Monday Supper … and poetry

I am posting a Monday instead of Sunday Supper offering.

We are having a meeting of our literary group, and I am cooking.

We are reading G. M. Hopkins, in a certain phase. We are having “spaghetti al seminario” and a wine tasting as well.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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16 Comments

  1. Tom in NY says:

    Please accept my thanks for suggesting carrots as a sweetener in tomato and other acid soups and sauces. Most weeks I’ll cook 5# carrots in a pressure cooker in two sessions. One use is to eat immediately and the other is to add to other dishes.

    Salutationes omnibus.

  2. Mike says:

    Hopkins. Yes, there’s a rich fare for the linguistic palate, at once lush, chaste, soaring, and humble…gee, wonder what form of the Mass he celebrated? :)

  3. Sid says:

    What poems by Hopkins? Surely “The Windhover”. What else? My favorites: “The Wreck of the Deutschland” — good for this season of Lent — and “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo”. And see his sermon on the Sacred Heart.

  4. AnnAsher says:

    Be right over!
    Actually my 17 y/o son and I have been discussing Francis Thompson of late and The Hound of Heaven. We will be having Stroganoff for dinner; I will enjoy some Gnarly Head old vine Zin. Bought it because the name was funny- find it rather deliciously plummy.

  5. Grabski says:

    some day a primer on what pasta goes with which sort of sauce would help!

  6. crowe4519 says:

    For my money, the best Hopkins poem for Lent (or pre-Lent) is “The Habit of Perfection” (1866) — a lovely lyric about fasting and self-denial.

  7. James Joseph says:

    I just ate lasagna.

  8. pablo says:

    At least Strozzapreti (“priest choker” in Italian) Spaghetti isn’t on the menu.

    *

  9. APX says:

    I’m attempting your Rainbow trout and fennel recipe, and I stress the attempting part seeing how despite going to two grocery stores I could only get three of the ingredients: olive oil, an onion, and a lemon. It’s not even rainbow trout; it’s fillets of some random fish I’ve never heard of. I fear what the results will be. I’ve never had to make so many substitutions before.

  10. APX: never fear! It’ll be great!

  11. APX says:

    Fr Z: Anything is great when you’ve been living off spaghettini with ground beef and mushroom soup sauce. (FYI: Mushroom soup is the answer to all life’s cooking disasters.)

    Actually, it didn’t taste half bad. The sauce just seemed a little too runny and I had nothing to thicken it with. It looked good, so my roommates are all impressed by my adept cooking skills.

  12. Hopkins is wonderful … though not easy. He is one of those poets who is completely one-of-a-kind. (My favorites are ‘In the Valley of the Elwy’, ‘Spring and Fall’, and the “As kingfishers catch fire” sonnet … right now anyway. In a different mood I’d probably pick different ones — and anyone who can produce a title like “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection” certainly has something going for them!)

  13. irishgirl says:

    I’ll probably have pasta with frozen veggies [broccoli] tomorrow night for dinner.
    Wish I could get some friends to come to my house to discuss good books-not many around here who would understand them, however!

  14. JARay says:

    The “Divine Office” as used in England and Australia has three of G.M. Hopkins poems in.
    “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire….”, “Pied Beauty” and “God’s Grandeur”.
    He certainly is one-of-a-kind. I studied him at College and wrote a thesis on him. I love his work.

  15. Christophe says:

    Must have been a wonderful evening, dinner and Hopkins. My favorite line, from Though Are Indeed Just, Lord, If I Contend:

    birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
    Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
    Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

  16. Maltese says:

    Wish I could be there! In absentia, here is “Pied Beauty” (to think this Priest didn’t publish until after death!) :

    GLORY be to God for dappled things—
    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
    Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
    Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
    And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

    All things counter, original, spare, strange;
    Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
    He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
    Praise him.

    Also, if you haven’t read “Exiles” by Catholic author Ron Hanson (http://www.amazon.com/Exiles-Novel-Ron-Hansen/dp/0374150974), also about Hopkins, it’s drop-out brilliant!”

    Finally, if I were attending I would come armed with an old port off winebid; my wife and I have had mixed results with their regular wines, but every old port we’ve acquired has been wonderful!

    E.g.: http://www.winebid.com/Item/3476376 Trust me, I’ve never paid this for a Port, but 20 people pitching in $20 a piece would be in for a tasting of a lifetime! I have paid $35 for a port from the 70’s, though, that was fantastic.

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