An American Cooks Gumbo In Nacka, Reveling In Migration And Public Transportation, While Surrounded By Cuisines And Travelers Of All Kinds And Sorts.

Out and about on a day of shopping for my first gumbo in Sweden, which affords a moment to celebrate living in such a cosmopolitan, community-friendly city as Stockholm.  For instance, I’ve found public transportation in the Greater Stockholm area affordable, clean, efficient, quick and yes, multicultural.  I pay two hundred and fifty dollars for … Continue reading An American Cooks Gumbo In Nacka, Reveling In Migration And Public Transportation, While Surrounded By Cuisines And Travelers Of All Kinds And Sorts.

A Cup Of Coffee While Translating Tomas Gösta Tranströmer . . . Well, Not All Of Him, Just One Poem And An Appearance By Bob Dylan.

My days begin with coffee.  For close to forty years, my days begin with coffee.  In a previous life, I’m sure I frequented London Coffeehouses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Am I dependent on coffee?  Yes, yes I am.  And yes, since I drink coffee I am cosmopolitan, I believe in the free flow … Continue reading A Cup Of Coffee While Translating Tomas Gösta Tranströmer . . . Well, Not All Of Him, Just One Poem And An Appearance By Bob Dylan.

Smoking Houston

Fire, wood, smoker and flesh equals Smoking Houston, and smoking I have done with and for family and friends while sitting in the backyard at 2408 Cortlandt.  A favorite has been pork belly marinated in apple cider, brown sugar, honey, molasses and herbs seasonings. Smoking the inner organs of animals like this cow heart brings … Continue reading Smoking Houston

Nuns Brew And Drink Getting Closer To Thee, Though Not Quite Close Enough, And Thoughts on Woman Made in God’s Image . . . Or Is That God Made In Woman’s Image?

Give this day O Lord to Sister Doris Engelhard who crafts beer 80,000 gallons annually, as brewmaster at Mallersdorf Abbey in Germany.  Contrary to my thoughts on the distance of God in my last post, Sister Doris speaks of a close relationship with the Almighty. She always felt that she had an intimate relationship with God. “I have … Continue reading Nuns Brew And Drink Getting Closer To Thee, Though Not Quite Close Enough, And Thoughts on Woman Made in God’s Image . . . Or Is That God Made In Woman’s Image?

Bishop’s Barrel #21 Lifts Me To Heaven, While God Remains Ever Out Of Reach. Part Two:Wings.

Another Eduard von Grützner painting and another pour of beer.  He’s a happy looking monk isn’t he, well so am I, and so are bishops, monks don’t just have all the fun.  And yet when it comes to reaching the Lord, of course, he, she, it, them remain forever out of reach despite voices in our … Continue reading Bishop’s Barrel #21 Lifts Me To Heaven, While God Remains Ever Out Of Reach. Part Two:Wings.

“And Malt Does More Than Milton Can To Justify God’s Ways To Man:” Theological Speculation With Many Great Brews. Part One: Death And Kokytus.

A.E. Housman in “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff” from A Shropshire Lad has much wisdom to impart, but none of more magnitude and maltiness than the above lines; while Eduard von Grützner oil painting of Monks Drinking Beer In A Cellar portrays our current post out quite nicely–beer and God.  Let’s start down below; let’s start with … Continue reading “And Malt Does More Than Milton Can To Justify God’s Ways To Man:” Theological Speculation With Many Great Brews. Part One: Death And Kokytus.

Heraclitus On Smoke; Hervé Smoking.

Take a study of natural forces, add a healthy pour of figurative language and delicious fragments from the natural philosophers from the eighth and seventh centuries BCE throughout the Aegean, especially in the Greek letters of Heraclitus. Consider, Fragment 7: εἰ πάντα τὰπάντα καπνὸς γένοιτο, ῥῖνες ἂν διαγνοῖεν. Transliterated into our alphabet, and we read: … Continue reading Heraclitus On Smoke; Hervé Smoking.

Sausages And Cooking Murder.

Louis Vincent Palliere renders in bright colors the infamous Slaughter of the Suitors” by Odysseus and Telemachus, note those gorgeous capes tripping hues between orange and red. I love cooking sausages.  All sorts of sausage.  Beef, chicken, lamb and pig; andouille, bloedwurst, boudin, bratwurst, chorizo, hot dogs, kielbasa, knackwurst, linguiça, longaniza, merguez, morcilla, saucisson, soppressata,  … Continue reading Sausages And Cooking Murder.

A Comedy Of Eating: Watt And More . . . Including Sex. **Warning. Adult Views Of Eating Expressed.

John Hurt as Krapp in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape carefully, cautiously, contemplatively and then completely eats a banana, at first by letting it hang out of his mouth, just hanging there, caught between the air and its fruit shorn of peel, and the inside cavern of Krapp’s mouth, and then biting it off and … Continue reading A Comedy Of Eating: Watt And More . . . Including Sex. **Warning. Adult Views Of Eating Expressed.

Drinking Mezcal With Pedro Páramo.

Pedro Páramo and I walk into Gallo Pelón in downtown Raleigh.  He insists that to read his pages I need to drink in earth and water of Oaxaca, and I need to do it now before I let my eyes fall on his first page, his first words.  We tell the hostess we’re serious about drinking mezcal, … Continue reading Drinking Mezcal With Pedro Páramo.