Pan de Muerto

Pan de Muerto, originally uploaded by Wild Yeast.

A more intimate view of Pan de Muerto.

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/10/31/pan-muerto/

Pan y tamales

Pan y tamales, originally uploaded by Alicia Guzmán Moya.

El pan, elaborado con los productos que da la tierra, para que los difuntos puedan saciar su hambre.

Directo desde México City...

Directo desde México City..., originally uploaded by MMD.

I'm looking forward to making Pan de Muerto tomorrow for the first time. . .

Pan de Muerto

Pan de Muerto, originally uploaded by Wild Yeast.

I'm going to make this tomorrow (well, today, technically).

Wild Yeast's photo note:

"The recipe is here."

Pan de muerto

Pan de muerto, originally uploaded by calaveritadeazucar.

Nuestra ofrenda de Día de Muertos 2008

Nuestra ofrenda de Día de Muertos 2008, originally uploaded by laap mx.

Day of the Dead White Russian Cupcakes with Chocolate Kahlua Frosting

Day of the Dead White Russian Cupcakes with Chocolate Kahlua Frosting, originally uploaded by cupcakequeen.

El Día de los Muertos

El Día de los Muertos, originally uploaded by Celeste M.

The photographer tells us:

"Walking with my camera today in East Village Arts District, I came upon a special three-day installation showing a typical altar that might be seen in a Mexican home for the Day of the Dead.

I met the artist, Ivan Deavy, who kindly explained some of the customs observed during a time believed to allow spirits of the dead to enter the living world temporarily. Petals are scattered on the floor to give the spirits a path to follow. Photos allow the spirits to know they are thought of, and favorite food and drink are also signs of welcome. More about Day of the Dead at Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead"

Un Mar de Calaveritas

Un Mar de Calaveritas, originally uploaded by John 3000.

Photo note:

"A sea of tiny sugar skulls for sale at Oakland's 2008 Día de los Muertos Festival. A traditional part of any Day of the Dead display, some of these calaveritas de azúcar have a foil strip on top--just waiting to be inscribed with the name of a favorite departed soul."

A long short course in Día de los Muertos

pumpkin pie cupcake

pumpkin pie cupcake, originally uploaded by jewelsb78(thefrostedcakencookie).

Interesting twist, and a great two-for-one!

Photo note:

"pumpkin spice cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese icing. fondant pumpkin pie slice. explored 11/10/08!"

Pumpkin cream spaghetti

Pumpkin cream spaghetti, originally uploaded by bananagranola.

bananagranola says:

"pumpkin, onion, bouillon cube, fresh cream (soy), salt, black pepper, olive oil, bacon, haricot beans, shimeji mushrooms, parsley"

This looks great!

Welcome Great Pumpkin

Welcome Great Pumpkin, originally uploaded by anadelmann.

It's pumpkin day!

Photo note:

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin."
(Linus in the Peanuts’ “It’s the great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”)

Happy Halloween!

Dinner Guest: Me, a poem by Langston Hughes

Okay, while this in no way reflects our wonderful evening last night, it *is* a poem about being a dinner guest. . .

Dinner Guest: Me by Langston Hughes

Dinner Guest: Me

I know I am
The Negro Problem
Being wined and dined,
Answering the usual questions
That come to white mind
Which seeks demurely
To Probe in polite way
The why and wherewithal
Of darkness U.S.A.--
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Murmuring gently
Over fraises du bois,
"I'm so ashamed of being white."

The lobster is delicious,
The wine divine,
And center of attention
At the damask table, mine.
To be a Problem on
Park Avenue at eight
Is not so bad.
Solutions to the Problem,
Of course, wait.

Langston Hughes

http://www.poemhunter.com/

Inviting a Friend to Dinner

(After Ben Johnson)

When you are next in town, I would be honored, sir,
if you would dine with me. I have a small place,
a little shabby perhaps, but cosy. The lamps
glow soft and warm, and with the curtains drawn,
you’d think you were in some New York or Paris bistro.

I would serve you something humble first,
home-made hummus, say, with warmed bread,
salad from the local farmer’s market, tasty
green beans, roast chicken, with peach
and honey sauce, rice—and wine, of course.

