Tag Archives: Matthew Gilbert

Stones never seasoned an empty pot, yet somehow our empty cupboards filled my mother’s Dutch oven. A handful of dried rice and chicken bones from the night before, a carrot or two – my mother’s ceramic broiled and stewed. Her … Continue reading →

harvest of dirty hands of an emptied garden – frostbite of turnips and greens. blossoming pink petals of salmon, spears of leeks – a palate buds on the tongue. white grapes plucked from sun-sweet vines – suddenly: raindrops in hand. … Continue reading →

An old chef filleted a large salmon, her blade separating the loin from its corpse and I was fascinated by the precision of her cut. Like a painter’s brushstroke, her lines revealed the image like spring blossoms, salmon petals flaring … Continue reading →

Nightfall in early June, raindrops glisten on fresh-cut blades of summer bluegrass, glass fireflies cast over mountains luring me to that old maple bench where strawberries climb. You led me there by the river where waters rose in rain, and … Continue reading →

Along the banks of Clinch River, by the Post Office             a tornado struck in the summer of ’93 or ’94, I pick dandelions from grass sodden with overflown waters             to brighten our bare plates with nature. In a house of … Continue reading →

In the stockpot grandmother used, we’d fill             water to its brim and season with the dust of roots. We’d simmer pork bones and fallen apples from             earth and use sage to stir in notes of citrus. We shall eat from … Continue reading →

It’s not a painless task, picking blackberries from the bramble of a past bursting against the canvas of November snow – cold magenta slewed across the ground under the crunch of my boots. As a boy I remember my mother … Continue reading →