The Omnivore's Hundred

I found this over at our friend the Suburban Banshee's, and found it amusing. You bold what you have eaten and cross out what you'd never even consider eating. Since with this formatting I can't cross out, I'll italicize. Wow, some people have wild imaginations when it comes to food...

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare (raw hamburger? ugh!)
5. Crocodile... um, perhaps...
6. Black pudding (I've eaten the Spanish version, fried. It's actually kinda good.)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - Does limoncello count?
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or headcheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche YES! GOTTA LOVE THE STUFF!!!!
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar... I am no smoker...
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala... sounds good.
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin... um, no...
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads...don't do it...
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake I Looooooove churros with chocolate...
68. Haggis... yuck
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu... I'm not suicidal...
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini... no, but why not, sometime...
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant... no, but sometime I might
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Letter to Laodicea

(From the epistle to the last of the seven churches, in the Apocalypse)

Come buy, I beg, of my burning gold
To complete your coffers with prudent care
And lengths of linen of flowing white
That your nakedness may not appear;
Lave with aloes your lightless eyes
To behold the blessed sight of bliss.
I chastize the children of my choice,
Harry and hunt them, so haste to this:
Turn ye in truth your Lord unto
For close I stand and call at the door.
He who hears my call
And opens his hall
I will enter in
To dine with him;
For his swift feet
He will share my seat
Enthroned with me,
Even as I
My father's high,
In victory.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

A Translation

This semester I have been taking a class called "Creative Writing: Translation." It's a lot of fun, and I thought some of my readers (all two or three of them, huh?) might enjoy one or two of my translations. So here goes my version of the Vexilla Regis.

The royal banners forth proceed,
The Cross shines out its mystery
By which life bore death's heavy load
And life by death gained victory.

And when the lance's dreadful blade
Did wound our Savior's holy side,
That we be cleansed from sin, his blood
And water flowed, a blessed tide.

Fulfilled is that which David sang
In faithful song of prophecy,
When to the nations he proclaimed,
"Lo, God hath reignèd from the Tree."

O Tree, most fair, aglow with light,
With royal purple beautified,
Thou, chosen as a worthy wood,
To bear that body sanctified!

O blest art thou, upon whose arms
There hung the price of all mankind,
On which Our Lord, a standard set,
Rescued the souls in hell confined.

O Cross, our only hope, all hail!
In this the blessed Passion-time,
Give to the pious greater grace,
And wash away the sinner's crime.

O Trinity, Salvation's spring,
Let every soul give praise to thee,
And grant the prize to those to whom
Thou gavest the Cross' victory.

Type and Antitype: a Riddle

Or (perhaps a better heading for the Ballad that is the Greatest Song in the World) :
"Come riddle me this, dear mother, come riddle me two in one..."*

What King is it that left his kingdom,
was despised and rejected by his people
(who chose a murderer over him),
for the sake of a promise made to a vassal;
who took on the form of a servant**
was humbled before a throne set up by his own power
was cast down with guilt not his own,
and laid down his life for his friend,
but lives now in great joy and bliss?

Hint: You have to have read the Silmarillion.

Inspired by the Philosopher at Large's short story Terrible Gifts and its sequel. I had not noticed this myself, in all my (eight, maybe?) years of rereading the bits of the Silmarillion which mention my favorite character!

*Cf. Chesterton (The Surprise), Anonymous ("Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender"), and Anonymous ("My Dancing Day").
**OK, I'm cheating here, in one case the servant was his, in the other NOT. But it's a TYPE, not an allegory!!!

Queen of the Holy Rosary....

today is her day, the celebration of the great victory at Lepanto back in 1571.... wow, that's a while back. Anyhow, in honor of the day, here is a new poem...

Immaculate conceived and stainless born,
She who in Bethlehem brought Christ to men
In greatest need comes to our aid again,
Our watchful Mother, guiding star of morn.
When all seems lost, and we are all forlorn,
Confounded, weak against our deadly foes,
The Mother of the King who died and rose
Bends down to crush all those who dare to scorn
Her power and her Son; as once did she
When Ali's hellish hordes, in battle's heat,
Were near to crushing Juan of Austria's fleet;
She took the roses that her children gave
And swept the winds around, her fold to save!
Thus, in her praise we pray her Rosary.

Inés de Erausquin
October 7, 2008

We're Moving!!!!

Yes... the de Erausquin family will leave our beautiful St. Louis next summer, bound for Boston! The reason for this is that Tata (our Dad) just accepted an offer from the great, the only....

Hahvahd University!

So this will be our last year here in our home of thirteen- almost fourteen- years. Ah, the sadness... Boston has no SSPX church or school, so we will be down to a mission chapel and homeschooling. But hey, it's still Mass. And with the amount of singers in our family alone, and all our boys, we could be having High Masses with a full choir in not too long... that would really be awesome!

