Category Archives: writing

Three Whistle Potatoes

Image:www.7spice.net

For a few weeks now, I’ve harbored a craving for alu mutter, that glorious Punjabi dish of potato and peas soaked in a tomato based sauce tinged with cumin, coriander, mustard, asafeodita, red pepper, garlic, ginger, and onion. There you have it, the ingredients for a dish to be sopped by handfuls of poori, that delicate wheat bread that puffs up to a golden pillow in hot oil. I looked for a recipe online, and found one that began with ” cook the potato in the pressure cooker for three whistles. I looked for another, and made do with a curry I assembled quickly from an Australian transplanted from India and naan from Shop Rite. Then I settled in to watch the new BBC War and Peace, in which Natasha dances at the ball.

Something New

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The Beach, 2016

The season is a strange one, full of highs and lows, winter and spring all in a month. The ground thaws, freezes. The leap day approaches, and tonight, the moon is full. I watched the waves yesterday, renewed my passport, had a fun texting session with a dear friend, and then, hours later, I found myself in tears by noon. The kind of crying that leaves your eyes tired. The whole what am I do with this life before me, and is what I am doing in any way truly fulfilling?

A friend dropped by with a gift of a bright-colored beauty of a scarf. She returned to her studio to paint. I dubbed the scarf Happiness.

Lately I’ve been writing, and publishing, small essays. Some links:

A book review of The Parthenon Enigma by Joan Breton Connelly:

An essay on bullying, menopause, and finding voice on poet Jenna Shwartz’s The Roar Sessions:

A new draft of the novel is done, and handed in. The doubts emerge. I think already of newer revisions. I think of a new book, about a man growing grapes on a wall in the garden. His wife drifts by with shears in her hands.