Hygge Feature #4 Home Baking and Shared Meals

Today it’s all about food, and it won’t be the only one with that angle! Home-made food is all about being cosy, sharing, and being in the present moment.

Making Bread

 Pungent baking smells fill the house.
Three loaves cool on wire racks.
A sharp knife separates a half inch slice,
speckled with oval sunflower sections.
A happy sigh ; the family is home.

First, a warm kitchen,
Tough brown bags of organic, wholemeal,
Stone-ground grains ; wheat, barley, rye.
Warm water, salt crystals, pearls of yeast
(Using the simplest and best, only the best.)
My hands that fold the warm trembling flesh,
Pat flour off my apron’s belly, into my hair.
The oven clicks, starts its rise with the bread.

Blue poppy seeds, sesame and buckwheat shards
Stretch apart on the swelling surface.
A good rise comes from the heart,
warmth inside and out ; the family is home

Vivien Jones

STILL LIFE

When I compose the bread, the knives,

pewter, lemons, gherkins, glass,

a lamp shines faintly on the past,

on unrecorded lives.

The flagon with its coarse red wine

recalls those women who arranged

the cups and cloth. This hasn’t changed;

their acts, their thoughts are mine.

Today, the salmon glows deep red.

I stoop, protect the modest light.

The pickled cucumbers are brought

out, to placate the dead.

Merryn Williams

Photo by Vivien Jones.

A PARTY TRICK

we were doing

something dangerous

with fire

 

playing

with the flame

each match-head held

 

but could transmit

to tissue paper

loosely rolled

 

and in burning

heat the oxygen

enclosed

 

to rise above

our held out palms

then falter

 

dip and float down

something lighter

than a hair

 

a whisper

drifting slowly

through the air

Brian Johnstone

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