Recipe for a Walk in Homewood Cemetery

Calla Norman

SERVES:

one

INGREDIENTS:

2 whole walking shoes
1 water bottle
1 phone and headphones
14 headstones sinking deeper into the earth
1 stag with velvety antlers, divided
clump of moss
plush falling out of a stuffed bear, left on a placard
crushed black walnut liqueur to taste
What’s Well Done is Done Forever
powdered sugar

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 67 degrees Fahrenheit on the overcast setting. In a large bowl, blend dry ingredients using the branch of illumined scarlet Maple leaves, carried by an old laughing woman wearing a mask on a walk with an old friend. We lived and loved and laughed and left.

Cut in the moss until coated with the sound of gravel turning under the wheels of the maintenance pickup truck. With your hands, knead the dough until a solid mass forms. Let rest as you watch a man in a bomber jacket, with a plastic bag loosely held in his hand, study the gravestones. There’s a stone written in Chinese characters carved in 2018 left next to a family plot where the most recent death is twice as old as you are. A portrait of a young man known to his family as Marc Antony watches over them. *She concealed her tears, but shared her smiles. *Roll out until a thin, paper-like dough reaches from Frick Park to Forbes Avenue.

In another bowl, blend the polyester plush, the velvet from the stag’s antlers, and crushed black walnut liqueur until just combined. Spoon into a piping bag. Pipe a long, thin strand down one end of the sheet of dough. Roll the dough lengthwise until the strand is enclosed and seal with water from your water bottle. Cut down the end and repeat until you run out or until you get tired. LOVE TO ALL!

Twist your filled tubes of dough into the shape adorning the door of your favorite mausoleum. It may take some practice, and it may be impossible. Place on a lined baking sheet and place in the oven for 20 minutes. While they bake, sit on the pyramid tomb’s steps and watch the group of girls smoking a joint a few tombs down, and wish you’d asked to join them. Maybe next time you’ll come later in the day and watch the sun go down, maybe you’ll see a few more people or a few less as you break out of routine. But first, take out those twists from the oven and glaze them while still hot with the powdered sugar mixed with drool from the dog that just passed by. Let cool and watch the glaze harden into the texture of glue pulled off one’s fingers. It’s been a fun life.