{"id":798,"date":"2026-03-22T19:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T19:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=798"},"modified":"2026-03-23T21:22:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T21:22:36","slug":"teppanyaki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=798","title":{"rendered":"Teppanyaki"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Choo-choooooooo!<br>Chooooo-chooooo!<br>The chef pushes<br>an onion ring pile<br>around a hot metal plate.<br><br>She takes a medicine cup<br>of colorless liquid, <br>and pours the contents<br>into the center<br>of the onion stack.<br><br>Who's birthday?<br>She prompts.<br>\"His!\" We point.<br>We raise our voices <br>in unison above<br>the metal din<br>of knives and spatulas<br>clanging on grill top tables.<br><br>With a flourish<br>she alights the tower:<br>the grande finale \u2014<br>a tableside fire bomb.<br><br>Bright flames reflect<br>in his chocolate-hazel eyes.<br>The fire is almost as bright<br>as his mile-wide grin.<br><br>He's closer to fifty <br>than to five years old.<br>And still, the magic<br>of his annual birthday<br>teppanyaki adventure<br>never fails to thrill him.<br><br>Happy Birthday, Babe.<br><br><br><br><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cTeppanyaki,\u201d written March 22, poem 081 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: &#8220;Onion Tower of Flames,&#8221; by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[373,132,376,232,361,375],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-poems","tag-birthday","tag-family","tag-joy","tag-march","tag-spring","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","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=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}