My Love Affair With Pepper
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
It made no sense to me why
my mother would ruin
a perfectly good slice of cantaloupe
by dousing it with pepper
until the flesh turned black.
That was then, this is now.
Now, with age, I’ve added pepper
to my repertoire, always fresh-
ground, to season a salad,
crust a grilled steak, flavor pasta
coated with tomato-based sauce,
sprinkle liberally on fried eggs
and the side of grits, even dust
lightly the peanut butter I smear
on my toast – it adds a little s0mething!
Ah, yes, you guessed it – I have
also graduated to grinding pepper
over cantaloupe slices, till
the natural color turns charcoal.
I am, after all, my mother’s child.
(Published, I believe, in 2008 in the wonderful online magazine, Slow Trains)
Note: My mother rained pepper on almost everything she ate, to the point where it seemed all she would taste was the pepper. I’ve followed somewhat closely in her gustatory misstep with pepper, though not to the point of killing off all other flavor. Funny that….don’t know if my sisters and brothers have done the same or not. Our breakfast growing up often was a big plate of freshly cooked rice, topped with crumbled up bacon and a generous slab of butter. Lots of salt and pepper, of course, too. Might have been the Oklahoma (from whence my mother cameth) equivalent to cereal, the poor person’s oatmeal. For quite a long spell there I was sure we were part Chinese.
