Image poetry:
girl on the beach in repose
knows, she simply knows
Copyright 2017, Glover Gardens Cookbook
Haiku: Mindfulness on the Beach
Writing
Travel Day Thoughts
My cousin posted this beautiful photo on Facebook.
Another cousin confessed his lack of aeronautical engineering knowledge but said he was “grateful they stay attached to the plane during flight”. Me, too! The photo speaks to me of anticipation of a wonderful journey, and, as I’m setting out on a brief trip today, it inspired a haiku.
bring me there safely
wings that show me new worlds
and then take me home
Hershey, Pennsylvania, here I come!
Copyright 2017, Glover Gardens Cookbook
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Haiku Mind: Book Review in Haiku
My review of Haiku Mind:
what i thought i knew
how to view and feel and say
i knew not at all
If you are into haiku, this book is for you. It is a book of haiku while at the same time being a book about haiku. It is quiet and peaceful and illuminating. And thoughtful. And challenging. It is making me a better haiku-er, slowly.
Find it here on Amazon.
For more Glover Gardens haiku, click here.
Copyright 2017, Glover Gardens Cookbook
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The Thankful Foreigner: An Award-Winning Essay from a Millennial
And now, as I keep a vigilant eye over the discrimination in my society, I wonder: When will the other people, blinded by prejudice, have the eye-opening experience I had that day?
This little story from a few years ago is incredibly relevant today.
In 2011, an incredibly cheap last-minute Houston-to-London roundtrip airfare offer coincided with my son’s 14th birthday and a lazy Thanksgiving week in which we had nothing planned.
So we cooked up a weeklong Mom & Kid trip to give the young ‘un (our last milennial) an opportunity to experience his first international travel: three nights in Paris, followed by three nights in London. We left Houston right after school on a Friday afternoon, tickets in hand for our first adventure, scaling the Eiffel Tower less than 24 hours later. I knew it was going to be a worthwhile trip when, dazed and tired from the overnight flight to London and a couple of hours of fitful sleep on the high-speed EuroStar (Chunnel) train on the way to Paris, he leaned over to me – before our adventures even began – touched me on the arm and said:
Mom, thank you for showing me the world!
We alighted in Paris, stumbled to our hotel, took a few minutes for a power nap, and set out to ascend the Eiffel Tower. But I digress; that’s a story for another time. Today’s focus is on my son’s memory, captured in his award-winning essay, which he shared post-competition on Facebook, as follows (in his words).
From February, 2012: The following essay is what I wrote at the Klein Academic Competition that won first place for 8th Grade Ready Writing. The story is non-fiction; these events did actually happen.
The Thankful Foreigner
The sounds of honking European cars, people of all kinds conversing in French, and muffled, slimly audible brakes from subway trains all formed a soundtrack to the beginning of my day.
Trying to force my eyes open, I sat up, told my mom good morning, and, after slowly rising to my feet, walked over to the window of our hotel room. Pushing the red curtain away, I looked down upon the busy Parisian street, where people were walking in and out of shops and cafes, waiting to cross the intersection, and riding on motorcycles or in cars.
Now I knew it was true. The previous day had involved exhausted scrambling through airports and train stations, causing more of a feeling of trauma than that of a vacation. But now I was sure; I was really in Paris.
Within about a half hour, both my mom and I were dressed, clean, and ready to hit the street. Our first stop, as we had already discussed, was going to be a nearby cafe. We needed breakfast.
It called out to us the second we stepped out the door; across the street, a nice neon-red sign reading “La Porte de Montmartre” flashed out at my eyes. Immediately, I asked, or, I should say, STATED: “We should go there.”
So we took a risk; we waited for a pause in traffic, then dashed across the street.
It looked even better from up close. All the tables occupied by regular French citizens who all looked like some character in a classic movie…we had to get coffee here.
So my mom and I walked straight through the cafe to the bar, where we instantly mounted ourselves upon two vacant stools, and at the bartender’s acknowledgement, ordered two cups of coffee.
I noticed soon enough that this man was very young and handsome, yet obviously exhausted. He also, however, seemed like the kind of Frenchman that one of my less considerate classmates would sneak snide comments about back home. I knew about the unfounded views other countries have of the French, but…I knew that not ALL the French people were pompous and arrogant.
As he came back from the kitchen with our two cups of coffee, my ever-so-inquisitive mom asked what I’d been wondering: “Where are you from?”
The second she asked that, his face brightened up. “You tell me first,” he said through his grin, his French accent indeed present.
“We are from Texas, in the USA,” I said. “And you, sir?”
