Kitchen Alphabet
a luring exercise on form; after Leonora Carrington’s dancing vegetables and Chloe Aridjis’ A Leonora Carrington A to Z
Allegories become tidal in the kitchen, as free as water, as polyphonic as a recipe. a school of empathies for compassion to sprout.
Bone spurs ease at the counter, if they shan’t heal, rolling a dough into a pastry crust, scooping polenta into gnocchi. still, flare ups prevent me from pottering around kitchens, in which case, i the sick can still flex language, if not kick off a fuss about food.
Couscous must be tomatoey, with a touch of smoke. a twist on the spice mix, either grounded or whole, depending on the mood, who you are and why you are here, sitting at my table, eating my favourite dish, for it contains my spirited selves.
Dates melt for a sweet porridge (destoned, on a low heat); dates chaperone an archivist’s recipe book (chronologically, low key); an expiry date must be stamped on packaged food, forasmuch the apples and the cherries must subjugate to the arbitrary exercise. but, the vegetables and the fruits, and the meat, they still rot, if not boiled to exhaustion. if not fossilised in salt, because time holds multitudes in kitchens.
Endives are bitter dates, bittersweet when baked, as ambivalent as a winter salad. but bitter flavours are pragmatic teachers: cooking under capitalism and despite climate collapse is a choreography of compromises.
Fagioli all'uccelletto will teach you how to sing. to prepare fagioli, beans, all’uccelletto, the bird way, you will need some garlic and sage, one peperoncino, passata, canned kidney beans, canned cannellini beans and some olive oil. in a large casserole, gently fry the garlic, sage and peperoncino. add the passata and simmer over a low heat. add the beans about eight minutes before serving, mixing the cooked tomato sauce and the beans homogeneously with a wooden spoon.
Gourmande. [a word of uncertain origin; untranslatable]
Haunting. oh, she is haunting, we agree. but you name your ghosts! for what you fear, i may laugh. for whom you mourn, i might join us, or, i could cook you something creamy, spoonable before rosemary’s whispers. if only you had named your ghosts like herbs, marjoram would have come out of the woods as well, floral but sharp.
go on, then. i will tell you one thing as we wait: walls inside a kitchen always talk back, if you dare to ask the question.
Intuition: that is, a kitchen’s shoulder. it does the lifting and pivoting. the gut, however, hides behind the eyes – a mirror for the soul.
Jargon distracts from the cooking. break the eggs and beat them until a foamy layer will form. keep beating until there are no orange traces from the yolk. season as you wish but make the omelette: grease a pan, stir in the mixture, cook. flip. cook.
[filling, if any, is up to you]
Kneading is thinking. if not an idea, a dough; if not a sentence, a stretch; if not a paragraph, a fold; if not for a page, a loaf of bread crackles on the kitchen counter, chilling a baker’s bonfire.
Leaves must fall for novelties to bloom:
- beetroot leaves, lentils, harissa soup
- mixed leaves, tinned tuna, celery, sun-dried tomatoes
- sage leaves, butter ravioli
- basil leaves, tomatoes, mozzarella, capers (salad and/or panino)
Moon. she keeps the light on, snacking on beige croissants before they are baked into gold crescents. she is attentive, nibbling through the slow and gentle night, tucked inside the oven, forgiving. the kitchen casts a humbling roof.
Names are remembered around here, looping and stitching loose threads with the imperceptible bonds that connect us. stitching and looping closer, pulling the needle through a knot – and cutting, just like the narrator of a good novel, or the secret ingredient shadowed by a recipe.
Orecchiette come from a few hundred grams of fine semolina and a gulp of (lukewarm) water. combine to prepare the dough, form a log and pick your battle, whether that is your thumb or a knife. but, listen, those wee ears-shaped pasta are delicious store-bought too.
[whatever you decide, consider the help and cavolo nero pesto will come handy:
ingredients: cavolo nero, stems removed; almonds; parmesan, grated; olive oil.
method: cook the cavolo nero in boiling water until tender. drain, pat dry with a kitchen towel and roughly chop the cavolo nero leaves. crush the almonds. add the cooked cavolo nero. keep crushing and stir in the parmesan. drizzle some olive oil, crushing, adding more cheese and/or olive oil until you are happy with the consistency. don’t forget to taste the pesto as you go.]
