By Brian R Sorrell
This tip, plus technique, plus two secret ingredients, which never really were secret and surely won’t be after I publish this history, are what, if anything, sets my chili apart from others. I don’t follow recipes, which doesn’t mean I don’t use recipes. I use them for ideas and inspiration, but I leave taste to… Read more
you should keep in mind: First, if you’ve rediscovered a wilting head in the fridge, you can revive it. Second, there’s no secret to cooking this stuff; it’s all technique. Now before you start thinking, hey there are more things about broccoli, let me add: there are more things about broccoli. For instance, the stems,… Read more
when it’s hot enough. Better yet, swipe a little oil inside the pan first and get it glistening. Set it on the flame — it better be flame if you’re cooking and you really mean it — and let it set until it smokes. This could take a few minutes, but it’s worth the patience.… Read more
B looked down and saw his childhood dog curled by the blue chair. He hadn’t seen the dog in many years. Across the room a small child picked up a fireplace poker and dropped it. The child did this again. Then again. And so on, revelling in the clanging each time, his hands now blacked… Read more
Daylight fades along the passage, shadows darkening. A piano note echoes from the other side of an air vent made of steel lattice, embedded in concrete thick enough to hold up the earth and to withstand mortar fire. I am in a tunnel carved into a volcano called Maungauika: North Head, a strategic location overlooking… Read more
would run the machines at the concrete company behind our house, just past the hedge under which we’d build forts and draw maps from one pine tree to the next. The pine trees, the cherry trees, the apple trees would flower and bloom and soon winter would set in. And all the while, I’d run… Read more
. Not bicycles with colourful jokers. Just some old deck maybe swiped from a hotel, like that book of matches on the mantel never struck. The pattern was mostly green, though maybe jade you’d say if you were fussy. Looked like a close-up photo of jewellery box draws. The card box itself was not conventional,… Read more
“March 15, 1910 Grampie was” is a warning story. It is a description of life during a time in America that some have recently called “great.” In particular, the essay compares certain aspects of the narrator’s life in America, 1980 with aspects of his life in New Zealand, 2016, providing a insider-on-the-outside’s perspective of the current political… Read more
born. He’s gone 27 years now and I only knew him the first 15 of mine. That’s strange when I think about it because I think about him enough that “gone” doesn’t mean the same as it does for that fish that wiggled off his line that one time he took us fishing, or that bike… Read more
climb up here with me,” so I did. The tree is a centuries-old pohutukawa at Te Toki Road Reserve on Waiheke Island, New Zealand. We’ve come here to visit friends who live down the way, and their Vizsla needs his evening run. So does Charlie. It’s nearly dinner time and the cicadas are clacking so… Read more
chirps, and those buggers hiss in a sibilant chorus this time of year. I wonder whether the Chinese fellas on the next bench over suffer this same tongue thwacking misarticulation. I wonder whether they, like me, unwittingly lisp in some similar manner under these conditions. Relatedly, I’ve wondered whether a murmuring crowd affects its members’ dominant accent. The… Read more
of pennies who smelled strongly of Canada Mints and old clothes. For the entire time I knew him, which was fifteen years, he lived in a little green house with his youngest son, Uncle Bill, half way down Grove Road, which ended in a cul-de-sac, which could have run straight through to Watrous Park had… Read more
is a fact I both realise and appreciate. I attribute this gift to being in the middle period of my life. A couple months ago I built a wall of bookshelves. During the project I cut myself once, strained a shoulder muscle into a debilitating spasm, but I never fell off the ladder. I might… Read more
scent, were a perfumery to extract it, filter the aerated pollens of hydrangea and jasmine, mix it with essential oils and solvents, and package it in a fading yellow orange and green box to match the landscape from which it emanates. This is the scent in the air, but it’s not the summer scent we expected.… Read more
a corner and half way across the front of a closet door. The one in front stopped and the one in back carried on down the door and across the carpet, blue grey stain resistant, which turns out to be perfect camouflage for a spindly-tan long legger. I was sitting at the edge of the bed… Read more