{"id":92028,"date":"2015-11-16T18:33:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T23:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=92028"},"modified":"2015-11-17T07:42:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T12:42:00","slug":"for-a-cook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/","title":{"rendered":"For a Cook"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_92031\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trinkender_koch_19jh.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-92031\" class=\"wp-image-92031\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trinkender_koch_19jh.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"496\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trinkender_koch_19jh.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trinkender_koch_19jh-300x248.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-92031\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anonymous painting, nineteenth century<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Craig Arnold\u2019s \u201cFor a Cook\u201d appeared in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/145\" target=\"_blank\">Winter 1997 issue<\/a>. Arnold, born on this day in 1967, published only two collections of poems before his presumed death in 2009, when he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yohmei.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/An-Exchange-for-Fire.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">went missing while hiking alone on a volcanic island in Japan<\/a>. \u2014D. P.\u00a0<\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What I remember most is what he did to the couple<br \/>\u00a0 who sent his best pasta back to the kitchen,<\/p>\n<p>pronouncing it \u201ctoo thin.\u201d Capers and kalamata<br \/>\u00a0 olives tossed with squid-ink angelhair<\/p>\n<p>\u2014salty, he used to say, as sweat on a black man\u2019s cock.<br \/>\u00a0 He said this often, not only to shock:<\/p>\n<p>food should be made with love, and love to him was sweat,<br \/>\u00a0 saliva, tears. <em>What do they want from me?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>he muttered, adding an egg\u2014more Parmesan\u2014a cup<br \/>\u00a0 of heavy cream\u2014and tossed it all together,<\/p>\n<p>the straw-yellow sauce stringy with albumen,<br \/>\u00a0 thickened with semen as an afterthought.<\/p>\n<p>Now he is dead. I write the recipe of all<br \/>\u00a0 of him that\u2019s still out there in circulation:<\/p>\n<p>tips of fingers and knuckles, pared away to scars<br \/>\u00a0 by the big knives, carelessly julienned<\/p>\n<p>together with the root vegetables, the stray chips<br \/>\u00a0 of thumbnail, here and there a curled black hair,<\/p>\n<p>spit hissing on a skillet, a drop of blood in the sauce,<br \/>\u00a0 the oil of his hand glazing the dough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Craig Arnold\u2019s \u201cFor a Cook\u201d appeared in our Winter 1997 issue. Arnold, born on this day in 1967, published only two collections of poems before his presumed death in 2009, when he went missing while hiking alone on a volcanic island in Japan. \u2014D. P.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":897,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[33,370,1671,20229,20228,20227,7221,165],"class_list":["post-92028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-archives","tag-back-issues","tag-cooking","tag-cooks","tag-craig-arnold","tag-issue-145","tag-poems","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poem: Craig Arnold, \u201cFor a Cook\u201d (1997)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 16, 2015 \u2013 Craig Arnold\u2019s \u201cFor a Cook\u201d appeared in our Winter 1997 issue. Arnold, born on this day in 1967, published only two collections of poems before his\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"For a Cook by Craig Arnold\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 16, 2015 \u2013 Craig Arnold\u2019s \u201cFor a Cook\u201d appeared in our Winter 1997 issue. Arnold, born on this day in 1967, published only two collections of poems before his\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-16T23:33:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-17T12:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trinkender_koch_19jh.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"827\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Craig Arnold\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Craig Arnold\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Craig Arnold\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3468b7c60260944c524b8f52bde1f43e\"},\"headline\":\"For a Cook\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-16T23:33:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-17T12:42:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/\"},\"wordCount\":230,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trinkender_koch_19jh.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"archives\",\"back issues\",\"cooking\",\"cooks\",\"Craig Arnold\",\"Issue 145\",\"poems\",\"poetry\"],\"articleSection\":[\"From the Archive\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/\",\"name\":\"Poem: Craig Arnold, \u201cFor a Cook\u201d (1997)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/for-a-cook\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trinkender_koch_19jh.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-16T23:33:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-17T12:42:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"November 16, 2015 \u2013 Craig Arnold\u2019s \u201cFor a Cook\u201d appeared in our Winter 1997 issue. 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