Gratitude and Tongues

I forgot, yesterday, to mention four lines Ashbery read from four different poems, on Monday, which themselves could make a poem (poet: Ashbery, editor: Me):

"He wears a question in his left eye.
The land was made of paper.
The print could rhyme with a falling star.
Things merely ended when they ended."

And, still considering the tongue, we went to the Taste of Greenmarket benefit on Wednesday (all proceeds benefitting the Greenmarket/Council on the Environment of NYC, and I decided to eat meat. It's a foray I haven't made since February 2006, when I ended a year of chef apprenticing and meat exploration with a steak in Buenos Aires. That year reminded me of the reasons I'd become vegetarian when I was 19, and I went back to it feeling very alive and very grateful. I found that, having been vegetarian for so long, eating meat became a spiritual experience during which I could visualize another animal's body becoming part of my own. I decided on Wednesday to feel this deep connection again, by tasting as many animals as possible (five!), all raised humanely on local turf, as follows:

Chicken by Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern (courtesy my Swedish chef friend Svante, who after all did not move to Italy): skewers of Norwich Meadows Farm Chicken, Husk Cherries [aka tomatillos!], and Cherry Lane Farm Brussels Sprouts.

Pork and Duck by Mary Cleaver of The Green Table: Greenmarket Gumbo with Flying Pigs Pork and Quattro's Game Farm Duck.

Goat by Patti Jackson of Centovini, I Trulli: Farroto with Lynnhaven Braised Baby Goat and Autumn Vegetables from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, Paffenroth Gardens, and Gorzynski Ornery Farm.

Oysters by Marc Meyer of Cookshop: Fried Blue Moon Oysters, Red Jacket Orchards Apple Slaw, and Eckerton Hill Farms Chili Remoulade.

Pork by Damon Wise of Craft: Braised Pork Cheek, Pickled Black Trumpets, Butternut Squash and Pancetta Vinaigrette, featuring produce from Paffenroth Gardens.

All told, more than 11 local farms provided the vegetables and animals for these dishes. Kind of like lots of Ashbery lines combining into something nourishing and new.