Playing With My Food ~
A journal about food, thought, travel, and life; by Chef & Raconteur Chaz French.

Absentia, Memoria, Florida Part Three

Absentia, Memoria, Florida Part Three: Florida It had been 35 years since I’d been to Florida.  I didn’t enjoy it as a child, too humid, too sticky, worse than summer in NJ, and it rained every day I was there.  This trip was very different…. Greeted by rainbows all along the ride from Orlando to […]

San Francisco

San Francisco

Fog tumbles over the mountainan avalanche incascading sheets of white. The City lays before me silent,in the late afternoon sun-setting time. Wind rushes byas it plummets into the cityscapesprawled out below. Slowly it succumbs to the avalanche.Fog falling all the way to the bay. Then the rush of white takes medeep within its mistsas I […]

After Gertrude

Fog tumbles over the mountain an avalanche in cascading sheets of white. The City lays before me silent, in the late afternoon sun-setting time. Wind rushes by as it plummets into the cityscape sprawled out below. Slowly it succumbs to the avalanche. Fog falling all the way to the bay. Then the rush of white […]

As My Mother Lies Dying

For as long as I can rememberI’ve feared my mother woulddie from dementia Forget everything she’s doneForget her children, her travels,her perseverance Leaving an abusive marriageRaising children as a single motherMaking a new life of her own Her boyfriend, her grandchildrenand great grandchildrenall forgotten and lost To the fog of the brainThe crippling of the […]

Loss

Grief is fluidand like the ocean it has waves some just wet your feetand some are tsunamis  Worst are the sneaker wavesthat come out of nowhereand drag you out to choke and drown in a sea of your own tears —Dedicated to my friend Sean Reinert

Celebration

Celebration I should be dead by nowbut I refuse.In 1998 I became ~ other I became ~ positiveTold that I had twentymaybe twenty-five years to live, most of them ill. I stand, I live, I am healthyand I remain defiant.I will live.I will outlive you all! I simply refuse to acceptthat I cannot live a […]

After Gertrude

Is it? Was it?Could it be?Bliss,rapture,joy, toys, child, man,death cares not. I just got,got good,got together,forever,eternity,love’s prison cell,death sentence, marriage vows,In the halls of just us ball and chainforced labor,children,out of sight in the darkunder sheets and in-between. School work,business work,relationship work,Where’s you?Where’s me?Wears out. Broken vows, slaughtered cows,in the silence left to bleed,draw a […]

San Francisco

Fog tumbles over the mountainan avalanche incascading sheets of white. The City lays before me silent,in the late afternoon sun-setting time. Wind rushes by as it plummets into the cityscape sprawled out below. Slowly it succumbs to the avalanche. Fog falling all the way to the bay. Then the rush of white takes me deep […]

Going Slow…

Is not the sort of thing I do willingly, unless I’m on vacation. But now, thanks to an accident while on vacation, I’m being forced to rest, stay off my feet, and go very slowly. I’m able to work, but even that is much slower than usual. I broke my right 5th metatarsal and it […]