Weekend Update february 23, 2014

It is normally supposed that something always 

gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately 

to the notion that something can also be gained.” 

Salman Rushdie

There are many ways to say most anything, as most any writer or spouter of rhetoric or any one who uses any form of language for any purpose at all can tell you.  The think is, finding the way to say not only what you mean, but what you want your listeners (supposing here that there is someone listening) to hear. Imagine how different the world would be if instead of saying 
 "Never give in, never give in, never, never,never,never- in nothing, great or small, large or petty- never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense." 
 Winston Churchill had instead said:

The path between speaking brain to speaking mouth to hearing ears and  hearing mind is a long and perilous journey, and like carryons in an overhead compartment, some items may shift during flight.  Mr Rogers was right- there are many ways to say "I love you" but not all of them translate very easily, do they?
There is, for example, trying to say "I love you" in  the language of worry:

Or the language of disapproval:

Or in one of my own personal favorites, the language of food:

As in any other language, the trick is trying to squeeze the toothpaste of what you mean through the tube of what you know how  to say. And when that gets a little too messy,

one can always try to improve one's vocabulary.

 Which is what I tried to do this week, with the help of the poets featured in an anthology called "The Hungry Ear". Poetry inspired food, all week- and like all plans and all poems, sometimes things worked, and sometimes things didn't. 
For instance::
Here's the risotto recipe that I tried in homage to William Matthews' 'Onions", and my own translation on the right:

Okay. What's going on? Did the food stylist insist on cooking the risotto
in water so it wouldn't turn an icky brown? Because mine
turned an icky brown.
Why?

And here's the tilapia in peach salsa, inspired by Wendell Berry's "A Meeting":

The taste was....okay.
The texture was kinda weird.
I think maybe this idea would work
better on salmon.

The grapefruit salad though? That's a definite keeper!

Especially once we topped it with a little goat cheese.

And the chicken baked in peaches? Well that was pretty exciting! No, really! Because- and you know I am not making this up, because I have photographic evidence that I do not have the Photoshop skills to falsify- I came out on the winning side of the translation!

Look! On the left, the recipe picture, on the right, what was actually produced in this actual kitchen. How often does it happen that a recipe actually looks better at home than it did in the picture?

about as often as one finds a perfectly ripe peach at the end of winter.

And that's another thing I learned this week. Frozen peaches. They look surprisingly like peaches- here's the frozen peach salad that I expected to look like a mushy bowl of formerly frozen peach colored mushy things:

Pretty, isn't it?
too bad it didn't taste like peaches.

The raspberries, the cucumber, the mint, the lemon, the dressing- all really good, but as it turns out, frozen peaches are not very...peachy. I'll use this salad again when peaches are in season, and until then, it'll be wonderful with mangoes.

It's a little sad, because it didn't do justice to the sublime poem "From Blossoms" by Li-Young Lee. In July, I shall buy farmer's market peaches and give that poem the translation it deserves.

And that's sort of what I hope for you this week-

I hope that you hear the love you need 

in the way you need to hear it.

And I hope you know that it matters.

Every time you take the chance

to say the I love you

To the people you love 

In a way they can understand,

it matters. 

And I hope this week, that not a single heartbeat

of the love and wonder you have to share with the world

gets lost in translation.