{"id":2212,"date":"2026-07-21T12:49:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T12:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2026-07-25T15:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T15:14:12","slug":"feast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2212","title":{"rendered":"Feast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Sometimes feeding your soul
looks like feeding others
gathering a coven of sacred women
to share the bounty of high summer,
and the burdens on your mind.

A Monday in July can feel
like a certain Thursday in November
if you give of yourself, 
invest in, embody a recipe,
stand in a warm kitchen for hours 
stirring Lahori cholay down 
to the perfect texture;
pitting your way through 
an orchard of stone fruit,
dicing a battalion of carrots,
poaching chicken in heavy cream 
before chiffonading tarragon 
and tossing in freshly-roasted walnuts.
It looks like pouring injera batter 
onto hot pan until spongey magic arises.
Straining spaghetti for a chilled noodle salad.
Like tossing legumes and peppers with herbs
to bring your Low Country caviar to life.

For our Goddess hostess, it means:
squeezing five cooked recipes 
into a Sunday night, 
then a Monday morning, 
and one more at lunchtime.
Blooming saffron in hot water
before lacquering a salmon 
with the golden broth.
Preparing the celebratory tahdig, 
two ways, arranging the prized, 
crisped sheets from the pan bottom
atop mounds of steaming rice.
Laying the table with finery:
platinum-rimmed porcelain 
and the polished silver.
Fluffing a field of pillows
lighting the candles, 
adjusting the napkins just so.

The sun falls low across the trees,
car lights flicker on mailboxes.
The doorbell rings; 
arms raise for hugs around hefty platters.
Your dish nestles in among the rest,
setting the scene for a kindred meal.

And now, separate offerings are one.
We each share the highlights 
of our gifts of history, of taste:
the spice composition, 
the preparation intricacies, 
the caveats on \"caviar.\" 

Bone china Weeble-wobbles on knees,
forks clink on clutched goblets.
And now the communion begins:

Within this circle,
we explore ourselves.
We ask ourselves: 
What is Old<\/em> for you? 
What is New<\/em>?
How do you hold these truths?
Who are you, now? 
How are you, truly?
What can we share, 
in this moment,
to be of service?

We reveal, we observe, 
we process, we wonder.
We praise those not with us,
we cheer to sisterhood, 
to lived experience as
employees, bosses, 
mothers, daughters, guardians, 
each individuals 
now part of something bigger.

And as we proceed, 
we turn from chittering laughs
to chest-concussive tears.
Why are our daughters like<\/em> this?
Why do our mothers do<\/em> that?
Am I my mother? Are you?
We question, 
probe with a soft lens, 
unfold the answers;
hold the lessons in our hearts 
like we palm our emptying plates.

Our long-awaited feast, 
a delight of found kinship,
is a practice that feeds all senses.

By the time the hour calls 
for a samovar roiling, foretelling 
the arrival of glasses of tea 
and cr\u00e8me caramel in goblets,
we have marinated and rested.
We have sliced and seasoned
we have scooped and cupped 
and poured ourselves
into the space between us, 
a new recipe of our collective design.

Bellies full, hearts mended,
we go into the dark humid night
our shoulders lighter, 
our souls massaged.

Like crushed mint 
steeped in our neuroses,
we depart this place 
with missions clearer, 
our palate, 
and our minds, 
cleansed. 
<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cFeast,\u201d and ode to the magical women who keep me whole, written Tuesday, July 21, 2026 poem 202 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Summer Feast,” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1573,290,4,1572,2,666],"tags":[1992,2048,2037,2050,1272,383,2046,2042,1838,1558,2047,2049,69,2044,2039,12,2045,2051,2038,134,2036,2052,2043,2041,2040,70],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-generational-of-place","category-homage","category-long-form-musings","category-of-place","category-poems","category-reminiscing","tag-candles","tag-cholay","tag-coven","tag-creme-caramel","tag-daughters","tag-feast","tag-feeding-your-soul","tag-goblets","tag-high-summer","tag-july","tag-lahori","tag-low-country-caviar","tag-mothers","tag-porcelain","tag-question","tag-recipe","tag-salmon","tag-samovar","tag-soft-lens","tag-summer","tag-summer-feast","tag-tahdig","tag-weebles","tag-what-is-new","tag-what-is-old","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2212"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2227,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions\/2227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}