I currently work as a technical writer for my primary source of income. There are two major things that have an impact on how well I feel at the end of the business day:
1. I’m lucky enough to have a desk that converts between standing and sitting.
I find ways to incorporate simple Pilates exercises throughout my day.
If you end your day at the office with tightness between your shoulders, a stiff low back, or unhappy hips, read on to find five variations on common Pilates exercises that you can do right at your desk. If you’re feeling drained, weak, or tense, try these simple movements.
I have two quick notes before you dive in:
In the exercises below, I refer to working to your point of control. I define that term as the range in which you can work safely while maintaining your alignment.
If you have a rolling desk chair like I do, remember that you’re on an unstable surface!
Ribcage Arms Sit at the edge of your chair, feet even on the floor. Perch on your sitting bones, lift through your powerhouse, and draw your ribcage in. Lift your arms straight in front of you to shoulder height. Keeping your ribs contained, reach your arms to your point of control, or until your fingertips are in line with the ceiling, whichever comes first. Repeat a total of 5 times.
Marching Maintaining your alignment, bring your arms by your sides. Press your palms against the edge of your chair. Lift one leg to your point of control, trying to keep your knee and foot still, and return it to the ground. You can work one leg at a time or alternate, repeating for a total of 5 reps per leg.
Seated Hundred Maintaining your alignment, extend your arms until they hover approximately 12 inches from the edge of the chair. Pump your arms vigorously; imagine you are bouncing tennis balls against your palms. Inhale for 5 counts and exhale for 5 counts. Complete 10 cycles of breath.
Side-to-Side (from the Short Box Series) Maintaining your alignment, stack your palms one on top of the other at the base of your skull. Lift tall and lean into the wind. Get even taller as you reach one elbow out on the diagonal. Lift to return to center. Grow tall again and reach your other elbow on the diagonal. Lift and return to center. Repeat 3-5 times on each side.
Twist and Reach (from the Stomach Massage Series) Maintaining your alignment, return to center. Keep your arms in the same position. Twist to one side and grow long through your spine as you lean back to your point of control. Grow taller to come up to center. Twist to the other side, reaching long through your elbow. Lift and return to center. Repeat 3-5 times on each side.
I love these office-friendly Pilates variations because they allow me to broaden my shoulders, wake up my glutes, stretch my side body, and give me a boost of energy. You can do this sequence throughout your work day anytime you feel tight or just need a little pick-me-up. Depending on how my day is going, I repeat it anywhere from 3-5 times.
What questions do you have about keeping your body happy at your desk job? Drop a note in the comments!
In Gratitude Thank you to M.A. Dubbs, who bought me three coffees in August! I’m now 35% of the way toward my goal of covering website costs for the year. Those who want to support the podcast financially can do so at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/culinarysaijiki/.
November Community Blog Post I’m putting together another community blog post (view the May community post here). Theme: Harvest Deadline: 11:59 p.m. CST on Wednesday, November 23rd Submission Form: https://forms.gle/TxZWqf3zbfi1i9uR8 Notes: Haiku in languages other than English are welcome; please provide a translation. Experimental haiku are also welcome. If sending previously published haiku, remember to provide publication credit.
Theme Music “J’attendrai” by Django Reinhardt, performing at Cleveland Music Hall, 1939. This recording is in the public domain. Hear the whole song at https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/show/6045.
Rather than do a typical haiku commentary post, this week, I wanted to reflect on the ways in which my commitment to haiku practice over the past few months has impacted my perception of the seasons as I experience them. It’s been seven months since I launched this project, and while my haiku practice and saijiki study go beyond the scope of food, the framework of this blog and podcast is where I come to work out my ongoing understanding of kigo.
I’ve written elsewhere on the blog (my intro post is just one example) about how my direct experience of the seasons doesn’t always line up with what the Gregorian calendar says. This was in part influenced by geography (Cleveland has long winters, Austin has even longer summers), but also a sense that dividing the seasons according to equinoxes and solstices didn’t truly account for the way the climate felt.
One of the reasons I was intrigued by the haiku (lunar) calendar was because the seasons all began roughly six weeks earlier than I was accustomed to; the equinoxes and solstices were in the middle of the seasons, rather than the initiation point for each season. As I’ve delved into this seasonal exploration, I stumbled across Naturalist Weekly, a blog which, among other things, talks about the 72 micro-seasons. While I think micro-seasons vary from climate to climate, I think they are a fascinating framework for how to study and experience one’s own surroundings, and I’m brainstorming with ways to work with micro-seasons in 2023.
This year’s study of saijiki and kigo has shown me a great deal of how I experience the seasons. The biggest takeaway for me is that the way I perceive the changes in time relates to fluctuations in daylight. On some level, I’ve known this for a while. My last few years in Cleveland, I struggled a great deal with seasonal depression. Living in Austin, I didn’t struggle quite as much because it wasn’t as cold, but I also noticed I felt demoralized by the lack of daylight. Both ends of daylight savings time make me feel jetlagged, and when it ends in the fall, that abrupt plunge into early darkness is really rough on me.
