Kia ora,
Included in Chapter 9 of Too Many Cooks is a reference to a poem by Elizabeth Smither, Making tarte Tatin. Elizabeth has, very generously, allowed me to include the whole poem on this post. Now you know what Hester’s on about. Here it is…
Making tarte Tatin
The apples, halved and cored and golden
sit in a caramel like big-bottomed nudes
before the pastry, like a big bath sheet, covers them.
Is this the new method of writing recipes? Transcribing
by imagery. The next then is fake violence.
Upend the tin with a firm slap of the rolling pin
and out come eight golden breasts
swimming through gold silk with a touch of
severe wrist-crust propriety.
Elizabeth Smither
(from her collection The Year of Adverbs pub 2007 Auckland University Press)
Chapter 9 …Hester catches up on her emails — tarte Tatin? — oh Medusa – and decides Auden will get his — shouldn’t be too difficult to write a bad play should it?…
