Food memories

This is a free writing exercise.  I am not organizing my thoughts, just letting them flow from memory to memory.

My grandmother’s house in San Marcos, we ate Mexican food.  My grandfather made a carrot salad with raisins and mayonnaise, and pecans.  I loved it even though I found it a little bit gross.  My grandmother and her fruit.  Always, every breakfast, my grandmother believed that we should eat some fruit.  She would have prunes, sliced oranges, grapes, grapefruit… it always felt like a chore the way she insisted on fruit with breakfast, but the English muffins with butter were delicious. 

My other grandmother made amazing meatloaf.  I still remember it, even now after 15 years as a pescatarian and her dead now two years, not having lived in that house for 17 perhaps… since my grandfather died.  My grandfather loved pecan pie and ice cream.   He loved other foods that we didn’t realize until he had passed away.  We had no idea about the pickled pigs’ feet until we found tens of bottles of them in the pantry after his death.  Their house smelled of cigarette smoke and cloves in oranges.  Burnt countertops from cigarettes forgotten created a sporadic semi-pattern throughout the kitchen and dining room.  The foreign, fascinating sculptures and wood carved masks and figures cluttered the cabinets and shelves by the dining room table.  Dark wood, low orange light. 

Later at my aunt’s house, my grandmother could no longer taste much, but still loved to eat.  She delighted in a grapefruit and avocado salad that was simple but tangy and fatty and delicious.

I remember my mom’s quiche, her corn-cheese soup, her paella that we eat on Thanksgiving instead of the traditional turkey.  I remember the delicious meals that we would make together, or she would make.  My dad’s shrimp and raw oysters.  My brother’s picky eating.  Bread and cheese.  One year it was burnt toast and mozzarella.  Another year cheddar, and the bread didn’t need to be burnt.  The sodas.  I find sodas revolting now, but as a child I reveled in the sweet syrup that came out of the machines or tingled my nose in orange tangy flavors at the lake with my aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Sahara Lounge Description - Saturday night 2/15/14

Sahara Lounge

On a small white hill by a broken down bridge that the city has been promising to finish for the past nine months squats a ramshackle old one-story structure with a brightly illuminated sign proclaiming “Sahara Lounge.”  Once known as far-east Austin’s most authentic blues joint under different ownership and the name TC’s, Sahara Lounge continues to serve the surrounding African American community with beats, eats, and drinks, but now the music tends towards tropical and African rhythms, and the audience has grown to include a diverse mix of people of all races from all over Austin. 

Tonight I am here to see my friends’ group, a collective of four men and seven women tonight that goes by the name “Origens.”  The front man is Brazilian, and the style is taken from northeastern Afro-Brazilian roots with deep, large, heavy drums and tinkling triangles and chiming cowbells.  The vocalists are female, from a range of nationalities and ages; they lead the percussion in Portuguese, harmonizing, meandering between different tunes and tones, rhythms and keys.  All the band members wear white, turquoise, or red tops with a variety of floral skirts, red pants. The audience claps and sways, shoulders circling, hips bouncing, feet stomping, shaking the ply-wood dance floor. 

At one point three of the musicians come down from the stage and create a circle, two-steps, clap, stomp in the middle; they grab the hands of audience members on the dance floor.  The vocalist sings a sad, minor-key melody, and the drums are simple, melancholy; however, our circle dance lifts the spirit – a paradox of emotions. 

The ceiling is draped with a chaos of cables, bulbs, strings of Christmas lights; pipes and wires snake above leading to spinning disco balls, one reflecting with tiny mirrors, the other shining seven colors in shapes of stars, squares, and circles.  Garish, bright beer ads in neon tube-bulbs advertise Budweiser, Negro Modelo, and a cluster of red roses are stapled onto a beam that marks the exit from the stage up to the seating area and the pool tables.  Above this step, a long then gourd has painted “Music Joy Amusement” then “Emotion Peace Soul Celebration.”

The show moves the audience.  We all applaud.

Glitter letters behind the musicians remind us where we are: “Sahara Lounge, ATX.”

Descriptive Writing - McKinney Falls

Walking across the white, gray stone, smooth but uneven; tripping, worn down, cautious, I crouch to keep my balance. Debris floats and catches in the waterfall, trying to pass over to stagnant pools at the edges.  Dead trees lie and lean on either side of the water, waiting to be cut and hauled away or to be pushed and pulled further into the river and down.

I remember verdant leaves on a small tree and a slender green snake dangling, balancing between fragile branches, escaping the attention and probes of visitors.

Losing our shoes, stepping through puddles and cold streams, the feeling in my toes escapes.  We sit on top of a concrete picnic table, speculating on dreams and questions.

Sitting in front of the fire

I live in an old house that has a fireplace, the cozy, traditional kind with a chimney.  My architect friends tell me that this is not an efficient way to heat a room, but I enjoy its glow and the warmth you can feel if you sit close to it.  I associate it with winters in my childhood, when my parents, my brother, and I would sit around a fire reading books and telling stories.  I remember reading about pirates, ghosts, slave zombies, and dragons.  It's kind of funny to realize that these strange supernatural creatures have reemerged in popular culture.  The books I read were from several generations ago.  They were old and ugly, but I loved the movies they projected in my mind. 

So here I sit now, reminiscing by the fire with a laptop and a kindle.  I wish I was reading and writing on worn paper rather than cold plastic, but I appreciate the convenience of these technologies. 

I am excited about the Haiku contest.  I wish I had mentioned it in class today.  I will put the advertisement in our Canvas website.  

Most of you probably know what a haiku is; it's a short Japanese form of poetry that comprises of three lines with 5 syllables - 7 syllables - 5 syllables.  Here are some examples that I just wrote:

I write a poem
as I sit by the fireplace
warm feet, cold fingers.

I pronounce the word "fire" as two syllables FI-ER.  So I could eliminate "fireplace" and just put "fire." 

Embers glow orange
Ashes collect on old bricks,
twigs sit safe, untouched.

Apparently teachers can enter the contest as well.  I will enter these as my submissions, even though they don't have anything to do with Valentine's Day.