My friend Andrea and I were discussing self-consciously intellectual writers and so naturally E. E. Cummings came up. We agreed that he mostly sucked, but she promised to send me two poems that she thought were okay.

As a kind of header, but perhaps more of a challenge, she wrote, “Life’s not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis.” That was curious, so I went and looked it up and found that it was from Cummings’ poem “since feeling is first”:

I like the word play and images in this poem. And unusually for Cummings, the rhythm is really interesting—more what we expect from the much more talented William Carlos Williams. That’s as far as it goes, however. The content of the poem is—as usual—really troubling.

It seems that Cummings never really made it out of adolescence. Here, although he does it with more style, he says nothing more than Joyce Kilmer did in his poem “Trees”:

Or as Cummings might have written

It isn’t just that this poem indicates a romantic outlook that Jane Austen was parodying over a hundred years earlier in Sense and Sensibility; the poem is preachy. This is what most defines Cummings’ work. He is always telling us—as only a youth can—about the secret of the Good Life that only he possesses.

The two poems Andrea sent me are just like this. Here is the first:

It does have the compelling ending, “nobody beautiful ever hurries.” But as I think is clear in that line itself, he pushing a romantic notion of existence a lot harder than it can bear. It has other problems, but I doubt it is necessary to go into them.

The second poem is “maggie and milly and molly and may.” It deserves a full hearing:

The rhythmic structure of this is maddening. It is kind of iambic pentameter, but frustratingly not. I really don’t know how to “read” it. This is not a criticism—at least not of Cummings. I don’t doubt that he is doing just what he intends. This is also true with the difficult assonantal scheme. Am I supposed to read “were” in the third stanza as “war”? I don’t suppose it matters.

What does matter is that Cummings is again here to delight us with another tired insight. This time: the world is what you make it. Wow! Where are the neo-fascist teenagers of today? No wonder our lives are so devoid of Truth and Beau

ty.

Tonight I am making Oven-Roasted Chicken Thighs with Carrots and Yukon Gold Potatoes from the March 2009 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. Or something like it; my oven is not nearly big enough to deal with the six servings of this recipe. So I am kind of winging it the way I often do when I am into my third sidecar. I’ve been drinking a lot of sidecars these days, but they still seem to affect me the same. But tonight I think I have done something different with the sidecar.

According to Mr. Boston De Luxe Official Bartender’s Guide, a side car is made as follows:

Juice 1/4 Lemon
1/2 oz. Tripple Sec
1 oz. Brandy

Shake with ice and strain into cocktail glass.

I disagree. To begin with, the glass must be rimmed with sugar to make the drink taste right and most bartenders know this. Rimming a glass is not as easy as you think it might be. If you are like me, you have always rimmed a glass by placing sugar (or salt) on a plate and putting the top of the glass down on it. This has several problems. First, the sugar attaches to the outside and the inside of the glass (which you don’t want). Second, the sugar clumps up and he get lots of sugar some places and none others. About.com—which is rarely a good source of information—has an excellent, illustrated article on this subject that I highly recommend you read—especially if you make a lot of sidecars or margaritas.

Apart from learning how to rim a glass properly (it sounds absolutely pornographic, doesn’t it?), I believe I have developed the worlds best sidecar, which I am calling an Archie Leach (or “Cary Grant” if you must) because of his film I Was a Male War Bride. Here it is:

1/2 part lemon juice
1/2 part orange juice
1 part Tripple Sec
2 parts Congnac

Yes, you could just use brandy, but as Lance says in Pulp Fiction, “But when you shot it, you will know where that extra money went.” Congnac is worth the extra cost—always. Try this recipe; it is quite good.

Jill Dupleix presents a dish she calls Bang Bang Chicken—a name I like because of the character Bang Bang in film The Brothers Bloom. I made it for the second time last night, because William came over and when I was out at the grocery store, I couldn’t think of anything else to make; this is perhaps because the first time I made it, it was so good. You can find the full video recipe on Dupleix’s DVD Good Cooking: The New Basics. Here I will just give you mom’s take on the recipe.

There are two parts: the salad and the sauce. They are both really easy.

Salad

Poach a couple of chicken breasts with some ginger, salt, chopped green onions in enough water to cover the chicken. Be careful here; if you just cover the chick, the water will evaporate and the top of the chicken will not cook (which is okay, just don’t use it). How long? I don’t know; until the chicken looks cooked; don’t over-cook it (whatever the hell that means). Set them aside and let the chicken sit in the pan with everything else while you do the rest of the cooking.

Julienne cut an English Cucumber, carrot, and celery stock. Why an English Cucumber instead of a regular one? It has fewer seeds and so is less bitter. Put all these cut vegetables together. By the way, I did all my chopping with a Santoku knife I just bought—I haven’t had a chance to use it enough to talk about it intelligently. Add to these vegetables (well, cucumber is a fruit, right?) some copped green onions, and a little bit of toasted sesame oil (yum), rice wine vinegar, and some sesame seeds—roasted if you like. Finally, remove the chicken from the water; shred the chicken into this bowl and toss that baby.

Sauce

In a mixing bowl, put in generous amounts of toasted sesame oil (yum, again), sweet chili sauce, and rice wine vinegar. Add even more peanut butter, soy sauce, and sugar. Finally, add a diced hot pepper to your taste; I used about a half a Jalapeño—I don’t care for food that is too hot. If you can get a red pepper, it adds a nice bit of color.

Mix this (what I admit sounds like an odd assortment of ingredients) until it is pretty smooth. Then pour it onto the vegetables (and fruits) and toss well. This is delicious and makes two servings (although at 125 lbs. I can eat it all myself; It’s that good).