The Whiskey Taster’s Flavor Guide

Best Epicurean Poems


Lobsters

Tails and claws in reefs, with opiates for pain,
Bad sight, ten legs and dollar profits to be made.

Prior to their own demise, they dined on fish and mollusks,
To savor and munch away with epicurean palettes.

Galleys rattle while lobsters kneel and pray,
“Boil!” and “Cut!” Chef Lemon-Snow conveys.

Tears bubbling away in ancient pots,
Chef Lemon-Snow the hunger his backdrop.

Blue-bloods in pails toiling to resist the boil,
Steaming, to find their destiny with olive oil.

Simmering delicious fare, extravagance to savor,
Lobsters expire while Lemon-Snow only seeks the flavor.

Proud crustaceans once gray now boiling red,
Scented mist of mild aroma, ravenous we fed.

Premium Member Once Again 2014

ONCE  AGAIN 

Fanciful images play gentle on the minds of children young and old.
Anticipation becomes a forever word that compels dreams and expectations 
to struggle with and sometimes overwhelm impatient patience. 

Exotic perfumed scents of fir hovers in the air exciting already taut senses. 
It clashes delightfully with the bombardment of brash bright colors that 
blink, blink, blink slowly mesmerizing hurried minds into thoughts 
of blissful peaceful solitude.

Touch the air. Feel it effervesce with sparks of remembered enjoyment. 
Of days filled with colors wrapped and tied into careful gifts brought forth
from a rotund man wearing colors of white and red.

The shadows of log fed flames lightly dance around the room in friendly
shades that caress softly and speak messages of comfort and safety.
Familiar melodies bounce along walls and ring bells of spiritually dusted joy.

Mother, covered with the flavors of passed down recipes drops 
her apron and proclaims the evenings feast .
Mouths water from images of epicurean delights and eyes widen
anxious and desperate to take it all in.

Now and then I ask myself...
Can love expressed in this complex manner
cut through the hostilities of everyday inconveniences?
We smile and cheer on this annual ritual in hopes
that in some way this interruption in time
will clear away the sludge that clogs the engine 
of soiled relationships bred with the guilt of
Auld lang syne and the countdown to Day one, once again. 

C.A.K. 12-12-2012

Struggle To Write

prosaic prologues bewitch 
   feeble minded scribe doth undertakes 
tend toward lugubriousness ring tone 
   for goodness sake

echoing across, 
   a figurative lake woebegone, where quake
shutters latched storm windows, 
   clapped closed winter season didst make
physical environment lachrymose 

   analogous to imp pond durable dark lake
where sits inside secluded hut, 
   this fledgling author named Jake
a former cub (scout) at a loss 
   to string together an aria 
   tomb other nature and NOT FAKE, 

sepulchral paeon to divine Gaea, Mother Earth
especially incorporating 
   mutisyllabic (sesquipedalian) words, 
   which exertion 
   on par with giving birth 

(or so I guess), 
   a particularly heavily pregnant laden dearth
of help mates, doubling demonstrably 
   deadly duty devoid of mirth
totally tubular taxing toll, 

   an essentially unbearable 
   effort with bulging girth
whereat digestion consumes 
   latent mental ambition, 
   especially toasty warm near the hearth 

which hitherto unknown to any reader 
   twas Xmas fabrication and fiction
no crime committed, nor animals harmed 
   in the making of diction

aery necessary entrapping unsuspecting intellect 
   to comprehend somber benediction
unless perchance one lone wolf 
   bait Oven  English Major 
   with Westernization

topped off with a European   
 debunaire suave acculturation
even luckier if hypothetical personage 
   dips daintily into forays epicurean,

though careful, 
   and alert since church fathers 
  would frown on parsonage
whose natural born ardor, 
   a spiritual abduction
stealing austerity, complacency, and objection
toward forced irrational schemas 
   averse to abnegation
unfair imposition 

   to foist upon pruriant predilection
also impossible 
   to sequester arbitrary animal urges, 
   punishing call of the wild, 
   sowing seeds a beastial accusation
considered averse, 
   then imposition contrition!


Premium Member Country Fare

I've traveled from the farm in Indiana, the place of my humble birth,
To places I never dreamed of seeing all around this earth!
On ships, trains and airplanes visiting fascinating ports of call,
And dining in hoity-toity eateries, more than I can ever recall!

I've dined on such exotic dishes as Beef Eterhazy and Athenian Moussaka,
Nasi Goreng, Halibut Cheeks, Paht Thai and Linguine Bugatta;
Linguine Primavera, Mahi Mahi, Lobster Thermidor and Cordon Blue,
Canard a L'Orange, Chateaubriand and savory Fillet of Wahoo!