For dessert, I would offer my apple pie with cream.
And I would have Schubert playing, something quiet and sweet,
with a touch of sadness, to remind us of all life’s delicacies.
And I could read to you, or sing, or we could both sing,
or you could recite poems over cognac or coffee or tea.

And we could talk, of extraordinary or ordinary things.
For there is something to be said for the quiet, daily ritual
of breaking bread, for the discussion a meal engenders—
nothing fancy, neither food nor talk, just the old
stories, the old good-natured teasing between friends.

I don’t think Horace or Homer and his Odysseus
would disagree that at such moments people
are at their best, that spirited conversation over lunch,
or dinner or tea, or even breakfast, may be the essence
of humanity. Sir, let’s put this theory to the test.

--Charlotte Innes

That Evening at Dinner by David Ferry

Another "dinner" poem, and a different experience:

That Evening at Dinner by David Ferry : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.

That Evening at Dinner

by David Ferry

By the last few times we saw her it was clear

That things were different. When you tried to help her

Get out of the car or get from the car to the door

Or across the apartment house hall to the elevator

There was a new sense of heaviness

Or of inertia in the body. It wasn’t

That she was less willing to be helped to walk

But that the walking itself had become less willing.

Maybe the stupid demogorgon blind

Recalcitrance of body, resentful of the laws

Of mind and spirit, was getting its own back now,

Or maybe a new and subtle, alien,

Intelligence of body was obedient now

To other laws: “Weight is the measure of

The force with which a body is drawn downward

To the center of the earth”; “Inertia is

The tendency of a body to resist

Proceeding to its fate in any way

Other than that determined for itself.”

That evening, at the Bromells’ apartment, after

She had been carried up through the rational structure

By articulate stages, floor after flashing floor,

And after we helped her get across the hall,

And get across the room to a chair, somehow

We got her seated in a chair that was placed

A little too far away from the nearest table,

At the edge of the abyss, and there she sat,

Exposed, her body the object of our attention—

The heaviness of it, the helpless graceless leg,

The thick stocking, the leg brace, the medical shoe.

At work between herself and us there was

A new principle of social awkwardness

And skillfulness required of each of us.

Our tones of voice in this easy conversation

Were instruments of marvelous finesse,

Measuring and maintaining with exactitude

“The fact or condition of the difference

There was between us, both in space and time.”

Her smiling made her look as if she had

Just then tasted something delicious, the charm

Her courtesy attributed to her friends.

This decent elegant fellow human being

Was seated in virtue, character, disability,

Behind her the order of the ranged bookshelves,

The windows monitored by Venetian blinds—

“These can be raised or lowered; numerous slats,

Horizontally arranged, and parallel,

Which can be tilted so as to admit

Precisely the desired light or air.”

We were all her friends, Maggie, and Bill, and Anne,

And I, and the nice Boston Brahmin elderly man

Named Duncan, utterly friendly and benign.

And of course it wasn’t whether or not the world

Was benign but whether it looked at her too much.

She wasn’t “painfully shy” but just the same

I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been

Painfulness in her shyness earlier on,

Say at dancing school. Like others, though, she had

Survived her childhood somehow. Nor do I mean

She was unhappy. Maybe more or less so

Before her marriage. One had the sense of trips

Arranged, committees, concerts, baffled courage

Living it through, giving it order and style.

And one had the sense of the late marriage as of

Two bafflements inventing the sense they made

Together. The marriage seemed, to the outside world,

And probably was, radiant and triumphant,

And I think that one could almost certainly say

That during the last, heroic, phase of things,

After his death, and after the stroke, she had

By force of character and careful management,

Maintained a certain degree of happiness.

The books there on the bookshelves told their stories,

Line after line, all of them evenly spaced,

And spaces between the words. You could fall through the spaces.

In one of the books Dr. Johnson told the story:

“In the scale of being, wherever it begins,

Or ends, there are chasms infinitely deep;

Infinite vacuities ... For surely,

Nothing can so disturb the passions, or

Perplex the intellects of man so much,

As the disruption of this union with

Visible nature, separation from all

That has delighted or engaged him, a change

Not only of the place but of the manner

Of his being, an entrance into a state

Not simply which he knows not, but perhaps

A state he has not faculties to know.”

The dinner was delicious, fresh greens, and reds,

And yellows, produce of the season due,

And fish from the nearby sea; and there were also

Ashes to be eaten, and dirt to drink.