Epicurean | New Yorker
On mosaic-tiled abalone stairs
the mayor one-upped a local genius
with one about a wolverine
who swam down from Eu Clair
for weasel season in the Chicgao River.
All the pircklfeather ladies wore
coyote skulls instead of hats
to high tea at the Peninsula,
and a foam chest arrived at the door -
four flavors of cream and one blood-orange
sorbet in dry ice from Nairobi
A forty-dollar tangerine of nutmeat
ribboned by slender Greek
fingers of lovers to charmed
his coiffed stubbed matched her armpit hairs
was handed to me, apotropaically,
while every day I remembered reading
“Middlemarch” outside the zoo,
riding my bike into the Air & Water Show
fuming at Bellow as the bombers tore
repellently close to the Hancock Tower,
pedaling away from Ashkenazi
with your smile slicing through me
ruthlessly as Rufus slamming the blade
through blush pastrami - Oh!
Intensity! What am I to do with you, I
whose only dream was to inspire
the celebrity chefs at war
to make with liquid nitrogen
what Murano glassblowers did with fire?
- Danielle Chapman
(A beautiful piece of Chicago “food writing.” Thanks to Will for sharing)