He stood up straight and said, rather proudly,
Normandy Beach. The ruins of the D-Day attack. All of the American liberators are buried there…Many of my people are not as grateful to the Americans as they should be. I mean, thanks to your country, we are all still French. So, personally, I thank you and all your people.”
Within two seconds of his ceasing to speak, I knew that any anti-French sympathies I could’ve had prior to this day would be gone.
It was obvious that this man was at least 30 years too young to have experienced the historic World War II battle that had brought recognition to his hometown. Yet he had the heart to honor and respect a foreign country and its military for the well-being of his own.
Since then, the “French” slur and stereotype has been something I make a goal to avoid. I now see the prejudice and ignorance behind many comments that, before that sunny Parisian morning, I might not have seen.
And now, as I keep a vigilant eye over the discrimination in my society, I wonder: When will the other people, blinded by prejudice, have the eye-opening experience I had that day?
Back to the Present
Back to the present, back to my voice…Wow. I’ve experienced this story in a myriad of ways:
- When it originally happened; I realized that the young French man would be someone we remembered forever. “Because of you, we are all still French!” is how I remember him proclaiming his appreciation for the American and Allied liberation of France.
- When my son’s name was called at the UIL district competition award ceremony as the first place winner…I I lost my self-control, rose from my seat in the uncomfortable gym bleachers and screeched “Woooooo!” before sitting back down, red-faced and yet unabashedly proud. Then, a few minutes later as I almost strangled him with hugs, he told me the topic of his essay, and we reminisced about that morning, that young man, that authentic gratitude.
- When I actually read the essay after he got it back a few weeks later and understood what the magical moments with the young man in the coffee bar had meant to my son, and wondered at how he translated the ridiculousness of petty prejudices into this insight: “I now see the prejudice and ignorance behind many comments that, before that sunny Parisian morning, I might not have seen.”
- And now, more than 5 years later, as our country struggles with immigration, our place in the world and how we interface with those who are “foreign”. Perhaps I’m biased – well, heck, of course I’m biased – but I find my son’s final statement in that little essay truly profound:
And now, as I keep a vigilant eye over the discrimination in my society, I wonder: When will the other people, blinded by prejudice, have the eye-opening experience I had that day?
What’s that old saying…”out of the mouths of babes”? How about: “out of the mouths of millennials”?
Copyright 2017, Glover Gardens Cookbook; The Thankful Foreigner printed with permission of the author, Thomas Wenglinski
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Determination
This little tree is
an inspiration to me:
“Grow where you’re planted.”
This haiku is a sequel to another: Calling Colorado.
For more Glover Gardens haiku, click here.
Copyright 2017, Glover Gardens Cookbook
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Grace by the Sea – Winelight | encouraging others through tough times
Happy to repost this article: Encouraging others through tough times.
Source: Grace by the Sea – Winelight | encouraging others through tough times
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The Chili Bee and Round Top, Texas – A Little Tale of Community, Chili and Small-Town Magic
Facebook reminded me today of an event from four years ago that still brings me joy. It’s a tale of a chili cook-off fundraiser in a tiny Texas town, two friends, five gallons of spilled chili in an SUV, dozens of very kind people and a chance meeting with the state’s governor. Just another January Saturday in Texas…
In January of 2013, my friend Theresa and I decided to enter the Round Top Chili Cookoff. It’s a great event that benefits the public library in this most picturesque of small Texas Hill Country towns. They have braggin’ rights, too: Round Top is the smallest town in Texas with a full service public library, and they aim to keep it that way (small and book-lovin’).
We started planning our cook-off participation by email, first by picking a name. It had to be something special, something that reflected our long friendship rooted in family and food and stories and support…so we chose “The Chili Bee,” a riff on the old quilting bees where ladies got together to talk and solve the mysteries of life while making beautiful quilts. We played around and created a logo and I had a sign made.
Over the next week, we negotiated over the recipe (no beans, she won), did the shopping, and then met up at my house on Friday after work to roll up our sleeves and produce the world’s best chili. We stayed up until the wee hours – chopping, sautéing, simmering, tasting and telling stories, and set out for Round Top on Saturday morning with our 5 gallons of chili in her car and the propane cooker, table, chairs and tent in mine.
Our preparations that lovely January Saturday morning included reheating the massive pot of chili and transferring it into a 5-gallon Igloo, where it would stay plenty hot during the 90-minute trip and be ready for the high noon judging. While only a quart was necessary for the judges, contestants had to bring at least 4 gallons to enter.
