And it comes with recipes, too! Here's Billy Collins:
As soon as the elderly waiter placed before me the fish I had ordered, it began to stare up at me with its one flat, iridescent eye.I feel sorry for you, it seemed to say,
eating alone in this awful restaurant
bathed in such unkindly light
and surrounded by these dreadful murals of Sicily.And I feel sorry for you, too --
yanked from the sea and now lying dead
next to some boiled potatoes in Pittsburgh --
I said back to the fish as I raised my fork.And thus my dinner in an unfamiliar city
with its rivers and lighted bridges
was graced not only with chilled wine
and lemon slices but with compassion and sorroweven after the waiter removed my plate
with the head of the fish still staring
and the barrel vault of its delicate bones
terribly exposed, save for a shroud of parsley.
Comments (4)
What struck me about this was that the Times had the horribly poor taste to follow this poignant ode to interspecies bonding with a bunch of tacky fish recipes! Who made that call? And what's next -- a investigative report on the child slave labor phenomenon, with a sidebar on how to save $$ by shopping for rugs and sneakers made by kids?!
Posted by: Adam Glenn | November 26, 2007 1:07 PM