Delicious Dish: Culinary Lore from Land and Sea, with Recipes (excerpt)

Join…chef Myra Kornfeld and poet Stephen Massimilla, the authors of Cooking with the Muse (Tupelo), a book that presents food with a side of poetry. Kornfeld and Massimilla expound on recipes and culinary poetry, such as John Milton’s lines on fennel from Paradise Lost: “[A] savoury odour blown / Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense/ Than smell of sweetest Fennel…” These verses are paired with a Butternut Squash, Pear, and Fennel Soup with Fennel Oil and Blue Cheese [see photo] in Cooking with the Muse: A Sumptuous Gathering of Seasonal Recipes, Culinary Poetry, and Literary Fare….