Well, there was a “problem-ation” on our journey. I was leading our 2-car caravan on US Highway 290 and lost Theresa at the cloverleaf intersection with Texas Highway 36. You have to take a very sudden, sharp and tight turn to stay on 290 on the outskirts of Brenham – drivers in this part of Texas will know what I’m talking about – and that little cloverleaf was our Chili Waterloo. I looked in the rearview mirror, and Theresa just wasn’t there any more. I pulled over, and called her, and called again – no answer. Finally, I could see her in the distance, and then she drove slowly by me, motioned for me to follow, and pulled into a convenience store about a mile up the road.
The Igloo wasn’t secured in the car and toppled over when Theresa careened around the cloverleaf turn…and apparently, we didn’t have the lid on tight. It was bad. Oh boy, was it bad. There was a chili explosion. It was all over her, all over the car, all over everything. Chili drops were on the rearview mirror, the headliner, in Theresa’s purse. It was a chili-apocalypse.
And imagine…5 gallons of steaming hot chili, 2 inches deep in the backseat floorboard of Theresa’s Nissan Pathfinder, and then think what would happen if you opened the door…chili pouring out all over the convenience store parking lot! It was actually an amazing sight – a volcanic flow of chili! – and I really, really wanted to take a picture, but I couldn’t because of the look on Theresa’s face. She was completely deflated, more sad about not being able to participate in the cook-off than upset about her car or her clothes. We knew the rules: you had to have four gallons to enter, and we figured there was only about 1 gallon left in our toppled Igloo. Her disappointment broke my heart, because she’d been struggling with the after-effects of chemotherapy and was finally feeling frisky again, so she really needed and deserved this open-air Texas good time we were planning.
It wasn’t about winning the cook-off. It was about living.
We called the event organizer, a marvelous woman named Betsy who is the piledriving personality behind tiny Round Top keeping its public library and the rockin’ good time that is the annual chili cook-off. Betsy wouldn’t hear of us turning back, even though we didn’t have enough chili to enter. Betsy went into Save the Day Mode, in the way that some ladies are so incredibly good at:
- She said that each of the other participants would be happy to give us some of their chili, that it would be a true Chili Bee, with our entry a melting pot of all the chilis.
- She said she’d have a sheriff there to meet us and ensure we got a parking spot at the front, since we were now running late.
- She told us to take a back road, ’cause we’d get there quicker.
- She further said that there was no need for us to stop at the local Wal-Mart for clothes for Theresa, because someone would help out with that, too, even if she had to go home and get something out of her own closet.
In other words, Betsy would not accept us turning tail and running back to Houston, licking our chili wounds.
OK! After three rolls of paper towels and five minutes wrangling the convenience store’s water hose, we were on the road again, still in two cars. Hers, all bedraggled and chili-smelling, mine still toting the rest of the gear. The back road that Betsy told us to take was Texas Farm Road 389, and it was gorgeous. I started to feel pretty good about Betsy’s Save the Day plan, Theresa’s well-deserved good time being salvaged, and the story that was evolving from our day. So I spent the rest of the drive trying to write a limerick about it in my head.
When we arrived in the tiny center of Round Top, it was clear that Betsy had sprung into action and publicized our plight: the sheriff was indeed waiting to direct us to our primo parking spot, the mayor was also there to greet us, there was a borrowed apron for Theresa to wear, and the judges were waiting to get our remnant quart of chili before starting the judging. The local radio station was broadcasting from the event and Betsy was so tickled by my limerick that she had me go on stage read it on the air.
Our chili took a tumble
But we’ve no cause to grumble
The town rallied ’round
– it’s a heck of a town –
Round Top, we’re ready to rumble!
We went around with a big plastic pitcher like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel (but with a much better reception) and collected a bit of chili from most of the other contestants, fired up our propane heater and served that Chili Bee / chili quilt concoction to lots of happy attendees. They loved it and we ran out. Everyone there knew our story because the radio station MC had made a big deal of it before we arrived. It was a wonderful, life-affirming experience and I will never forget the sense of support and community that Betsy and Round Top gave us.
But that wasn’t all! We had been joined by Theresa’s son Nick, who was going to college in not-too-far-away San Marcos, and after we ran out of chili, we closed up shop and walked across the street to Royer’s Round Top Café, a local restaurant that really is The Bomb. Especially their pies…heavenly. We laughed, we talked, we practiced and honed the story we’d be telling everyone about our day…and we realized what an incredible blessing it was to have had this remarkable experience.
And then we met the governor. It was that kind of day.
