Food Mourning Scrumble

 

The day's prompt at the NatCroMo Freeform CAL was about food.

I’ve been a nonmeat eater for 41 years, now. I’ve been vegan, vegetarian, macro, lacto-ova, pesco-veg. Sadly, I haven’t had ice cream for 15 years, when I became lactose-intolerant. Since I’m from NYC, I’ve enjoyed expresso/cappuchino/lattes from teenage onward. My great treats were to go to Greenwich Village and sit in the beautiful Italian cafes, write, watch, muse, flirt. The grandchild of West Indian immigrants, avocados, mangos, plantains and bananas are part of my soul food. We are rice people – my first potatoes were sweet and plain yams. My other starch — boiled green bananas —are an unexplored taste treat. And as a child of the great metropolis, I’ve eaten outside our root cuisine all my life as monthly treats included Chinese food, Italian food, or trips to the Jewish deli.  My high school sweetheart and I discovered Indian cuisine and came to love falafel, stuffed grape leaves, moussaka, hummus, tahini at our favorite haunts. I cooked to earn money in college, both freelance and as the cook for a house.  My Algerian friend taught me cous-cous – now a part of my staples. I love Pad Thai as much as sushi and miss injera and wat, foo-foo and jook, sfogiatelle and hammentaschen, West Indian bun, rotis and gazadas –  delights that none of my neighbors know. Though the mega grocery store now has a sushi stand, so something has reached these hinterlands and they import panettone in season.  Still no mooncakes, rugelach, or decent cannoli, no  place to order blackbeans and rice with kingfish, no service, codfish and ackee, or revoltillo bacaloa, until I get a care box from the city.  So, loving so much so widely, I decided to hook about loss.

This piece is about the hole in my heart when goat milk turned on me last month as have caffeine-coffee, soy, nuts, and  raisins. It is about bereavement missing long-lost cheese, whipped cream, fondues, grilled cheese sandwiches, omelets. No more the joy of dark brewed liquid swirled with light.