Copyright 1959

 

My mother bought one section per week at the A&P

week by week by week

fitting each neatly into the sturdy binder

one thousand five hundred thirty-six pages

black and white illustrations galore

The Mary Margaret McBride Encyclopedia of Cooking

Published by Homemakers Research Institute

Evanston, Illinois

 

The pages glittered with promise –

Appetizers for parties and meals

Cold quick ’n’ easies to serve on picks

Raisin Suzette, Square Dance Nut Cake,

Drawn Butter, Frangipane, Fricassee, Galantine,

a wonderland of tempting treats we never ever tried

 

The massive cookbook resided

forgotten on top of the refrigerator

save one day each December

when my mother would take it down,

open to page four hundred twenty-nine

Old-Fashioned Butter Cookies

 

The look, the scent, the crunch,

the taste of those cookies we made!

A brief flight of  magic

so quickly at  end

then back to the dust on top of the fridge

for Mary Margaret McBride

                            Kate Lydon Varley

 

It's a holiday season, so here's a booming echo of  some of my past holidays! Happy, jolly, good, joyous whatever you celebrate, and if you're not celebrating anything, may you have happy, jolly, good, joyous days nonetheless!

Holiday Season Rant

 

Okay.

I’m not an innocent party.

Six days a week

I go out to the mailbox

pick up the contents

carry the stuff in –

catalogues.

Scads of catalogues.

 

I dump them on the table,

and then the trouble begins.

I admit it.

I search through them

an awful waste of time

if you think about it

but I do it

because I never know if maybe

something good

something great

something special

or something expensive

I can’t forget expensive

because it’s bound to be expensive

but whatever it is

it might be available

only by catalogue –

that all-important catalogue.

 

Mind you

I’m not saying

I never get anything good from catalogues.

There was that cute butler cast in resin holding a corkscrew,

or the bright red miniature British phone booth for storing CDs

and the Rocky and Bullwinkle sweatshirt I gave my husband one Christmas

but please!

These catalogues end up

sprawling all over

the kitchen table

the island

the counters

the dining room chairs

the piano bench

the end tables

the couch

my desk

the computer keyboard

until I can’t find anything

in the whole house

and I realize

I’m drowning in multiple copies

of the same stupid catalogues –

all selling the same kinds of

pointless idiotic stuff

that nobody really needs

especially me

because if I’m crazy enough

to buy more merchandise

cute

decorative

special

or worst of all

unique

because it's bound to be unique

I still won’t have

even two square inches of space

where I could fit it

because everything

yes, everything 

in my whole house is already covered with

catalogues.

 

 

                        Kate Lydon Varley

 

Voluminous Endeavors

 

If I stock up on scads of new books that spill

Over shelves already stocked to the brim

It is good.

 

If O’Henry shares Poppy Varley’s book shelf with Laocoon

Louisa May and Isabelle Allende

All the better!

 

If the kitchen table tilts with stacks of stuff –

Pat Schneider Writing Alone and With Others

A Field Guide to North American Birds teetering over

Caste and the Astonishing August March,

Well, so be it.

 

I am reading my way through months and months

With old thoughts and new thoughts

Always other ideas to consider.

 

For this time of consolidated reading

Day after day after day

I thank generations of writers, librarians,

Book sellers, publishers, editors,

And also an instigator extraordinaire

The covid-19 pandemic.

                            Kate Lydon Varley