"Sara Jayne-Staynes, who is a director of the Academy of Culinary Arts, and an expert on chocolate, talks about roundness and aftertaste, and length in the mouth, and describes the flavours of individual chocolates in terms of ripe red fruits and plums, wood, tobacco, tea, spice, leather and earth, just as a wine taster might. According to her, the cocoa bean has over 400 distinct aromas and 300 different tastes."
from Made in Italy: Food and Stories, Giorgio Locatelli
If you don't get hungry while reading this book, you have no stomach or no soul - Lura Astor
photo: cacao pod U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
You will never
feel lonely
with a poet
in your pocket.
This teabag label wisdom may
be a typo (it is attributed to John Adams
1735-1826) but I prefer it to simply having a poem in my pocket.
It reminds me of when we were young and romantic and parting with a loved one, saying I wish you were as small as a mouse and I could put you in my pocket - kind of what today's texting devices can do, without the heartbeat. I wish you were ... and on the game would go.
In today's world a little poet in our pocket could be a fun way to have some rhyme, rhythm and directions from a portable muse.
Art Hand Series: Lura Astor 1998
Flowers leave some
of their fragrance
in the hand that
bestows them.
- proverb
from teabag I steeped
Art Hand Series: Lura Astor 1998
Cup Series: Lura Astor
A toast to my passed mother who taught us to pour boiled water into the teapot,
slosh it around to warm it,
pour hot
water in the cups to warm them as the tea steeps.
A ritual that continues to pleasure.
Whether black, with cream, lemon, or without lumps of sugar, honey, barley malt, or
unrefined
maple
sugar.
yakkity yakkity
Growing and brewing herbs, lemon verbena, mints, comfrey, hand 
harvested sassafras, a love of teas continues, so, thanks mom.
Tea Time
respite
recharge one's batteries
refuel soulfulness
connect with others
savor conversation,
slow the rush,
steep in the history of surroundings,
Have tea with your dreams, as Del Hovda taught.
Scented steam as I work a sketch, read, edit, slow into meaningful imagination.
Steep and see beauty, the wealth around and within us, imbibe the world.
plump your inner tea bag
swirl your loose
leaves
Illustration: Cups of Heart Lura Astor
Painting: The Cup of Tea 1880
Mary Cassatt photo: Gorges Verdon Barrage Sainte Croix Benh Lieu Song
taking a moment to thank you
I see readership from places across
the globe
I have only dreamed of
since a child
spinning a beautiful map globe
that was black with a light that lit it
from within
turning off any other light
I would study this lit lamp glow globe
of countries small and vast
beautiful pinks, yellows, greens and blues
I felt I could talk to any one
any language
just by putting my finger on the spot in the country
just beginning to find my way
dance - I could speak any language
music - I could speak any language
food - I could speak any language
scent - I could speak any language
love - I could speak any language
healing - I could speak any language
choreography - I speak any language
what gifts
these arts
what to do
with the hundred years allotted one?
this child would fit her country's land mass
inside others
see spatial relationships
get a better understanding
of the flags
that stood at the new U.N.
United Nations
people of different garb
stopping in the hallways
to talk to this little girl
barely holding her mother's hand
neck upstretched to see them
the human imagination
quite the frontier
I would like to see blood tides
ebb and flow within the body
not burst out violently
I would so like to see the blood tides
within the body
respected
allow the woman her nature
of a flow to the outside
for the world to see
not hide it with the new
birth control
blood flow control
medication
not hide it with IUD's that
perforate and irritate
understand chi and blood flow
tides of nature cycles
naturally
experience
life, death, life
life, death, renewal
we don't have to force feed
a culture of such magnitude
of death, fear, destruction
"imagination"
have a cup of tea and talk to another
an artist
I dream day dream and night dream
I wish I could soothe and calm
the irritated masses
I wish I could exuberate
elicit and celebrate
energies of new awakening
veils off the imagination
color, vivid, imaginable hues
textures of architecture
playful calm
rowdy radiance
work, play, rest
So a toast to you
join me
for a cup of imagination
Bloom the petal of peace from your own hot water. Heye! Especially as venus and mars dance into hot-headed, strong-willing Aries, the baby's first run. Burn, baby, Burn has new meaning when dona nobis pacem begins at home, your heart, your lungs, your soulfulness. Steep and brew the heart/lung/soul petals in the hot water of our making and lets make the world sing! not singe.
Mixed Media: From the El Train Lura Astor
"Sara Jayne-Staynes, who is a director of the Academy of Culinary Arts, and an expert on chocolate, talks about roundness and aftertaste, and length in the mouth, and describes the flavours of individual chocolates in terms of ripe red fruits and plums, wood, tobacco, tea, spice, leather and earth, just as a wine taster might. According to her, the cocoa bean has over 400 distinct aromas and 300 different tastes."
