Something about lamb just screams marinade. You don’t have to, it’s perfectly fine cooked straight up with some Tony’s and black pepper on the grill, but sometimes it’s fun to let something sit overnight–if only for the antici…..pation. I picked up the chops at Whole Foods along with some roasted garlic and roasted red peppers from their olive bar. Cut some basil and green onion and rosemary from my herb garden and hit it with some roasted garlic olive oil before shaking it up and parking it in the fridge. Every few hours I’d open it up and flip the chops. I think the buildup alone made them taste better.
I got the inspiration for the mustard greens from the collard greens I had when I visited Chicken Shack on N Acadian. Greens are great for the weekend because you can toss them in the slow cooker early with a nice ham hock, chopped red onion, and chicken or beef broth and let them roll all day. Once you’ve got them going, it’ s very clear why they’re called mustard greens. I kept looking around for the Lucky Dog cart. Here’s a shot of the star of every slow cooker show.
These are so fantastic when the greens or beans are done. It reminds me of the marrow bone Dad would share when my mom would make fried roundsteak cutlets. Best part, he’d say, and smear the marrow over a piece of buttered white bread and give me half. Little things like that never go away. I think we probably hold onto those memories all the way to the end. Seems like you’d forget your name before you’d lose the marrow on white bread. Here’s a poem I wrote quite a few years ago that kind of goes there.
Emmalina
How she must have loved them
those last years of her life,
the one she called Cheyenne,
the plume of her tail above her,
her child eyes, huge, fearless,
the way she gobbled her food
then chased the others away
And Samuel, Sammy, the king,
his shoulders bunched for a leap
across the long green lawn
When he fought, he reminded her
of Cassius Clay, it was always over,
the other tom slinking way, unhurt,
damaged only in pride before she,
with difficulty, could get up,
pull her body from the concrete step
that seemed to want her always there,
just so, like a marble of her,
watching the strays circle tins of tuna,
watching the sky as the ink of a storm
spread into familiar shapes
Thomas had been dead five years
before Cassius Clay refused Vietnam,
but she knows what he would have said
Now there walks a man, Emelina,
there walks a man
He knew courage, her Thomas,
and there were very few men
he would say such a thing about
Thomas would have appreciated Romeo
who always walked alone, came
only when the others were done
to rub his ear against her shoe
As far as she knew she alone
had ever run her nails along his spine
stopping at the base of his tail
with a few quick spanks
as his head dug harder against her
Thomas would come home late,
sometimes three, four o’ clock,
carry his shoes to keep from waking her
although she always woke as soon
as he keyed the lock but she could not
would not let on how well she heard
for fear of missing something, in fact,
she played at being hard of hearing,
a small deceit, but necessary
because Thomas would talk to himself
just under his breath, rehearse,
several times, what he wanted to say,
to get it just right, to be perfectly clear
and she never wanted to miss a word
that came from those lips, angry,
exasperated, serious, smiling, his mouth,
it had always been his mouth, his hands,
the rough brown backs, the stiff coarse hair,
the white lines of nicks and gouges
collected over time like sins
She must fight to stand up,
pull herself from this stone step,
more possessive than any mother,
this step that wants to own her,
rise above her head like a lion
that has eaten well and needs sleep
In her housecoat is Pico’s string
but she pauses, trapped for a moment
by the back of her hand, the blue
that had once been in her eyes
has spilled in long knots
against the calico of her skin
Her hand looks like Cheyenne,
her blue gray bruises, the liver spots,
the ghostly white like that plume of tail,
erect, reaching out to the clouds
If her hands could only run and dance
She slaps the back of one hand with the other,
an odd gesture, one of many that has led
the students that pass her house to say
There, there she is—crazy old cat woman
Back and forth, the students,
to the university, its bars and classrooms,
its clear pools of light blinking on and off
between the live oaks
she loves mostly
for being older than she is
She slaps her hand because although
she will allow herself some vices
she will not permit if only’s
Pico, pico de gallo, the acrobat
launching himself after the string,
turning like a question in mid-air
Cats would love the moon
they may not need to breathe
maybe they only want to fool us
into thinking they are like us
They would love the sun directly
the rocks, the caves, they would miss
lizards leaping surely along ligustrums
Pico, double somersault, Pico
finished with fun, walking away
taking the sun with him
Thomas would lay his captain’s cap,
his badge, the eight battery flashlight
he carried instead of a gun, his watch
and wallet side by side on the table
before creeping tiptoe from the kitchen
to the bathroom where he undressed,
folded his uniform before placing it
carefully in the hamper, and she,
biting her tongue not to laugh,
would swear to herself never, ever,
to tell him how silly it was
to fold dirty clothes
She has more and more trouble
noticing the mosquitoes even when
they swarm her like pigeons
Thomas beneath a lamp reading,
moving his lips, a moth, a fluttering halo
about his head and she would hear
Let us go then you and I
then later, and this her saddest memory,
for he never failed but always
half-spoke the line when he came to it
I do not think that they will sing to me
He never got comfortable with her body,
every time was awkward, shy,
and that is why,
although her body still wants, needs
she has never, cannot bring herself
to take another man
The students cannot fathom this,
the young with their awful hungers,
cannot, will not,
and when she really thinks about it,
have no way of understanding
that sense of completion, something,
though not perfect, something
done as surely and well as you, yourself
believe that you could ever possibly do it
That feeling isn’t as easy to give up as virginity
Or this step, this damn stone stoop
that drags her deeper into every evening
One last time, Emelina, up we go
Hers is the room at the top of the stairs