Private, as language is, weird and close to the chest. fool, don’t tell me, or anyone, what food you choose to wolf down when nobody is looking.
paprika, too, one spoon here and there, moves mountains.
Quoting; nothing is ever new in the kitchen:
Readers, friends, if you turn these pages
Put your prejudice aside,
For, really, there's nothing here that's outrageous,
Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious.
Not that I sit here glowing with pride
For my book: all you'll find is laughter:
That's all the glory my heart is after,
Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.
I'd rather write about laughing than crying,
For laughter makes men human, and courageous.
— Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (1532-34)
Resist, recipe, reclaim. and repeat (cooking the same thing on repeat leads to great dishes) or, rebel, refuse the repetition. risotto rallies: one framework, endless combinations.
Salt. or superstition, either or, watch me throw a pinch of salt over my left shoulder.
Aha! soffritto sizzles in a pan; a fire ignites – eat.
spitting, too: fish bones, fruit stones, aftertaste. spit spit spit it all out
Tongues. mother’s tongue but mother tongue no more; kissing tongue; chanting tongue; longing tongue. yearn, tongue, talk.
tiramisù though [/ðəʊ/]
Useless things, useful things, things:
tongs, toaster,
electrical aids etc.
not to forget the whisk or the peeler and the grater
spoon, spatula, sieve; scissors will open (pre-cooked) marvels
i could do with more time as well
ladle and, little did i know the difference a good casserole can make
serrated and slicing knives; (sharp knives, anyways)
Vampires, beware, there can never be too much garlic around here. garlic and parsley gently fry in a pan; garlic preserves well in olive oil, coupled with branches of thyme; garlic will crush, be grated, be puréed but no garlic should ever come dance with pesto.
Wolves are allowed in here. do not close the door behind you—never close a kitchen’s door. werewolves, she-wolves, they are hungry, and so am i.
[if you disagree, M.F.K Fisher will teach you How to Cook a Wolf (1942):
I believe that one of the most dignified ways we are capable of, to assert the reassert our dignity in the face of poverty and war's fears and pains, is to nourish ourselves with all possible skill, delicacy, and ever increasing enjoyment. And with our gastronomical growth will come, inevitably, knowledge and perception of a hundred other things, but mainly of ourselves. Then Fate, even tangled as it is with cold wars as well as hot, cannot harm us.]
X + 1 teaspoon always does the trick. fish pies + 1 tsp of paprika / brothy beans + 1 tsp of miso paste / (grated) courgettes orzo + 1 tsp of mascarpone / lettuce, cannellini beans, red onion salad + 1 tsp of bottarga / sourdough starter, water, wholemeal flour, spelt flour + 1 tsp of fennel seeds / minestrone + 1 tsp of harissa / insert your equation for pleasure
Yellow, like Marguerite Duras and Claude’s kitchens. like mine, here, where i am writing this. hear me, there, as i cast a sunflower in winter.
Za'atar or dried oregano from Pantelleria on roasted carrots, on sardines on toast, on green salad, on hummus, on grilled shrimps, not one good day flies without the breath of them.
margaux
PS. This newsletter was inspired by Leonora Carrington’s vegetables, as featured in The Debutante and Other Stories, and by Chloe Aridjis’ A Leonora Carrington A to Z (published online in the LRB). It is the first dispatch in a thought-to-be mini-series, thinking around and writing against the standardisation of language from the perspective of the kitchen. I will end it by returning to Leonora Carrington’s imaginative worlds and words, sometimes, but, as things work out, it is all a work in progress.
PPS. It may be more fun to write your own kitchen alphabet than to read mine. I do hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter.
psst. rumour has it, my novel, Breaststrokes, will be available in paperback on 13th February but can already be pre-ordered, for your future self and/or loved ones.
thank you for reading. i’m margaux, an interdisciplinary writer and cook, and this is my hybrid newsletter. If you enjoy The Onion Papers, you can subscribe and come back for seconds (thursdays are for long reads and mondays for annotated recipes, both come out every other weeks) <3