Kat Johnston

Tag: food

  • Nibble nibble… NOM!

    Its so cute when someone tries to be all delicate and sweet with their food… then goes ‘screw it’ and shoves it all down their throat at once as if it’s going to sneak off their plate if left too long.Its so cute when someone tries to be all delicate and sweet with their food… then goes ‘screw it’ and shoves it all down their throat at once as if it’s going to sneak off their plate if left too long.

    Today it isn’t even really so much a sketch as a few words scrawled (quite prettily though) against the page of one of my mini sketch-books. I’ve skipped a page in between – it involved more cherries. In fact, those cherries the other day were so tasty that I need to go out and get some more.

    What bought to mind this particular set of words? Probably my cat. We call Penny (she’s a lynx-point siamese cross) the Nom-nom monster… and I just love ‘nom’. Its so onomatopoeic. When it comes to cherries, I get to be a bit of a Nom-nom monster myself. I eat slow, by anyone’s standards, but cherries seem just to disappear when I have them. I’ll nibble delicately at the first few, savouring each wonderful plump, juicy fruit as the juices seep onto my tongue, spitting out the pip with much relish into a near-by empty coffee cup… and I believe that the rest are just as savoured and as slowly eaten, but I do seem to go through them oh so quickly. By my standards at least.

    I think that the pace increases closer to the middle of the bag – slow to start off with, nibbling, savouring, suckling from them every last ounce of sweet delicious taste before sampling the next… then more quicker as they seem plentiful, descending to another slow and thoughtful processing once that middle peak has been surmounted, while nudging the more unworthy cherries to be eaten first, with the pinnacle of cherryness left to the very last.

    I’ll say this about the Christmas season: I don’t want to go to the malls, or traverse the tightly bunched up crowds of mothers, screaming children, and teens with naught to do but hang out at the mall now that school is over… but a trip to the supermarket for cherries? I think I can manage that. Ok, off I go…

  • Plucking cherries… a wonderful pasttime.

    Mmmm, leading into the Christmas season is good for one thing: cherry availability.

    Delicious fresh cherries are just the most fantastic thing in the world to behold, are they not? For lack of ‘little’ drawing today, I threw that together as I ate my lunch: a whole little baggie of cherries.

    I finally started sketching out something on a canvas, to paint in later. Its taken me a while to start up on that track again, buuuuut… it had to happen sooner or later. I won’t take a picture of my rough sketching for the start of that yet – it is hardly worth a mention (and I can’t be bothered to pick up a camera). That said… if I actually get my butt into my studio and get my hands all messy with paint, you might actually see it done some time this year. Here’s a hint though, to get you thinking… it may or may not include a certain owl.

  • Haroset (the simple joy of learning).

    Kat Johnston Portrait - Her name is haroset. I have yet to discover quite why. She does not wish to be completed.

    This young lady came to me one evening not so long ago, as I was aimlessly dragging my pen across the blank page. She started letting me see a little of her… then stopped. She did not want to be touched further, to be altered, or pressured more in any way. So I retreated, pen in hand, simply to look at her as she is. She does not wish to be completed.

    Her name is Haroset. She chose it, not I. It is a word I came across not knowing the meaning of, so discovering that she wanted it as her moniker, I had to look it up. Haroset, or Charoset as it is also known, is:

    “…a sweet, dark-colored, lumpy paste made of fruits and nuts served primarily during the Passover Sedar. Its color and texture are meant to recall the mortar with which the Israelites bonded bricks when they were enslaved in Ancient Egypt… Despite its symbolism, the charoset is a tasty concoction and is a favorite of children. During the Seder meal, it may be eaten liberally, often spread on matzah.” (Wikipedia, 2008)

    I’m still trying to work out why it fits her, why she requested to be named in this way… perhaps it is a childhood nick-name, a reminder of a better time when she would happily sit with her family and show such fondness for this fruit-filled paste. Perhaps she sat upon her grandfather’s knee as he explained the significance and meaning behind the meal; she listening with rapt attention, with the fascination only a child who loves to learn can truly show. Even we ‘grown-ups’ who love to learn and long to know most everything never quite get that same incredible glow to our face and shine in our eyes that they do, even when we do come close.

    I love the way that children absorb information, taking it in before then racing off to find someone to tell – just as if this new little gem of knowledge is as significant and treasured as a new toy, to be shown off to the delighted squeals of ‘Guess what I know!’ or ‘You’ll never guess!’, with the little girl making her friends beg her to tell them until she imparts this special information on only the most worthy of her equals.

    For some reason, it always makes me smile, when I see that happen, when I see someone with a simple passion to learn and in part, to also teach. Perhaps my same smile is one that Haroset longs for.