On Baking Baklava

This is the most romantic poem. It instructs you to collect the ingredients for making baklava for the one you love by traveling the world to gather them at their ripest.

"Begin by falling in love..." 

It starts. Then instructs: "Begin to gather ingredients. You must first learn the secrets of trees, the flowering place of orchids, the birthplace of spices, the locations of nurturing soils, the ways of bees and cows and men. You must learn to wait until the seasons when all things are in readiness."

"Because you are love the distance will not seem far."

And then the poem takes you on a journey around the world. To Mexico for the vanilla bean, India for cinnamon, Persia for pistachios, and beyond. Then "In your baker's kitchen you will wait hour unto hour, day unto day, until the sum of the world oozes into tastes greater than parts."

This uncommon and deeply meditative poem speaks to our souls. The journey for foods' origins is something we at The Curated Feast hold the same candle for.

This is the most perfectly romantic type of recipe—one that we will read over and over again.

Original poem credit: Hilary Fogarty via Gastronomica.