Hickory Smoked Turkey

Do you remeber Paula Cole's song, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" I've replaced her cowboys with a craving for cupcakes. Where have all the cupcakes gone? I used to live four blocks away from a cupcake bakery in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. On a daily basis I walked by the storefront and was greeted with cupcakes that looked like a piece of art. I am in Metro-Detroit now and can't find any cupcake stores. Help!

Around 4:00 pm we left Subway and hit 376 West. In my rearview mirror, accompanied by the sound of Bon Jovi on the radio singing "Living on a Prayer," I looked back to the Pittsburgh skyline. With skyscrapers and the yinzer lifestyle behind me I began to think about what a kick ass city Pittsburgh really is and how it may be difficult for me to ever feel such attachment to Detroit. The cats knew we were headed for suburbia but I was in denial. No more $1 Blue Moons at Hemingway's or cheap pitchers and Journey at Squirrel Cage. Three years and the things I will miss most about Pittsburgh are my friends, my job, and the cheap beer. I know this isn't a great post but as I sit in Michigan, drinking wine, watching fireworks, and eating cereal, all I can think of are the smells, the sounds, and the accent of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

My anxious move from Pittsburgh back to the Detroit area was a success! Five hours of drugged cats meowing in the car led me back home to suburbia where I only pretend to like the landscape. I am happy to be close to my loved ones again but the process of leaving my Pittsburgh friends behind has been difficult. We had the trucks packed, gas tanks were full, and the cats were buckled in. Before we hit the road we stopped at Subway for a quick bite to eat and that is where the tears started to fall. Thus begins the journey back home.

Greetings! My chapbook, Lavender & Honey, from Blast Furnace Press is now on sale. Each chapbook contains poetry that studies the influence of environment and place on writing. My poems concentrate on Michigan, Pittsburgh, family, and relationships. Dive in and take a peak. Chapbooks are $10 and come with a CD recording of me reading the poems. Below is an excerpt. If interested in purchasing a copy please message me or check out Blast Furnace Press at:  http://www.blastfurnacepress.com/ Thanks and enjoy! Petoskey Stone There are guitars in Michigan. Dotted colors of pinstriped stars made of clear notes, high sand dunes lake water fossils. My parents knew love 1969 in Petoskey. In my father’s dresser I hear the Great Lakes hold the stone he keeps in the top drawer. The one he pluckedfrom the beach on their honeymoon. In my mother’s bible are death notices, the receipt for her engagement ring. History preserved in thin pages, Proverbs love fossilized...

Welcome all to my blog! It's still in the beginning stages but more is to come. The blog will be dedicated to poetry, art, literature, and handmade crafts. You will also be able to purchase my chapbook, Lavender & Honey, published by Open Hearth Press in 2008.

The following is an excerpt from my article The Cultivation and Liberation of Julia Alvarez's Literary Voice published by Confluence. http://www.confluence.ou.edu/ Tucked away behind the great works of Shakespeare, Whitman, and Frost is the voice of the female writer. Can you hear her? Is her voice strong and bold or meek and passive? Does she have an audience or does she whisper her talents to herself? The female voice is of great importance to the cultures and societies of the past, present, and future. Women share secrets and insights of freedom, liberation, creativity, and confinement. The female author and poet are vital to the progression of the literary world, yet she is ignored and sometimes silenced. A writer’s voice is equal parts talent, confidence, experience, background, and literary influence. An individual’s first sense of community is her family. Julia Alvarez grew up in a home where intelligence, activism, and full bodied personality were encouraged. From m...

Hickory Smoked Turkey Oringinally published by : http://www.samizdada.com/2007/01/29/hickory-smoked-turkey/ Ten years ago my father started cooking the Thanksgiving bird outside on the grill. Designer coal and hickory branded the meat, crisp brown skin. I take a picture, every year, of my father lifting the meat off the fire. An entire photo album dedicated to the Thanksgiving animal. A body sectioned off, cut through by an electric knife. Electric. Edges, almost pink, lie on my plate. After every bite my father inquires, with an almost schoolboy curiosity, Can you taste the hickory chips? Can you? Every Thanksgiving my father offers me a plate of flesh. You still eat turkey, right? Don’t you miss the hickory? My sarcastic plate of potatoes, squash, and lettuce send my father into a wine-washed monologue of eating meat. Seriously, you don’t want to try a little piece? I do, but I would never tell him. I look at the bird and recall the animal. I decline once again. Truth: Most turkeys d...