I enjoyed those epicurean delights, but they'll never compare,
To the simple, wholesome dining on good old country fare!
I salivate thinking about a heaping plate of cornbread and beans,
With a salad on the side of fresh garden picked lettuce greens!

I drool just thinking about a hearty meal of meat and taters,
With stuff fresh from the garden like sweet peas and 'maters,
Home-made oven baked biscuits and heaps of fried chicken.
Ah, the very thought makes my old ticker begin to quicken!

Just to contemplate a repast of Bermuda onions and fried liver,
Gets my mouth watering and sets my old bones aquiver!
May you enjoy your Pate de Fois Gras at the country club;
I'll settle anytime for good old nourishing country grub!

Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved

Lobsters

Tails and claws in reefs with opiates for pain,
Bad sight, ten legs and dollar profits to be made.

Prior to their own demise, they dined on fish and mollusks,
To savor and munch away with epicurean palettes.

Galleys rattle while lobsters kneel and pray,
“Boil!” and “Cut!” Chef Lemon-Snow would say.

Tears bubbling away in ancient silver pots,
Chef Lemon-Snow the hungry, backdrop.

Bluebloods in pails toiling to resist the boil,
Antenna’s steaming, to find their destiny with olive oil.

Simmering delicious fare, extravagance to savor,
Lobsters expire while Lemon-Snow seeks the flavor.

Proud crustaceans once gray now boiling red,
Scented mist of mild aroma, ravenous we fed.

Premium Member A Bee's Soliloquy

I am a tiny winged buzzing insect
A friend to folks and flowers alike
Another name for hard work
Toiling untiring from dawn to dusk

I set out merry, humming a tune, 
On my professed mission of gathering honey
The flowers freshly bathed in dew
Eagerly await my propitious visit

I like to flit from flower to flower
I love dallying with floral beauties 
Gladiolus, Chrysanthemums and Petunias
Red geraniums and colorful Zinniahs

But I prefer to hover over clustered blooms
Which hang from trees’ stooping boughs
From each flower I sup to my fill
And my body gets covered in yellow dust

I don’t believe in the Epicurean dictum
Of ‘Eat, drink and be merry’
Neither do I live just for today 
I await a future that is trouble free

We work tireless till the day is done
And see that every cell of our hive is full 
We never complain of those among us
Who stay idle and thrive on our labor

Never grumble against the privileged Queen
Who enjoys unique status with rights many
For we respect the Nature-ordained hierarchy
As we know, a mob without a leader would be anarchy

Bee Creative Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Matt Caliri

Placed First
23. Jan. 2022
For Strand’s (1058) Poetry Contest
Sponsor – Brian Strand


Taste

  Morsel hits palette
Epicurean sin won
Smiling pleasure now
© Tim B  Create an image from this poem.

Phantasmagoria

PHANTASMAGORIA

If you don't like where you are..take a trip in your mind
Look in your brain's dark corners and see what you find
There are places a groaning board tempts with an epicurean delight
But the populace heads for the worst comestibles in sight
When choosing Burma or Myanmar as it's now called
Or Manila where  kittens are drinking sewage in a yard 
Who knows? they might think kittens are viands too
But if this gastronomic delight does not appeal to you
Try a whole pig on a spit, cleaved open to reveal
Viscera and liver, cooked and ready to peel
You could try a lunch of grilled belly lining
If not, its pigs' snouts and tongues for fine dining
Egg on your face takes on a whole new meaning
When it's smeared on a face --slimy and gleaming*
Don't forget the venues where entrails drip over a fire 
Or octopus tentacles tasting like a rubber tire
Remember...wandering is possible but not leaving your niche
Thinking how the other half lives might cure a travel itch
So start up the mind's motor and go anywhere you wish
Without having to eat even one revolting dish 

*A sunblock

Premium Member Flaming Reflection : " Bon Appetite "

My Dear Carolyn, I want to Thank-YOU for YOUR Contest “ The Work You Do? ”
I usually Do not Brag, but I’m going to in this Piece I also may throw in  Kitchen Humor
I Dedicate this to YOU : Carolyn Devonshire My POETRY “ TEACHER “ LOVE, HG


The first two quotes I heard in the beginning of My Career
“People will always Eat” ( Chef Lis ) : “People eat with their eyes” :
( Mr. Franklin Whalen ; ) Owner  of The “Barrington House Restaurant”
Forty-Four years later, the Sonata of these words Still Rings in my ears

