Sonnet Recipe: Middle Eastern Chicken

Brown up a pound of chicken, cut up small,

Then add a tablespoon of chicken stock,

A can of diced tomatoes and, in all

Two cups of frozen pepper mix and rock

That in the skillet till it boils and cook

About two minutes. Then add half a cup

Of raisins and a cup more stock and -- look

Ya gotta have some garlic!* -- then mix up

Some thyme, allspice, cloves and a bay leaf, too;

Black pepper and some cumin. Stir that in

And simmer for just 20 minutes. You

Will dig what then results. Now, I have been

A-draining off some liquid from what's done

To cook the couscous in, but that's me, hon.

Spice amounts:

GARLIC: 2 cloves, minced

THYME (dried): 1 1/2 t

CUMIN: 1 t

ALLSPICE: 1/4 t

CLOVES (ground): 1/8 t

BLACK PEPPER: 1/8 t

In Which A Pork Roast Is Thawed And Thawed And Thawed

One might think that, with all that it's been through

This pork roast sitting on my countertop --

T'was frozen, partly thawed when Sears did screw

Me over last week, frozen again -- stop

Me if you've heard this one -- and yet somehow

Today, when time to cook it up has come

And it's been thawing all day, up to now,

It's still a solid rock of pork! It's dumb!

But microwaves, for these occasions, are

Appropriate, though, when one's slightly drunk,

A challenge to set properly. The bar

Is not set too, too high; I won't flunk

My cooking course tonight -- though I will say

I'm glad the turkey's fresh for Turkey Day!

In Which A Customer Is Lost

Turns out I could have spent the day else-how.

Instead I got up, emptied out this fridge

That lows and mutters like a dying cow,

And waited for the new one. Now a bridge

'Twixt me and an old corporation's burnt:

'Twas dented in the box, that thing I bought,

And it's deliv'ry cancelled -- which I learnt

Long after, after waiting, as I ought

Per my last message from them. When I called

Long past the window, as meat thawed and leaked

And other things got messy, first they stalled,

Then finally admitted that my pique

Was justified. Now, back to the first square

I must prepare to seek a fridge elsewhere.

A Sonnet Of The Mundane: Getting A New Refrigerator

It's ugly, has a tendency to freeze
What I would merely chill, and then it tends
To make such noise -- sometimes it's just a wheeze,
Sometimes a rumble -- that most of my friends
Say they can hear it on my podcasts (yes,
At present I record them sitting at
My kitchen table). Icemakers you'd bless
When hooked up to the plumbing aren't all that
When they just run on nothing. It must go,
And soon it will. Tomorrow, around lunch
Some nice young men in clean blue suits will show
And cart off my old fridge. Till then, the cruch
Is clearing out the present one before
They come. It's mostly condiments, so score!