper. Fill the shells with this mixture. Slice the remaining tomatoes and arrange them on top of the eggplant. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until lightly browned, 25-30 minutes. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Bohemian Kolaches

As part of my mother’s ongoing quest for her cultural identity, she announced a few days before Easter that she wanted to make kolaches for the occasion. Kolaches, for those of you who are not familiar, are fruit filled pastries of Slavic origin. I had never had one- or even seen one, I don’t think.
When questioned further by my father about why she wanted to add making them to her already long list of things to do that weekend, she said she felt she had to make them before she died, because it’s “part of her heritage.”
The recipe for “Bohemian Kolaches” she dug up came from another vintage bread baking book, Homemade Bread, published in 1969. I’ve developed a real affinity for these old cookbooks not only because they have great recipes, but because the language and notes to the cook (who is obviously an eager to please housewife) are pretty funny. For example, underneath the title “Bohemian Kolaches” it declares that they are “fruity and gay.” Fruity and gay! You don’t say! Let’s make them right now!
The book also contains a litany of suggestions and advice aimed at helping you become the most formidable homemaker of all time.
“If you want to collect compliments for the bread you bake, do make Kolaches.”
Well, now that you mention it, I do want to collect compliments, for everything I do.
“Some women consider Kolaches tedious to make, but almost everyone believes they’re worth the effort.”
That’s okay, I have all the time in the world to stand at the counter, making “tedious” things. Especially if it is going to impress my guests.
“Arrange the apricot-and prune-filled rolls, dusted with confectioners sugar, on a tray for your next tea or coffee party, or pass to guests with coffee at any time of the day.”
I’m especially grateful they included this direction, because I don’t think I would have been able to think of doing this with the Kolaches myself.
The book also has small historic anecdotes too, about the origin of the “crescent roll” for example. (I won’t go into it, but it involves Turks, and tunnels, and nighttime bakers in Vienna.)
While this was supposed to be my mother’s project, I was the one who initially ended up making them Saturday afternoon. I say “initially” because I ended up reading the directions incorrectly and totally screwed everything up . I added the yeast to the scalded milk instead of to the warm water, thereby failing to activate the yeast, and was left with a heavy, somewhat dry ball of dough. Half an hour after setting my dough to rise, I excitedly peeked under the dishtowel expecting to see the glorious ball of dough, shiny and swollen, expanding like a balloon, only to realize it hadn’t change a bit. Not one bit!
It was my mother who identified my mistake, and I, who was growing increasingly less enthusiastic, decided to toss my failed kolache dough into the compost bucket.
“I’ll just whip up some more dough,” she said. “You go and relax.”
So I did. And she made the kolaches, which ended up being beautiful and sweet and very impressive. She even hauled my discarded dough out of the compost and invented a delicious, round, loafy thing filled with dried fruit and nuts, which we ate Easter morning. I think it all worked out and that her Aunt Mary, and all the other Czech mothers that had come before her, were looking down on her, knowing that from the beginning baking the kolaches was meant to be her task.

Bohemian Kolaches
½ cup milk
2 pkgs. Active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
¾ cup butter
½ sugar
1 tsp. salt
4 egg yolks
4 ½ cup all purpose flour

Scald the milk; cool to lukewarm.
Sprinkle yeast on warm water; stir to dissolve.
Cream butter, sugar, salt and egg yolks together until light and fluffy. Add yeast, milk and 1 ½ cups of the flour. Beat for 5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Batter should be smooth.
Stir in enough remaining flour, a little at a time, to make a soft dough that leaves the sides of the bowl. Place in lightly greased bowl, turn dough over to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Stir down; turn onto lightly floured board and divide into 24 pieces of equal size. Shape each piece into a ball. Cover and let rest 10 to 15 minutes.
Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets; press each piece of dough from center outward with fingers of both hands to make a hollow in center with a ½” rim around the edge. Fill each hollow with 1 Tbs. of filling.
Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 30 to 40 minutes.
Bake at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes, or until light brown. Brush tops of rolls with melted butter and sprinkle lightly with confectioners sugar.

Prune Filling
Cook 30 prunes in water to cover until tender. Drain and then mash with a fork and stir in ¼ cup of sugar and ¼ tsp. allspice. Filling should be thick. Makes enough for 14 kolaches.

Apricot Filling
Cook 25 dried apricots (about 1 cup) the same way as the prunes. Also mash with fork or in the food processor, adding ¼ c. sugar. Filling should also be thick and will make enough for 10 kolaches.