Articles

by Kay Ulanday Barrett   Hello, I’m feeling hopeless. I can’t write poems. Instead, I’m trying to cook food that feels safe and reminds me of home. I’m Filipinx and my lola/grandma used to make charred eggplant omelets! Almost every weekend morning before Saturday cartoons as I was still in my baggy pajamas, my lola …

I can see the first iterations of the nameless chicken-breast-and-spinach dish being assembled in the attic kitchen of my grad school apartment, with its slightly sloping floors, its odd, leftover-wood cabinets (and countertops) thickly varnished so they shone.

I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and it was largely a way for me to make sense of the world and process emotions. I went from writing poetry to autobiographical poetic prose to short stories. Most of the writing stayed with me and I shared a few pieces publicly.

I’ve been writing since childhood, although its in my adult life that I became more aware of the craft. A repetitive trope in my work is the journey of coming of age, or rites of passage.

I grew up with a full stomach, grew up with access to books, and grew up with parents that encouraged a life in the arts. These privileges, especially the last one, are not often granted to people of color. So I was grateful to have parents that passed down the rationale that since slaves could be killed for being literate, the written word must hold value, there must be great wealth with every turn of a page.

a can of oranges cost a dollar seven
while putting twenty on pump four

twenty will get you to and from the office
four times this week if you don’t

get caught in traffic if you don’t
go back for that book if you don’t

mind staying in on Friday and eating
a can of oranges for a dollar seven

and not a penny more
this is not hunger

hunger is the LA Riots

For the rice, you will need jasmine rice [Maram brought me a twenty-pound bag of rice from Sunrise market after all the other supermarkets ran out.], water, two tablespoons of oil, salt, a bowl, a colander, a pot with a lid and a large spoon. You can use sunflower oil. Coconut oil. Peanut oil. [I have a half-jar of coconut oil on the counter from when the state of Oregon shut down.]

The Nourishing Gourmet’s Golden Turmeric Sipping Broth is the only kind of recipe I can manage these days, the throw-everything-in-at-once kind, the kind that doesn’t care if I’m particular in my measurements, the kind that will end up colorful and comforting without me having to focus for more than a minute.

I drink it alone because I live with myself and no one else. And no one else is allowed to come over or at least that’s how we all feel, or at least not for the frivolity of an unnecessarily fussed-over cocktail, thick and sweet and frothy.

In summer 2020, Jai Dulani and I hung out in my yard talking about doing something new for Bellingham Review. We sat properly distanced in cattywampus chairs fronting an old stand of raspberry canes, and possibly we were hungry.