Food Glorious Food
June 2011
#029
Responsible Parenting
Like when the goldfish died.
When all were alive, there used to be five
But the next thing we knew, three were killed off by two.
There never was one, from two there were none.
She never realised that they were both dead.
Seems she forgot that they hadn’t been fed!
Andrew Diamond
Goodmayes Writers
Ginger Nut Biscuits
Cracked like a sun-baked desert
Scrumptious disk of fire
Heat breaks loose upon my tongue
Taste of India
Exotic spices
Savour crumbs
Crunch!
Ashley Jordan
GROW
Crunchie
Nugget of time and pleasure
I bite down deeply
Seeking the buried treasure
Golden honeycombe
Draped in chocolate sheets
Comforting
Aaah!
Ashley Jordan
GROW
Apple Timbale
Sticky soft apple texture
Dark caramel sauce
Crumbly pastry in my mouth
Hot toffee bubbling
Mouth is watering
To devour
Dish!
Nick Crump
GROW
Food
I like food
Even spotted dick
I'll eat it
Until I'm sick
So I eat some more
Before I'm sick, sick, sick
Food, food, food
Puts you in a good mood
Carrots and peas
Dirty knees
Mashed potato
I should say so
Fish and chips
Maria Gethin
GROW
Food Glorious food
I love food,you love food. we all love food, Sweet or savoury, Breakfast,Lunch or dinner. Lets not forget those snscks inbetween. All the countries around the world have their own traditional dishes. My favourite has to be roast lamb,roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding and veggies of some kind, with lashings of gravy to mop it all up. YUM! I also have very strong feelings for chocolate. We've been friends for a very long time. I introduced my girls to chocolate when I weaned them at 4 months old. We are all chocolate addicts.
Debbie Feltz
GROW
Rhubarb Crumble
Stringy bits of yummyness
Sitting in a dish
pour over lots of custard
Hot and gooey sweet
Crumbly bits of crunch
Fills my mouth
Yum!
Debbie Feltz
GROW
Lemon Meringue Pie
White peaked mountains cupped with gold
On a lemon bed
A sunshine covered planet
Waiting to be ate
Hot melting glory
Delicious
Wham!
Sue Rabbett
GROW
Food Glorious Food
My grand children remember days
When they would learn to cook
Birthdays were so special
Recipes from a book.
Nanny bought ingredients
Icing, currants, nuts to spare
Cinnamon, spices tempting smells
Everything was there.
Memories of days gone by
Are talked about today
Passed to another generation
Great grand children on the way.
Those days are now a legend
I remember them so well
Teaching was a pleasure
I still retain the smell.
The taste of food was different
The flavours and the juice
Family meals were special
No need for an excuse.
Perhaps it is the years between
Have dulled the sense of taste
For food has lost its flavour
On me , is just a waste.
© Sally Flood
Newham Writers
Fulfilment
White dove of peace
Wings outstretched in static pose
Inelastic as the royal icing
Unnatural, not real; unyielding,
To the knife that hovers
Held in our bonded hands
Above the colourless flowers
Starved of earth, in which to grow.
Fairytale wedding, too sugary sweet
A dream, a hope - for some maybe,
But it wasn’t what I had longed for.
I saw sunshine and beaches,
With wave washed sands of gold,
To match the bands freshly placed,
On our tanned fingered hands.
Instead, the shine is dulled,
By the sombre artificial light.
I join its plasticity in a smile,
Directed at the man who loves me
My mouth warms, flushing my cheeks
I love him too.
Just get through this sideshow
Then the white dove will soar
On symmetrical wings
Its warm breast beating,
Soft to the touch.
And the flowers will bloom
In a blazing colour
As the cake yields
Revealing its deep rich fruit
And the waves break,
On golden sand.
Jan Hedger
GROW
Eat To Be Complete
All people like different food
Some make a choice by their mood.
Sometimes you have snacks or maybe a meal
It depends on the day how you feel.
Some go with food throughout the day.
Then you might eat at night
Your stomach makes noises or pains which aren’t right.
You’ll find it keeps you awake as you lay
The next thing you find you sleep through the day.
Food is important so you must eat
You’ll find that your day is complete.
If you don’t take note of what I say
Soon you will find you’ll be sick one day.
Jamie Fidgett
Eggs
Scrambled, boiled, fried or poached,
With bread and butter or with toast,
But the eggs that make me smack my lips
Are in an omelette served with chips.
And then I smother them, of course,
With lashings of tomato sauce.
I have at least two eggs a day
Which free range hens, for me, will lay.
I get them from the supermarket
Then eat their mothers, in a basket.
Andrew Diamond
Goodmayes Writers
Chicken
No chicken left
All is gone
eaten by myself
and my friends
Now you will
have to go to a farm
To catch a chicken
to kill the chicken
to pluck the chicken
to cut the chicken
to take out innards
from the chicken
to wash the chicken
sprinkle it with spice
to bake the chicken
to eat the chicken ...
Wait a second,
here comes
a farmer's wife.
Who is going
to pay for mine
chicken?
Marie Neumann
POW!
A Holiday
It would be nice to take a day off
From being diabetic and do what I like.
Not inject insulin nor take a pill;
To consume lots of sugar, forget that I’m ill.
To eat cakes and biscuits, in chocolate indulge;
Not having to battle from having a bulge.
Not having to stick to the times when I eat,
Or planning my portions and not have a sweet.
Not doing a blood test three times in the day,
Disposing of needles in a safe, harmless way.
To dine out on pizzas and puddings galore
And not find a place to inject any more.
