Bob Lucky: PROUST NEVER ATE BUTTERMILK PIE

.

.family reunion
pies lined up on the counter
to cool

I’ve spent half my life trying to explain buttermilk pie to those who haven’t had the pleasure. Once, living in Japan, I decided I would have to bake a pie to make my case for the superiority of buttermilk over all other pies. I served it to guests, Australians and Japanese, on Thanksgiving Day. It was almost too sweet to eat. The Japanese politely took a bite, hid their mouths behind their hands, nodded with ambiguous enthusiasm, and set their plates down with uncharacteristic decisiveness. The Australians were cheerfully blunt and expected to win the Noble Prize in medicine for identifying the main cause for obesity in Americans. Without much of a leg to stand on, a condition only partially to blame on the amount of wine drunk, I pointed an accusing finger at the quality of Japanese sugar.

Japanese New Year
choking on a piece
of green tea mochi

by Bob Lucky
Hangzhou, China