In the evening, we met up with Betsy and other Round Top locals at the Stone Cellar Winery. (The Stone Cellar bartender had been the donor of the apron that covered the huge chili stain in Theresa’s lap.) We relived the day, giggled over our new name, The Chili Spillers, reveled in the fact that the cook-off had raised a ton of money for the library (even though we didn’t win!) and figured that life would be simpler if there were more chili cook-offs and backroads and less freeways.
January 21, 2013 (email)
Hello Betsy,
Thank you so much for your encouragement and support in the face of our “chili-mergency”. We had such a marvelous day in spite of our chili spill and will definitely be back next year with a crowd. You are running a delightful and fun event and it is great to know that we are doing our small part to support reading and the library. We promised to send our pictures, and the best few are attached, including the one with our famous / infamous governor. I have also included the limerick I wrote in my head as we were driving along that beautiful back road you told us to take. It has several variations (because there are so many rhymes for “umble”).
Version 1
Our chili took a tumble
But we’ve no cause to grumble
The town rallied ’round
– it’s a heck of a town –
Round Top, we’re ready to rumble!
Version 2
Our chili took a tumble
But it didn’t cause a fumble
The town rallied ’round
– it’s a hell of a town –
Round Top, we’re ready for your rumble!
Version 3
Our chili took a tumble
But we’ve no cause to grumble
Round Top rallied ’round
– it’s a hell of a town –
Their kindness leaves us humbled
And finally, for your personal archives, here’s the 1-minute version of the day that we posted on Facebook. I think every friend we have from the Houston area will be there next year.
“The Chili Cookoff story must be told in person to get the full impact, but here’s a brief synopsis: 4 of our 5 gallons of chili spilled in the car, the Round Top folks rallied and told us to come anyway and they would share their chili so we could still enter with our one gallon that was left (the rules state that you have to bring at least 4 gallons), our story of chili disaster and perseverance was told on the radio and the mayor greeted us when we got there (late), a constable on duty at the cookoff came by and told us he had seen the results of our chili spill as we were parked on the side of the highway (he said, “I thought that was a bad place to park, but when you opened the door and the chili came out, I knew where you were headed”), everyone at the cookoff knew who we were and treated us like we were special, we met and took a picture with the governor, and made tons of new friends. Round Top is a marvelous, welcoming town, and a great place to have a good time. Are we going back next year? Heck yeah!”
Looking forward to next year – but how could it possibly top this year?
Kim and Theresa, The Chili Bee
Betsy sent an enthusiastic response (“you’re famous!”), shared our photos with the local newspaper, and they published our Posing with the Governor photo. She checked in with us at the beginning of 2014 to urge us to enter the cook-off again, but by then, Theresa was too ill.
In 2015, Betsy contacted all of the previous cook-off contestants with this beautiful note, and that’s when I found out that something else very special had happened in Round Top that day, after we’d run out of chili and started hanging out with the governor.
Feb. 7, 2015 (email)
Everyone–I wanted to share this poem that Barbara Smith sent me. We all remember how the 2013 Chili Cook Off came to a standstill when a funeral procession passed. The family was very touched, as is evidenced by a poem one of the family members wrote and shared. Yes, we are a caring community and that’s why I love living here. Please pass this on to any and all you think would have been there.
Betsy
Feb. 7, 2015 (email)
Dear Betsy –
Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful poem. My friend Theresa and I participated in the cook off in 2013 as The Chili Bee, although perhaps we are best remembered as the “chili spillers”. You and the rest of Round Top’s finest were very good to us after our chili catastrophe which left a flood of 4 gallons of it in Theresa’s car. She was between chemotherapy treatments that beautiful January day, and with our remaining chili and a positive attitude, we soaked up the sunlight, the local color and a beer or two. We even met the governor in the late afternoon at Royer’s. What a great day.
That 2013 Roundtop Chili Cookoff was the last good time for Theresa and me. She battled her cancer over the next year, even while still doing some caterings with her husband and business partner. She wanted to sign us up for the 2014 Cookoff, but just felt a little too feeble. She left us for good on a beautiful day in May last year, and the memory of our adventure in Roundtop is one that I will always treasure. The poem that you sent makes it even more special. God bless small town folks, and God bless you.
Kim
The Round Top Chili Cook-off is this Saturday, January 21. If you happen to be in Texas, you might just want to stop by for a little small-town magic.
- For another story about my inimitable friend Theresa, click here.
- For my chili recipe (with beans!), click here.
Copyright 2017 Glover Gardens Cookbook
(except the David Markwardt poem and Royer’s photo)