Leaving all our old friends and our colleges will be tough, though. Having two years of college left, I now have to decide whether to transfer to, say, Boston College, and get used to a whole new group of teachers and students; or remain here at Webster University with the teachers who know me and my ways -- where I come from and where I am musically, as Mrs. Eastman says.

Ah, well. Time will tell, and God will make sure things come out right, I know.

Another new poem, YAY!

(haha) This one was inspired by a beautiful Spanish poem, the Hymn to the Coming Messiah, begging Our Lord to return to us. I have made more than one attempt to translate it, but it is coming very slowly! The language is so complicated that even in the richness of English it's hard to match the wonder of the Spanish. However, taking the theme and the rhythm and rhyme scheme, I came up with

Veni, Domine

Look downward, Master dear,
From Thy great throne on high,
And hear our lonely cry,
In a thousand dreadful fears;
For we wander in this drear,
Dreadful night of death and sin,
And our wailing, weak and thin,
Rises from this vale of tears.

O, many a day have we
Pleaded Thee to come to us,
And save from the treacherous
Foes who fain would drag us down;
We fight the raging sea
And, struggling, blind, dismayed,
We call on Thy mighty aid,
Without which we all must drown.

O Lord, Who in Galilee
The raging storm didst still
And, coming, didst fulfill
Every prophecy of yore,
By the Cross of Calvary
And the Blood Thou there didst spill,
Come, O Lord, from Heaven's hill -
Come and save us all once more!

St. Pius the Tenth!

Yes, yes, I know I am two days late. Three it'll be by the time anyone reads this, I'm sure. But anyway, here is the poem I wrote Wednesday for our Fathers of the SSPX.

ST. PIUS THE TENTH

Upon this fair Wednesday
Is Pius the Ten's day,
A wonderful Pope and great Saint;
And I think that never
Was such a fool, ever,
As him who dares say that he ain't.

He grew up, quite lowly,
And ever-so-holy,
In Riese, in fair Italy;
And since priests were needed
Our Lord's call he heeded
And went to the seminary.

He would have desired
(This priest so inspired),
A meek parish priest for to stay;
But the Pope didn't think so,
And quick as two winks-o,
A Cardinal made him one day!

When the Pope was interred
An election occurred,
And although our saint said, "O nope!"
And he wept and he pleaded,
His prayer was not heeded
And so he became the new Pope!

This Pope, the Church ruling,
Was awesome - no fooling!
No nonsense this Pope would permit;
He kept the Ship sailing,
O'er evil prevailing;
Which pleased our old Foe not one bit!

He kept up his labors
And gained many favors
From Heaven for his people below;
His kind benediction
Consoled in affliction;
His death left the Church full of woe.

But from the high heaven
His blessing is given
To those who do call on him still;
And to us whose cry is
"Come aid us, St. Pius,"
He listens, and he always will.

He guards with great piety
His namesake Society;
His sons he safeguards and protects;
And with eloquence fair
He echoes our prayer:
"May God bless the SSPX!"

A new sonnet

Firstly, happy feastday to all you Stephens out there -- today's the feast of St. Stephen of Hungary!

Secondly, here is a new sonnet. The idea for this came to me at Mass, actually, not Benediction; but the picture in my head turned into this poem.

I gaze upon the altar far below,
The candles glimmering in the smoky haze,
And at the glorious crown of golden rays
That circles round what is God's self, I know.
And looking on the shining loveliness
Of the great monstrance holding Jesus there,
I cannot help but suddenly compare
The monstrance with one whom all nations bless -
The Maiden who is yet our Mother, and
The star of hope that leads us through the night,
That Christ in her pure body once did hold;
And now, at last, I come to understand
The name we give her, like a ray of light;
No wonder we call Mary "House of Gold!"

-- September 2, 2008
St. Stephen of Hungary

St. Louis

Alas, I am late again! The Feast of our city's patron, St. Louis, was this Monday (the 25th), and I was so caught up in the Jam and school that I had not time to post. (The last post says it was posted on the 25th, but it was really finished today!) So here is the poem I wrote last year on the same Feast.

ST. LOUIS
A lesson by his mother taught
He kept his heart within;
"I'd rather see you dead, my son,
Than stained by mortal sin."

He ruled his folk with justice, and
When there was need of aid,
He pinned the Cross upon his cloak
And went on a Crusade.

He fought with valor for Our Lord
To save the Holy Land;
He led his men, unstintingly,
His sword aloft in hand,

And when from illness he began
To falter and to faint,
He died a very holy death
And went to be a saint.

O Louis, gallant, holy knight,
Guard us we pray to thee,
That we may join you, praising God,
In heaven eternally.