It would be nice if I lived life like you
But my Doctor said this is what I mustn’t do.
I know my diabetes will not go away
But can’t I forget it, just for one day?
Andrew Diamond
Goodmayes Writers
Food Glorious Food?
My kitchen is out of bounds
The fridge is a closed door
My son is now the cook
Who could ask for more?
I squat beside the telly
And smell the cooking done
There’s a rumble in my tummy
“Well done” it says “my son.”
© Sally Flood
Newham Writers
Before Opening
Ignoring all the scents that assail my nose and send my taste buds into over drive, at the mere thought of the sweet juice of fresh oranges, and the sharpness at the first bite of a Granny Smith, I focus my attention on the root vegetables, a staple of our human diet.
These vegetables have a smell of their very own, the smell of their subterranean birth, carried through from firm roots as they grew in the darkness. It is the smell of the rich black earth, alive with natural nutrients.
These are the ‘real thing’ brought from farmers, striving to stay in business against the artificial plasticity of the modern supermarket.
I cross the floor to where they sit on proud display – WE ARE BRITISH – proclaims the plastic flag stuck on to the shelf strip, next to the price per kilo. My heart is saddened, that keeping hold of imperial measurements/weights, was an impossible fight, a fight we couldn’t and didn’t win.
But the honesty of the display in front of me lifts my spirits once more. The carrots in bunches of the deepest orange, twisted in comical shapes of a natural form, still flecked with the earth in which they grew. In contrast of bright green, feathery fronds of the leaves that fed the plants as they grew sprout from the elastic band that holds them, as brothers together.
The fronds spill from there allocated space, protecting the small but robust turnips from there bullish neighbours – the Swedes. The turnips sit huddled together, nursing their purple bruises, blemishes on their otherwise perfect skin. Some though are still a little green in their innocence, pulled from the ground before being fully mature, they skulk in the background, shy not wanting to be chosen yet.
The brutish Swedes however, stand solid and hard in defiance. With such a thick skin, they are bold enough to stand alone. These guys are the success of the crop, firm, fresh to the eye, the weak ones previously discarded as winter fodder for the sheep. Something primeval about sharing the goodness of the land with its grazing animals.
Last but certainly not least, the parsnips. Pale in comparison to their cousins, the carrots, they have nothing to be ashamed of, with their creamy complexion, they are pure and unadorned. Their sweetness only becoming apparent, when they are treated with respect by whoever cooks them. They have a right to be proud of this secret.
My inspection complete and all the boxes ticked, I add my own flag to the display.
‘Organically approved’ Soil Association.
Jan Hedger
GROW
A Carrot
A carrot
growing in soil
deep and deeper,
deep and deep.
"I show that beet
I can be as big as she!"
Besides I have
prettier color.
You hear about carrot hair.
Did you ever hear
about beet hair?
You are good for blood,
I cure eyes.
You color eggs red
and I can turn
skin yellow.
You are sweet
so I am.
They turn you into sugar
but rabbits like me more.
Marie Neumann
POW!
Vegetables
I always eat my vegetables, I always eat my greens;
Cauliflower and carrots, even brussel sprouts and beans.
I’m told that eating vegetables is healthy for my tum
And if I do not finish them I’m walloped by my mum.
The vegetables I eat are always what my mother’s chosen;
Some of them are fresh and some of them are frozen.
I usually have them hot, but in salads they are cold
And when my mum’s adventurous they’re even casseroled.
I always eat my vegetables, I have my five a day
And for a treat I have some meat to take the taste away.
I am not undernourished, I am never looking pale
Because I have my cabbage and consume my curly kale.
My diet is full of fibre and my blood is full of iron;
That’s why I keep regular without me really trying.
I don’t smell sweet when I excrete from eating broccoli,
It proves I’ve had my vegetables; I’ve even had a pea.
Andrew Diamond
Goodmayes Writers
A Tesco Melon
Racing green, flecked with lemon,
leaden, leathery to the touch.
Oval like a rugby ball.
Press the ends and feel for give,
telling you that it is ripe.
There’s enough to split it up
into six delicious portions.
Serve it chilled, not icy cold.
Scrape away the slippery seeds.
Slice the flesh above the skin.
Cut it into mouth sized segments
which display its creamy colour,
oozing out its honeyed juice.
Start to eat and taste the nectar;
succulent, smooth, melting fruit;
subtle smell of sparkling dew.
It’s as if you’ve gone to heaven.
When you’ve finished, lick your lips.
Collecting any surplus pips,
throw the skin into the bin
and that’s the end of Tesco’s melon.
Andrew Diamond
Goodmayes Writers
Flounder
Freshly caught out of the sea.
Flounder on the pan,
battered flounder ready to eat.
Dry flounder, smoked flounder,
flounder a la herring;
roasted flounder is to small.
Flounder for lunch, flounder to go.
Fresh flounder good to eat.
Marie Neumann
POW!
From The Ground
Plucked from the dampened field
Night melts into dawn
Butter melting in the pan
A bruise of garlic
Aroma rises
Mushrooms fry
Earth!
Jan Hedger
GROW
Bellisimo
Tomatoes prised from the vine
Warmed by the Tuscan sun
Fresh leaves of deep green basil
Finger torn and scattered
A perfect marriage
Olive oil
Drenched!
Jan Hedger
GROW
Jaffa Cake
Floating on a soft light sponge
Tangy orange spread
Secretly hidden within
Thin, dark chocolate
Bite through to reveal
Its treasure
Rich!
Jan Hedger
GROW