“POMEGRANATE MOLASSES? THAT’S GRENADINE”
I was reading Killer the list of Lucy Waverman’s “in” foods for 2004 from the Globe the other day. Pomegranate molasses was on the list.
“Pomegranate molasses?” She sneered, without looking up from her section of the paper. “That’s grenadine.”
Yes. Of Shirley Temple fame. The word pomegranate is from Old French, pomme grenate, as in apple of many seeds. The syrup of the fruit is Grenadine. Oddly enough, Pomegranates are called “grenades” in France.
Back in the day, Persiphone sucked on some pomegranate seeds with Hades in the Underworld, which is why we have winter now. It’s a complicated story, so I’ll spare you the details. I will, however, offer you a recipe for a Shirley Temple: One dash grenadine, six ounces ginger ale, over ice in a highball or a collins glass, garnished with an orange slice, a maraschino cherry and a tiny paper parasol.
Now we’re going to Toronto for the weekend.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
AN UNSOLICITED AND UNPAID ENDORSEMENT
I have a small black Moleskine® notebook, 3.5 x 5.5, accordion-fold pages (of course) with a United States 37¢ Andy Warhol stamp on the cover, in which I draw awful little drawings and write little notes and paste the occasional wine label whilst on the many vacations I take. I believe I purchased it at the fabulous Kate’s Papery in Soho, New York City, on the afternoon of October 12, 2002, and the first thing I wrote in it was a little found poem that I saw just across the street in Dean and Deluca on a bottle, and which I present to you now as a token of my unending affection for you all:
A Molasses of Calabrian Figs
A Molasses of Calabrian Figs
Of course, the little bastards are expensive. It may be thought by some that the Moleskine notebook’s outrageous prices are a flaw in an otherwise fine product, but those people are wrong. The high price subliminally underscores the importance, the holiness, even, of self-expression.
It is a passport to my dreams. I shall never be without one.
Thank you. Good night.
