Ink & Honey is an inspiring and progressive poetry cookbook – a synergetic collection of recipes, poetry, illustrations, and food photography united by the art of food and prose. Chef and author Araminta David dishes up twenty poems, each of which vividly weaves original recipes with culinary imagery growing from her passionate and personal experiences ranging from astrology and meditation to lust and heartbreak. Created in loving collaboration with photographer Regan Stiegmann and illustrator Adam Scott Miller, Ink & Honey is sure to be devoured by anyone with an appetite for cooking, poetry, art, or photography.
Masked Beauty
Dirt-cloaked gems of the earth.
Round, hard, ugly to the naked eye.
Uninviting.
Ribbed roots pointing to home’s core.
Protruding fingerlike outgrowths blossoming to thick, course greenery.
Seemingly inedible.
Scrub. Trim.
Massage intently with olive’s oil, sea’s salt, pepper’s corn.
Roast high and slow. Inferno rays penetrating.
Slice into tender jewel and watch as crimson magenta of tuber love releases.
As sweet as candy with an indescribable earthy appeal.
Like kissing Mother Earth’s ruby pout, that stains fingertips from full moon nights of starlight.
Introduce to tangy chevre to compliment yin and yang like Cancer and Capricorn rising.
Stack bright leaves of basilica upon one another and roll her tight.
Delicately rocking blade to create ribbons, like the fluidity of bow on fiddle strings.
Chiffonade.
Basil music notes interweaves with fragrant, toasty nuts within hexahedron beet delight.
Relish layers, textures, aromas, flavors.
Let it stain you.
Recipe:
Beet salad with chevre, basil, toasted pine nuts, balsamic.
Madras Mountains
Jagged mountain cliffs.
Scents of freshly scraped bones.
Portals of life in the great outdoors shouldn’t feel so exotic.
Up here I crave meat.
Slow roasted, crisped, pink as the fireweed blossoms garnishing my hike.
Lentils of quartzite and hematite rattle beneath strong soles adding texture to an already perfect balance.
Healthy flora thrives in this atypical monsoon, the rejoice of clean, serene greens buzzes modestly.
Between pockets of aspen shadows, the seemingly more intimate sun drops morsels of dry heat upon my shoulders warm and bare.
Morsels of sunshine bursting like roasted ripe grape tomatoes, as sweet as Colorado’s June midday.
Heady nose of earth’s brine intermingles with a loquacious yogurt-capped river.
Unbuckling a heavy load to hop creek stepping stones, I find myself in a wind tunnel as cool and light as raita on a madras tongue.
Triumph means putting in effort for rewards incomparable upon sight or palette.
The elements are harmonious, well worth efforts laborious.
Recipe:
Rack of lamb with cardamom and coriander over madras lentils with raita sauce and roasted grape tomatoes.
Bleugrass
That initial pluck that stimulates your senses from deep within.
All you can do is get up and dance. Dissecting elements and how they flow into perfection of trance.
Rhythm tapping through fingertips swaying along the buzzing handle of a tuned knife and a sharp bow.
Harnessing a gourmand tempo, finding a flow.
Strings for the feast of my soul, jumping to the golden beat of a banjo's strum.
Let the bass reverberate your inner hum.
Pickin’ guitar with walnut shells in August light, shave sweetness pieces across your mandolin tonight.
Festival season where the ripest grass ramps grow.
Bluegrass symphony comes and goes.
Recipe:
Bleugrass Salad – fiddlehead ferns, bleu cheese, ramps, beets, walnuts, HBR vinaigrette, Cornmeal croutons
 | ||||