The Aromas, sweet and spicy, sour ,tart, fruity, meaty, waif through my nose
I remember the smell of burning starch, elbows set in ice cold water on the stove, two hours
Taste buds come alive, epicurean;  connoisseurs : enticing  The palette soothing the throat
I read my breath, in the dire cold of the freezer:  a block of ice becomes A Heart of Swans 
         The Center Piece of Mr. & Mrs. Posner’s 75th Wedding Anniversary Dinner
On a Pedestal , in the centre of the “Swan Heart : I carved the “POSNER"  Holding Hands
How Sweet, When they asked me “Would You makes us one of YOUR Classic Dinners?”
“The Rack of Lamb, with the Plum- Mint Jelly” “ Don’t forget his Famous “Béarnaise Sauce”
A Vegetable Bouquetire , Cottage Fries, with a special “Flaming Cherries Jubilee” for Desert
Perhaps, as they did when : Young : Their eyes found each other, as they fed each other
The Gleam in their Eyes, reflecting the Jubilee’s flame Opening the Mirror of Their “ L O V E “
As a Chef The work I do is very Rewarding and I shall Cook until I die( and even Then!! )

Premium Member Spaghetti and Garlic Bread

Steaming spaghetti and garlic bread.
      On a warmed red-checkered plate.
               With aromatic, hot, garlic bread.
For my epicurean tastes is just fine and dandy!
       Would be nice though, if served by a handsome,
                 Italian waiter.
 ~~~~I call that, some ravishing eye candy~~~~

       
                    1/28/2021
                       ~ 1 ~

O Mother Take Me There

O mother, take me there, where I find the gratifying grace,
Take me there, where I dwell in bliss,
Take me there, where I ramble in rapturous joy,
Take me to that miraculous planet and nurture me,
O mother, take me there, where I find the tantalizing nothingness,
Take me there, in to the surrealistic world and let me ponder over the nature’s allegories,
Take me to this exuberant excursion,
O mother, I have become claustrophobic, I cannot live in this enclosed space,
Take me to the infinity where I have no confinity,
Take me through the valleys of sunshine and glory,
O mother, Let me live the eternal love,
Let me smell the soil,
Let me hear the choirs of sea,
Let me be an epicurean,
Let me squelch and tread on the planet,
Let me see the picturesque of nature,
Let me lay my body on the roots of heaven,
Let me dandle on your knees,
Let me construe the dappled sky,
Let me live and leave,
O mother, instigate your benign impulsion,
I long to see you and the world,
I want to be resurrected,
O mother, I loved you before I knew, I believed in you before I knew.

Premium Member "punkin" Pie

How grateful I shall ever be for the creative gal or guy,
Who concocted and perpetuated the luscious "punkin" pie!
Ah! The thought of a golden "punkin" pie with flaky crust,
Stimulates my taste buds with sinful epicurean lust!

You can call it "pumpkin" or "punkin" pie, I don't care,
Just as long as it's on the menu for Thanksgiving fare.
Pecan, apple and cherry pies are pleasing to the eye,
But Thanksgiving just ain't Thanksgiving without a "punkin" pie!

As a lad I suffered through my Pa's interminable blessing,
Then I dawdled over a plate of my Ma's oyster dressing,
And toyed with a yam and piece of turkey thigh,
But all I really wanted was a hunk of "punkin" pie!

The perfect "punkin" pie, I can vouch, is made by my spouse.
I nearly swoon savoring the aroma wafting about the house!
To sample a wedge of that treat, my palate is just itchin',
But I am unceremoniously invited to vacate the kitchen!

I suppose the repast must include turkey and sweet pertaters,
And a relish tray with gherkins, olives and cherry termaters,
But upon this old but true aphorism you can rely,
Thanksgiving just ain't Thanksgiving without a "punkin" pie!

Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)

Placed No. 5 in the "Dreamy Desserts" Contest - June 2010

Walkers Bags of Taste 1

Walkers crisps should be forced to comply
With trade description legislation
And stop disappointing their customers
With their artificial flavourization

When purchasing a bag of Walkers crisps
The refined palate of an epicurean
Would be gravely disappointed if they did not
Taste of Rambler, Hiker or Pedestrian

Autumn Stirs the Senses

Spicy,pungent,crisp
Inhale Autumn's sweet incense
Divine smells of Fall
From the crackling cedar fires
To the pumpkins in the fields

                    Hot apple cider
                    Pumpkin pie and roast turkey
                    Tempting aromas
                    Epicurean delights
                    Autumn's bounty feeds the soul

                                       Fall's cascading hues                
                                       Mother Nature's paint palette
                                       Bejewels the trees
                                       Our senses all come alive
                                       As Fall too quickly passes










** for contest Enchantment of Fall...Tanka a Moment
sponsored by Amy Green
© Deb Wilson  Create an image from this poem.

Night's Epicurean Sea

moon light glinting
on 
                   
                 
night's epicurean
sea
                   
                 
shines luminous
flash
© Bl Devnath  Create an image from this poem.

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