Sylvia's Daughter Says
(writer's website for Tamara Miles)
Books to Come
This is the cover of a cookbook I'm dreaming about writing with my talented friend Cat Brendel. It will go along with a separate book of poetry I'm hoping to publish by the title Twig and Acorn: Poems for Spiritual Seekers and Other Weirdos.
Right here, right now, I'm starting to put it together -- an open book, you might say. I'll be posting recipes and poems and thoughts, and inviting my friend Cat to provide any kind of artistic image she would care to add.
Below you'll find Recipe 1: My take on a recipe for blue cheese balls from New York.
You'll also find my poem called "The Tide Goes Out."
Twig and Acorn
Cookbook
recipes, art, and
poetry by Tamara Miles
and Cat Brendel
Appetizer
Hilton Head Cheese Balls
1 1/2 cups blue cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup mozarella or any other favorite soft mild cheese
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco or other hot sauce
1 tablespoon diced onion
1 cup sliced amonds, roasted with brown sugar and spices (see below for recipe)
Mash the cheeses together with a fork until smooth. Add butter, Tabasco, onion. Blend and shape into small balls. Finely chop the almonds or put into a chopper/blender to reduce to a more powdery texture. Roll the balls in the chopped almonds or almond powder. (I think they are prettier with the chopped almonds). Put your treat on a nice plate and chill them in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat them. I try to wait one hour at least.
Serve with crackers and maybe some ginger pepper jelly or jalapeno pepper jam. I like Carr's Cheese Melts ("crispy crackers sprinkled with cheese"). This is a cheesy recipe.
I made these the first time at Hilton Head, an after Christmas vacation --- so I thought this photo of me at three years old with a Santa figurine suited this nicely.
Spiced Almonds
There's nothing to this. You can spice them up the way you want, but here's a basic recipe to get you started.
2 cups of sliced almonds
1/2 cup brown sugar (I use the Splenda brown sugar blend)
1/8 teaspooon salt (I like sea salt; garlic salt is also nice)
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon pumpkin spice
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon chocolate (or more), melted
Mix up and spread these babies out on a baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for maybe 15 minutes. Let cool, and you are good to go. You can box these up and give them away as gifts or use in recipes (see above for Hilton Head Cheese Balls), but I also like to just keep them around and put on a few pounds snacking on them.
artwork for today: cheeseballs transformed, and my Asian teapot.
Breakfast for One
Chooose a special plate you typically bring out for a guest, and add a pretty napkin ring and an accompanying glass or tea cup. If you have a Tibetan singing bowl, set it at the table and bring in breakfast with that sound. Add a vase of flowers --- I've got daisies, carnations, two kinds of lilies. I recommend Seri Songket Earl Grey and Tangerine by Boh Teas.
That was the really important part. Now for the recipe:
2 eggs, whisked in a small bowl with a dash of hot sauce, a dash of red wine, garlic salt. Pour into a small omelet pan, let cook until set, add turkey pepperoni, cheese, and onion. Turn your omelet. That's it. You don't need for me to tell you how much of this or that. Put as much as you want. This is about you.
The Tide
Goes Out
The Tide Goes Out
We drive to Hilton Head. The child
in me remembers, sings Kookaburra
sits in the old gum tree, merry
merry king of the bush is he. Surprised
my love has never heard it, I feel
a little sad for him.
First Christmas in ten years
I haven’t headed another direction,
to the North Georgia mountains
with my daughter, now twenty-five
and too busy. New job and all, new
city. No catastrophe, E. Bishop wrote,
in the poem about how losing is an art.
The beach trip is to compensate.
We sip mandarin orange tea
from a lovely cast-iron Asian teapot
he bought for this trip because I love
teapots. “We can take a pot out
to the beach,” he says, “and watch
the sunrise. You can do yoga.”
At dark, we walk the beach path
minus teapot, plus flashlight.
It’s December, and even in this record
heat, we find ourselves completely alone
there, in a hammock outside of a ritzy
resort, sipping from a forbidden
bottle of wine. No alcohol allowed
on the beach.
“This is heaven,” I murmur.
He points out a million dollar
home not far away and says, “Yeah,
we could live there.” Back at the
dog-friendly condo, we take turns
hurling a tennis ball across the expansive,
cheerful den for the puppy to chase
and retrieve. “Bring the ball,”
we say, “bring it here,” and he bounces
right over with it, his face lit with joy.
If only it were that easy every time
I wanted something back. Laugh,
kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra,
gay your life must be.
This is an image from imgneed.com that I have digitally altered.
