Ingredients for the Week
Cooked chicken chopped for Monday.
Green beans washed, culled and cut for Tuesday.
Carrot tops twisted off, ends cut and skins peeled for stew on Wednesday.
Cooked rice fluffed up anticipating a raisin, milk and sugar bath on Thursday.
Friday Dinner Instructions:
1. Use the knife to dig out
the cauliflower core, break its buds
into pieces like words
rivals picked apart
over the airways last night.
2. Peel, slice and dice
onions and garlic
like one unravels the layers
of relationships with kin.
3. Let water flow over broccoli heads
in a Zen-like state, then shake them
like a dog does after a bath. Let joy
enter the kitchen.
4. When hands jerk sharply
as the peeler shucks the skin
off four large sweet potatoes,
consider the strength built
into each sinew and imagine
the energy infused by the earth
into each vegetable. Rejoice.
5. As the shredder moves in a steady
circular motion, keep time with its beat
as your feet rock back and forth
across the kitchen floor
from sink to counter
to refrigerator and back again,
a music that can soothe away
wrinkled brows and the harrowing daily news.
6. Mix onion into the shredded
sweet potato, and brush with egg.
Line the pie dish, letting your fingertips
touch the cool gooeyness:
a memory of mud pies you made
when life was still filled with play.
7. As the oven hums with heat,
absorbs the liquid, browns
the sweetness in the potatoes,
inhale the fragrance
into shoulder muscles
that need softening.
8. Shudder thyme, basil and paprika
over vegetables browning
on the stove before heaping them
onto the steaming potato pie crust.
Whip eggs into cold milk,
pour overtop the vegetable pie
letting liquid gel seep into crevices,
emptiness plugged for now.
9. As the timer is set,
the oven door closed,
let your mind open up,
anticipate the sunset.
Sabbath Preparation
