Ever been to a gym class? You know those stretches at the end, how some people can do the forward fold over split legs really easily, and other people can do the forward fold over crossed legs really easily, but almost no one can do both easily?

I think cooking is like that.

I think that primarily because I am not-so-bueno with following recipes. I want to be, I do! I start out with the best of intentions… but I seldom remember to shop with a specific recipe in mind, so I have to make substitutions. Plus there’s always something in the fridge that needs to be used up, before it goes bad. Plus I’m skeptical. And impatient.

So it is with great pride that I say I followed a recipe with (almost) no substitutions or approximations, and made something edible. Voilá!

It is a crustless spinach quiche. (I was in the mood.) It’s delicious! And it’s now going to be The Recipe, for when I need something repeatable, with known ingredients. I’ve found It. One and done! I mean, sure, if another one arises, grrrrreat. But one is more than none!

All hail the crustless quiche.
If you ever need a casserole brought to you, I hope you like eggs.

It’s time once again for Late Night Poetry here at The Skinny (Our motto: I’ll Go To Bed After I Read This Next Chapter, Really, I Mean it This Time).

Am feeling classical today, probably because – on my own bookshelf, mind you – I found a tome called Treasury of Favorite Poems. It had fallen behind some recipe books and I forgot it was there.

Opening at random to Shelley and reading aloud, I realized how apt so many of these poems still are. These lines from ‘Mutability’ especially struck me: “We rest.– A dream has power to poison sleep; We rise.–One wandering thought pollutes the day”.

Well said, Percy! Too true. I like to wag a finger at Facebook, or reality TV, but let’s face it:  the worst thought pollution is coming from inside my own brain. : )

Voila, the full poem. See what strikes you:

Mutability

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!–yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest.–A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.–One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!–For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

– Percy Bysshe Shelley

It’s time once again for Late Night Poetry here at The Skinny (our motto: Sleep Whenever You Want; It’s Summer, No One Will Notice).

Did you know Leonard Cohen is a published poet as well as songwriter/performer?

I found this out from no less an authority than the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. (BTW: I love that ‘modern’ qualifier in the title. There are collections with that name starting in the *1950s*.)

Here is one of his poems. As far as I know, it isn’t set to music, nor was intended to be.
I think it’s charming. What do you think?

You Do Not Have to Love Me

You do not have to love me
just because
you are all the women
I have ever wanted
I was born to follow you
every night
while I am still
the many men who love you

I meet you at a table
I take your fist between my hands
in a solemn taxi
I wake up alone
my hand on your absense
in Hotel Discipline

I wrote all these songs for you
I burned red and black candles
shaped like a man and a woman
I married the smoke
of two pyramids of sandalwood
I prayed for you
I prayed that you would love me
and that you would not love me