I just started reading a book of food writing, and all I can think about is food. I’ve only an introduction and one essay into The Reporter’s Kitchen, by Jane Kramer, and already I’ve made chicken salad, am planning dinner, and have borrowed two cookbooks from my library (thank you, Hoopla!).

Kramer is The New Yorker‘s European correspondent, but what’s important here is that she also has written about food over the years. The Reporter’s Kitchen is a compilation of those essays. I read The New Yorker only irregularly and wasn’t familiar with Kramer’s writing before this book caught my eye at the library (you know, back in the day when libraries were buildings you could walk into). So far I’m a fan. Even Kramer’s introductory essay had me starting to think about ingredients in my kitchen, and that might be the best response possible to food writing.

Tonight’s menu will take shape around some sort of pasta with tomatoes, kalamata olives, and probably green beans. I’m thinking about sautéed spinach on the side, and I also have an urge to bake. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.

Ground to table

I’m looking forward to a summer and fall filled with great cooking made possible by garden-fresh ingredients from the brand-spankin-new raised bed my husband just built for me. It’s 16 feet long and will hold everything from tomatoes and beans to cabbage and kalettes (aka kale sprouts). We took delivery of 4 cubic feet of soil this week and have spent the last three days moving it wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow into its new wood-framed home. I’m tired and a bit sore, but oh so happy I could write a poem.

Mineral-black soil,
Fertile, dark promise rich with
possibility

Or something like that. I’m reading a lot of poetry while sheltering in place, particularly after treating myself to a birthday purchase of books delivered direct to my door not by Amazon but by the distributor(s) for my local independent bookstore, which is able to continue bringing in income with this service while not able to open its doors. My order included three books of poetry, and I’m making my way through them slowly, savoring and re-reading.

My current obsession is The Madness Vase, by Andrea Gibson, one of my favorite poets. These poems are powerfully strong, anthems of survival shot through with vulnerability. They celebrate life without ever pulling punches, and I can’t get enough of them. That has been pretty much the case for me with every book of Gibson’s poetry I’ve ever picked up, and if you’ve never read any … well, I think you’re missing out.

I’ve seen Gibson in performance as well, and they’re equally powerful on stage. Here’s a collection of videos of their performances—don’t miss.

Non-fiction for the birds

Also included in my bookstore purchase was an enormous hardcover book, What It’s Like to Be a Bird, by David Allen Sibley. This one, too, is a joy, not meant to be read cover to cover but intended rather for wanderlust reading, choosing your own topic and following it wherever it takes you.

One place It took me was to my drawing pad, after reading about wings inspired to draw feathers of all varieties. I sense years of enjoyment ahead of me from this book, reading and re-reading, learning about different aspects of birds’ lives, reminding myself how and why they fascinate me.

Spring is a good time for reading about birds, when I also can sit on my front porch or back deck and watch them in the trees and at the feeders. That’s where I’m headed now, probably with a book.