Recipe Poem and 350

Hi all,

I'm back and many thanks to Dan for covering the post last week.

I spent the week buried under hundreds of pages of poems, which are now successfully out the door to literary magazines. Thought, instead of a regular recipe, it might be fun to share one of my poems out of Dishing, a manuscript of recipe poems I've been working on the last year or so. The poem gives you most of what you need to know to prepare it, the only other note being that it should be rinsed thoroughly before cooking to get rid of a bitter coating on the grains. It's lovely with sauteed veggies of any variety. This piece first appeared in Copper Nickel #4 a couple years ago:

Quinoa

A word exotic enough for Goodbye,

or I love you, quinoa conjures suns,

hot stellar densities orbited by lighter matter.

Packed like French suitcases, sized

like mustard seeds, they grow into

translucent pearls, a grainy caviar, heated

with twice their weight in water.

And plentiful as the hail that comes down

now as we prepare to sleep, full of wine,

the night, quinoa.

In Food World News, Slow Food USA is encouraging everyone to observe October 24 as a day of environmental action and reflection on the impact of our present industrial food system has on global warming. They have partnered with 350.org (http://www.350.org) to help raise awareness about safe and unsafe levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The number 350 represents the safe upper limit (in parts per million) for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, a number we are already well beyond. Demonstrations are happening around the world to help people conceptualize how many 350 is--and, though nothing has been officially organized here in Missouri, I'm sure they would love any feedback on actions you take to help spread the word.

See you next week!
;-)M