[ChristyElizabeth]

Hello Robert -

I was surprised to discover that you've never written a sonnet. Your explication of what they should be, and contain, belies that fact. However, one thing you've insisted on in your critiques is using the exact word for describing something.

Therefore, I am going to respectfully point out that, while cream and scream are a perfect rhyme, thawed cool whip is a non-dairy product. Since most cooks (please note, I did not say 'chefs'!) are aware that cool whip topping must be thawed before use, how about a word indicating that you aren't talking about real whip cream?

I'm writing this at great personal risk to myself, as I have a compilation of recipes from my mother-in-law, and sister-in-law, half of which contain the obligatory ingredient for what is known 'down south' as congealed salad. (Why anyone would eat anything that starts with the word 'congealed' has always eluded me.)

Other than that, no nits.

Yours in good taste,
Christy

P.S. The other half of the recipes are dinner casseroles, that call for 1 cup mayo, 1 cup sour cream, 1 cup cream of anything soup, 1 pkg. lipton onion soup, 1 sleeve ritz crackers or potato chips, crumbled for topping. Needless to say, they are the only unstained recipes I own.

[ChristyElizabeth]

Hello Robert -

I was surprised to discover that you've never written a sonnet. Your explication of what they should be, and contain, belies that fact. However, one thing you've insisted on in your critiques is using the exact word for describing something.

Therefore, I am going to respectfully point out that, while cream and scream are a perfect rhyme, thawed cool whip is a non-dairy product. Since most cooks (please note, I did not say 'chefs'!) are aware that cool whip topping must be thawed before use, how about a word indicating that you aren't talking about real whip cream?

I'm writing this at great personal risk to myself, as I have a compilation of recipes from my mother-in-law, and sister-in-law, half of which contain the obligatory ingredient for what is known 'down south' as congealed salad. (Why anyone would eat anything that starts with the word 'congealed' has always eluded me.)

Other than that, no nits.

Yours in good taste,
Christy

P.S. The other half of the recipes are dinner casseroles, that call for 1 cup mayo, 1 cup sour cream, 1 cup cream of anything soup, 1 pkg. lipton onion soup, 1 sleeve ritz crackers or potato chips, crumbled for topping. Needless to say, they are the only unstained recipes I own.

[Robt_Ward]

Christy,

It's what the recipe called for. Everyone who eats that crap thinks it iS whipped cream anyway. A little poetic license, please? Pleassssssssssssssse?

jejeje™

(robt)

That's ONE crit, folks: 9 more and we have a contest... Step to the plate (so to speak)...

[ChristyElizabeth]

Well, I'll grant you poetic license, if you'll write your recipe for crême brulée on the back...

Christy, The Share-If

[Robt_Ward]

Christy,

Still thinking about the secret recipe.

On the topic of sonneteering, it is true, amazingly enough, that I'd never before composed one.

That I am able to discuss them theoretically should come as no surprise, since I am passionately interested in "form", even form I have never attempted, and so I have studied many forms.

Look at it this way: I can explain exactly how an internal combustion engine works, but I've never built one...

(robt)

[Terese Coe]

Poetry Extender

Cuisine Privee de Terese Escoffiere

One juicy nectarine,
a cup of sticky rice,
a single mangosteen,
a dash of dark allspice,

a cup of chopped zucchini,
a pint of café royal,
one half-cup of tahini,
fresh-pressed sunflower oil,

two scoops of Triple Crème
(already nice and runny),
one star-of-Bethlehem,
some halvah, buckwheat honey:

Throw them in the blender
with mucho rum and soya,
one quarto grant extender,
and serve to Dana Gioia.


Terese

[Terese Coe]

P.S. Robt, let me get this straight.

You want a contest of replies in order to reach an ascertained number which will then trigger a new contest of unannounced somethings which will then trigger an endowment which will then be announced and possibly awarded to a...

You are a prince and a sonneteer! The latter we know for a fact, the former is a rumor.

[Question: do you think that is a real smileyface or an impostor?]

Okay, that's two, you...(censored)

T.

[Robt_Ward]

That's pretty much it

(robt)

[Zita Zenda]

Robt, I only thanked you for acknowledging my offering and rising to the challenge; now, I will comment on your first-ever sonnet!

The couplet IS the recipe, it’s true, and it is brilliantly used for the couplet; my favorite part is: “...I see the world itself as food/... a taste for every mood.”

Post Purging Remark

I took in a bowl of
that Heavenly Salad,
that fluffy concoction
of everything pallid,
and noticed it looked just
the same coming out as
it happened to look go-
ing in: unappealing.


Terese, I have an old and wonderful Escoffier cookbook, it was my father’s.

[Michael Cantor]

Almost forgot about this villanelle. It was (interwoven with a sonnet decrying the echolalic boredom of villanelles) the first thing I ever posted on the Sphere, and subsequently my first published poem (<u>Lyric</u> preferred to print the sonnet and the villanelle separately).

Do Not Go Gentle into That Quenelle

I wish I could create a villanelle
With poet’s flourish, and a sous-chef’s care,
As sweet and subtle as a plump quenelle.

I must find piquant lines that mingle well
(The recipe demands a perfect pair)
With which I could create that villanelle

As easily as I take shrimp and shell
Them, grind them, beat in egg whites full of air
And sweetly, subtly, raise a plump quenelle.

But overlabored tercets will not swell
My dish - If I could blend their essence with the flair
I wish, I would create a villanelle

That marries words and verbs in parallel
With nutmeg, cayenne, heavy cream; prepare
It sweet and subtle; as a plump quenelle,

French-kissed with fruits de mer and bechamel,
A mix to metaphorically declare:
I wish I could create a villanelle
As sweet and subtle as a plump quenelle.