Emily Dickinson White Salad

I know what you're going to say.

"Shelly. Emily Dickinson was a baker. Why not bake a nice, white cake and top it in nice, white icing?"

Because. 

Emily Dickinson is not a dessert. 

Emily Dickinson is good for you.

Emily Dickinson is a main course.

Emily Dickinson is kale for your spirit. 

Dare you see a soul at the white heat?

  Then crouch within the door.

Red is the fire’s common tint;

  But when the vivid ore

Has sated flame’s conditions,

  Its quivering substance plays

Without a color but the light

  Of unanointed blaze.

Least village boasts its blacksmith,

  Whose anvil’s even din              

Stands symbol for the finer forge

  That soundless tugs within,

Refining these impatient ores

  With hammer and with blaze,

Until the designated light

  Repudiate the forge.

Imagine being in Emily's town, looking at the mysterious, large house. The shape of the woman in the window.  Everyone in the village whispers of the poor, odd girl, how sweet she had been before her father's death. She never leaves her house, they say. She only wears white.

White to us is the color of Realtor paint, of bathrooms and kitchens, of purity, as a bride or the skin of Snow White. 

White to Emily signaled a boldness of spirit, a blazing external reminder of her soul and it's fight to survive while enmeshed in a state of perpetual death. 

When I was a preteen, I wanted to be the Lilith Fair feminist who read Emily Dickinson, but I couldn't understand why a person would have a funeral in her brain or why the hell you'd die and hear a fly buzzing. I'd stare at her poems and try to memorize them, but they never took hold. Damnit, Emily. I want to love you. Let me love you.

And then my grandmother died. I was 23, I think. She died two weeks after my cousin's untimely death. I remember sitting in my bathtub, distressed, holding a large textbook from a poetry class I'd taken in college, trying not to wet the pages while I scanned them for words of comfort. I remember scoffing to myself. I finally understood.

Emily Dickinson White Kale Salad

1 head of flowering kale
Various white salad toppings:

Chickpeas

Cashews (I used roasted and salted)

Tofu

Chicken

Hardboiled egg

Cheese

Dressing

1 clove garlic

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp mayo

1 tbsp or so white vinegar

Wash, massage, and dry the white kale. 

Chop the garlic into little bitty bits. Add salt, sugar, sesame oil and mayo. Mix until thoroughly combine. Drizzle in vinegar to taste and stir until the salt and sugar are dissolved. 

Toss kale in dressing, add other white ingredients as you like. I kept the leaves whole, but it might have been easier to eat if I'd shredded the kale. Beauty is pain, kids.

Text a photo to your mom, who says, "Is that dinner? Poor girl, we are having kimchee and kimbap for dinner." Thanks, mom. Way to trump my pretty dinner.