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  • I have forgotten how to cook

I have forgotten how to cook

Posted by Lisa D'Onofrio on 2 December 2004 at 17:33

Tags: cook

I have forgotten how to cook, by Bronwen Edwards

I

My fork casts a net
over food prepared for me
by other people’s hands

In floating kitchens
my nets come back empty
the gravy thickens into a dirty puddle

In the supermarket
I am lost
my gleaming ribbed charge and I
wander despondently
trying to decipher
the meaning from the glare

The potato just a thing
with too many eyes
tomatoes plump and mocking

Ladies fingers beckoning with
empty promises
an aubergine cold and hollow

Once comforting in its incarnations
Melanzana
Eggplant
Berenjena

Food in its multiplicities
a strange continent
and my visa application
has gone missing

II

Something has stirred
carrots greet me
orange with possibilities

Kernels burst from their
silken wrappers,
a cabbage crinkles with mirth

My fingers tremble
with the beauty of the
first cut

that reveals designs
that the recipes do not
I slice thinly, sauté

Add and taste
sprinkle and whisk
We come together

To follow i knead
my cool hands
ensuring pastry with bite.

Lisa D'Onofrio

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