Happy Birthday Annie M!
Our son came from New York for his sister Annie’s birthday this weekend. The two of them and their big sister the real boss had dinner in Boston to celebrate, then actually texted their two out-of-it parents and asked us to come in town for drinks afterward, at a place so fancy they don’t have chairs. A place where you’re meant to stand like horses in a stall. A place so upscale you say to the bartender “I believe I’d like to try something interesting, something of your own devising, with, say, Bourbon, and bitters, and some surprise ingredient of your choosing ” and she asks a few more questions, then makes you a drink so very interesting that you who get up at 5:30 every morning of your life, sleep on past 8:00.
All that was last night. Tonight Annie, who has been cooking for us all ever since she finished culinary school, is cooking for us again, even though today is her actual birthday. So as soon as I get done writing this I’m copying, in my own imperfect human printing, a poem for her, in which the speaker-cook thanks all the ingredients in her soup and right at the end the blue flames from the gas jets that work all the magic. It's lovely and I'll copy it below.
This above is Annie at 15 with her honorary big brother Dodson, the first family member to see the funny, smart and fearless woman inside that timid tenth-grade girl. (Here’s to you for that one Dodson!) And especially here’s to you, Anne Payne Marotta: we would love you even if you didn’t know how to roast a chicken inside a flaky feathery pie-crust shell!
Acceptance Speech by Lynn PowellThe radio's replaying last night's winnersand the gratitude of the glamorous,everyone thanking everybody for making everythingso possible, until I want to shushthe faucet, dry my hands, join in right hereat the cluttered podium of the sink, and thank
my mother for teaching me the true meaning of okra,my children for putting back the growl in hunger,my husband, primo uomo of dinner, for notbegrudging me this starring role—
without all of them, I know this soupwould not be here tonight.
And let me just add that I could nothave made it without the marrow bone, that blood—brother to the broth, and the tomatoeswho opened up their hearts, and the self-effacing limas,the blonde sorority of corn, the cayenneand oregano who dashed inin the nick of time.
Special thanks, as always, to the salt—you know who you are—and to the knife,who revealed the ripe beneath the rind,the clean truth underneath the dirty peel.
—I hope I've not forgotten anyone—oh, yes, to the celery and the parsnip,those bit players only there to swell the scene,let me just say: sometimes I know exactly how you feel.
But not tonight, not when it's allcoming to something and the heat is on andI'm basking in another roundof blue applause.
