Things in the Wild Need Salt

in honor of Earth Day.

***

Things in the Wild Need Salt

Of the many histories, Earth tells only one–
Earth misses many things people tell about,
like maybe there are earthquakes that we should have had,
or animals that know more love than God ever felt.

And we need these things: things in the wild need salt.

Once in a cave a little bar of light
fell into my hand. The walls leaned over me.
I carried it outside to let the stars look;
they peered in my hand. Stars are like that.

Do not be afraid–I no longer carry it.
But when I see a face now, splinters of that light
fall and won’t go out, no matter how faint
the buried star shines back there in the cave.

It is in the earth wherever I walk.
It is in the earth wherever I walk.

– William Stafford

don’t be a fool for the sweetest nights

i breathe out, watching the sun go down because it has no choice. i can’t tell if the slowness in tempo and the fading of color are due to hopeless surrender or calm dignity or both at once.

that’s how i feel most days – it’s been hard to tell the difference.
i don’t keep count anyway. measuring has never been my forte.

i hear my head as it faintly warns my heart – “don’t be a fool for the sweetest nights.”

of course i end up the fool anyways.

sometimes the most important things are the ones that end up undetectable in memory: brushes of skin, glow of stolen glances, reaching of hands, sounds of bedsprings, texture of skin the morning after, matter-of-fact advice on the removal of candle wicks, the attempt to stay quiet, the song that was playing before you stepped out of the car.

they turn off the lights in hopes that you will forget. you end up following each other’s steps, touching and kissing harder to claim those feelings back. feeling invincible while swallowing darkness whole.

hope settles, quivers. and lifts its eyes. shakes its feathers. i crouch close by, waiting for it to take flight. gravity keeps it near.
regret puffs out its cheeks as if to say, “hey, i’m an emotion, too.”

the music rises, crests, soars with you. beneath you. carries you. when it lets you drop a day later, you are spit back into the darkness you had so willingly swallowed and then–

his voice, armed with Jack Gilbert, cutting through the hushed night: “The heart in its plenty hammered/ by rain and need, by the weight of what momentarily is.”

and so mine breaks, from all the weight of believing in what’s not really there.

“you fool,” the candle reminds.

i blow it out

in the most hopeless surrender.
with the calmest dignity.

i place the darkness in my mouth. i swallow it whole.

**

a side note on writing.
WordPress crashed as i wrote this, and i lost everything i had written. it’s always kind of gut-wrenching, even if what you wrote might have been shit. i was tempted to reach out to writer friends and ask what they do in these moments. i searched for the words again, then thought i shouldn’t write anything at all, and finally decided to let it come anyway in the form that it wanted the second time around. there is a lot of fear in writing, and i just read Brain Picking’s post on Cheryl Strayed’s advice. so, i dusted myself off, and i was like, i’m gonna write like a motherfucker. that’s what it takes.  

bacon-wrapped mochi

I mentioned a while ago that a friend and I tried a bacon-wrapped mochi appetizer dish for the first time at Soba Totto. Of course, it was exceedingly delicious so we ordered another plate at the end as our dessert. Yes, bacon totally counts as dessert.

I bought uncooked blocks of mochi weeks ago, and finally got around to getting some bacon. As someone who isn’t very well-versed in cooking meat, I procrastinated a while before settling on some dry-rubbed uncured bacon.

This morning I woke in a daze and went outside to chase the sunlight. I walked around the city until it got chilly, then went home to try my hand at making this bacon dish. A few modifications, as I was unable to procure some yakitori skewers. Also, I used a cast iron skillet rather than grill, but you can do it either way. Otherwise, pretty delicious and easy.

Happy sun daze.

(you can see that I was kind of hungry already and snacking on some almonds on the side…)

  

Ingredients

    • 16 mochi blocks (rice cakes) – (got mine at the amazing Sunrise Mart in SoHo)
    • 8 bacon slices, cut into halves – (got mine at Trader Joe’s)
    • Soy sauce and mirin mixed together, about 2 tablespoons each

Cooking Instruction

1. In a small pot, bring water to a tumbling boil on high heat. Carefully drop in all of the mochi blocks and cook for a few minutes until the mochi is floating on top. It will be very sticky! I confess that I kind of had to resist playing with the mochi like play-doh. I used tongs to scoop them out of the boiling water and place them on a place. Make sure that there is space between each mochi so they don’t stick together. Don’t worry if they are slightly touching, it’s kind of fun to unstick them.

2. Wrap each cooked mochi block in a bacon slice to create a little bacon burrito. If you have skewers, you can slide a few onto a stick. I just put them directly onto my skillet. Mix together soy sauce and mirin in a bowl.

3. Heat a non-stick (I used cast iron) skillet over medium high heat. Place the bacon-wrapped mochi on the skillet (either with or without skewers) and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side until the bacon is crispy. I used a pastry brush to drizzle some soy sauce/mirin combo on each one. Place skewers on a serving plate. Drizzle each bacon-wrapped mochi with more soy sauce/mirin mixture if you prefer.

Don’t worry, it’s not really that pretty of a concoction in the end unless you’re really really careful about the bacon wrapping – taste is what matters. The sticky, chubby mochi is unbearably cute though.