The writing of Adrienne Su

The current issue of the New Yorker has a poem by Adrienne Su called “Lament” which ends with the lines “the reasons to gather/have never been clearer/The dinner is gravy.” Reading the poem sent me down a little rabbit hole of her work and stumbled into her writing about food and culture.

Her website offers me an essay called “The Last Bite: A Culinary Meditation on Arlene Schechet’s “Head on a Plate” Porcelains” which conjures up:

A head on a plate initially evokes a stray Brussels sprout—the last bite, which the diner could not finish. It is not the despised Brussels sprout of yore but the aspirational appetizer or side in a good restaurant: tumbled with bacon, pecans, or blue cheese (or all three), or seared with honey and soy sauce and a sprinkling of white pepper. It remains alone on the plate not because it is unappealing but because the eater took or received too many and now must contemplate throwing it away, which incites guilt. It is too small to justify a take-out container, but stuffing oneself when not hungry is also a form of waste, so the conscientious restaurant patron sits, shooing away the server attempting to clear the table, hoping to feel hunger again before others start talking about dessert or calling for the check.

This piece also contains a recipe,

A search in Libby for her books offers me several samples from recent works including Peach State in which the poem “Substitutions” offers couplets that contrast life in traditional human community with the modernity of an immigrant’s reality in Atlanta: “Balsamic, for Zhenjiang vinegar/Letters ,for a family gathered//A Cuisinart, for many hands/Petty burglars for warring bands//A baby’s room, for tight quarters/Passing cars, for neighbours”

I love her work.