Note from Editor
Hi!
By the time you read this, I will be on a very long flight on my way back to the US. It will have been after I’ve enjoyed so much good food over the past couple weeks in Bangladesh. Kebabs, waffles, polao, chicken korma, bhuri (tripe)—I’ve had it all. I’ve had my mother’s birthday cake. I visited my favorite dumpling place. I went to a restaurant that fused Texas bbq with indigenous Bangladeshi bbq. I’m not here to make you hungry (perhaps I am). Rather, I come to you with the sweeping realization that I have every other day. I love food. A time of travel is hard on my stomach as it adjusts to jet lag (or as I say, pet lag, because pet is stomach in Bangla). But despite it all I wanted to make sure I ate to my heart’s content while I was in Dhaka.
Lunch in Bangladesh is eaten around 1 or 2, the time it is actually 3 a.m. in the US. So this poem is fitting. There’s nothing like satisfying a late night craving after staying up too long. Especially if it’s spontaneous. This poem strikes me today as it did when I read it for the first time almost three months ago. Ashley Lauren is one of the most talented writers this platform has allowed me to come across, one of many.
As summer ends, I couldn’t be more grateful that I started We Have Food at Home. It doesn’t matter how many clicks this gets weekly, I am lucky that I get to enjoy some stomach-rumbling food writing. I hope you have a good end to August.
What were some summer food highlights for you?
Hope you find joy in something that reminds you of the thrill of back-to-school shopping,
Padya
Ashley Lauren
Since her childhood, Ashley Lauren has discovered a home in her passion for writing and storytelling where talking seemed foreign to her. This passion has rooted itself in the foundation of her work and has bloomed into pieces compiled of poetry, novels, memoirs, and essays. Ashley is a young, black author that touches on the topics of love, race, and womanhood.
hot cakes (three a.m.)
i want pancakes. it’s one am, and as i lay still, mind moving faster than my beating heart and starving flesh — the only thing i can speak with the top of my tongue is “hot cakes.” the only thing i can think about is prancing around a dimly lit kitchen — courtesy of the moon’s grace mixed with the orange tint of a tungsten light, draped in a t-shirt that isn’t mine. it’s yours. one hand dusted in buttermilk mix while the other caresses the cheek of someone i hold tighter to me than the spatula sitting in my palm. it’s one am and i pancakes, your love, or whatever makes me feel warmer than i do right now.