Slightly under-dressed for a Thanksgiving visit to Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
In December 2019, I also observed that while the Gregorian late autumn (ranging from mid-October to the winter solstice) is particularly tough for me, I start thriving again fairly early in January. While many people I know struggle through the cold, snowy first quarter of the year, my mood and motivation are consistently on the upswing. Maybe it’s because I love what New Year’s symbolizes (even though my celebrations are a lot more toned down than they used to be), and that gives me a mental boost. But I think there’s something more, and it’s that even though the days are still short and the nights are still long, it’s already getting brighter. And my body is well-aware of the gradually increasing days.
In the haiku calendar, winter starts more or less on November 5th. The lunar New Year generally takes place in early February, with actual celebration periods varying based on the specific traditions of Asian countries. The New Year period gives way to spring during a time that is still solidly winter based on the Gregorian calendar.
A January day in Real de Catorce, Mexico. Even 9,000 feet up, it was fairly warm in the daylight.
As I wrote back in that initial blog post, I was flummoxed by how spring could start in February, when everything is still snowy and dormant. Yet the first blossoms of the calendar year aren’t that far off. But what I think is more significant is that the days are getting incrementally longer.
Based on the haiku calendar, the December solstice is the middle of winter, and is the official turning point, sending us down the path to spring. So while a few months ago, I was flummoxed by February being considered a spring month, when I think about the increase in available daylight, it makes total sense.
Even if it’s a struggle for me to classify November as winter instead of autumn, ultimately, the seasonal label doesn’t matter as much. What’s important to me is the insight of how the changes in daylight affect my body, mind, and spirit. And I don’t know if I would have come to that conclusion if I hadn’t embarked on this process in my poetry.
(But . . . can we do away with DST already? Or keep it. I don’t care. Let’s just pick one and stop switching the clocks twice a year, okay?)
In Gratitude Thank you to Lorraine who bought me three coffees in August! I’m now 28% of the way toward my goal of covering website costs for the year. Those who want to support the podcast financially can do so at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/culinarysaijiki/.
Theme Music “J’attendrai” by Django Reinhardt, performing at Cleveland Music Hall, 1939. This recording is in the public domain. Hear the whole song at https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/show/6045.
Thanks to Lorraine for the contribution of three coffees! I’ve now covered 28% of my web hosting costs for the year. I’ll be releasing the October bonus recipe next week, so if you want to make a contribution, now’s your chance!
The turn of autumn has me thinking about people gathering together to eat. Maybe it’s because I finally cooked a serious meal (French onion soup) in our new home. Maybe it’s because John’s birthday is just around the corner. Maybe it’s because I’m experiencing my first real autumn in over a decade, and the feelings of coziness it inspires. Either way, I decided to explore haiku in my collection that in some way reflect eating together. Oddly enough, only one of those haiku has a seasonal referent, and it’s summer! The rest best fit in the all-year category. But as always, these posts reflect my collection of food haiku and senryu at a particular moment in time; if I revisit this topic in a year, the seasonal distribution might look entirely different.
All Year
outside the food bank a ragman shares his crust with a sparrow
Kim Goldberg has written an exceptionally tender haiku. Here is a man with next to nothing, yet still has it in his heart to share what little he does have with a small sparrow. While I’d initially intended for this post to focus on haiku about people eating together, I added this poem to the database early in this project, and I kept coming back to it as I was deciding what to write about this week. Per Higginson’s Haiku World, “sparrow” is an all-year term, and I don’t see any other seasonal referent, making it an all-year poem.
This poem can be read a few different ways. First, the quarrel could be caused by the presence of a shell in the omelet. Second, the couple could have been quarreling, and the person who made the omelet leaves the shell in as a bit of passive-aggressive revenge. In a third interpretation, the person making the omelet is so flustered by the argument that they let the shell slip in unnoticed. Although there is no seasonal referent, this is nonetheless a poem that opens itself up to the imagination, which is one of my favorite things about a well-wrought haiku.
re-opening . . . the server remembers my standing order
Barry Levine, Prune Juice #35
There is something about being a regular at a restaurant that feels special. Yes, the restaurant is part of your routine, but it’s that sense of consistency, the knowledge that the servers see dozens (if not hundreds) of people a day, and yet they still know who you are, and what you like to order. (Cue the Cheers theme song . . .) Barry Levine heightens that feeling by writing this poem in the COVID era. The restaurant has probably been closed for at least three months, maybe six, maybe even a whole year. Yet the server is still there, and that person still remembers. Because re-openings were different everywhere, there’s no seasonal referent in this poem, but that doesn’t make it any less heartwarming.
tea tree swamp weary workers pause to boil their billy
Louise Hopewell, Echnidna Tracks #9
I placed this poem in the all-year category, though I admit that my lack of knowledge about the southern hemisphere might be interfering with my understanding of the poem. This haiku required some research on my end. To “boil their billy” means to make tea. Here, we see laborers taking a pause to rest and enjoy some tea. Tea-drinkers tend to drink it all year, workers tend to work year-round, and thus I placed this poem all year. However, if I’m incorrect, please let me know in the comments!
shared coffee all the stories we don’t tell
Lori Kiefer, Haikuniverse, October 5th, 2022
Just as devoted tea-drinkers can enjoy hot tea year-round, coffee drinkers usually take their beverage hot, even in the middle of summer. The avoidance of painful topics and/or the keeping of secrets also isn’t limited to a particular season. Lori Kiefer’s senryu does a beautiful job of showing a sense of distance even in physical proximity.
wind from the sea— I clean the green beans with my mother
Pasquale Asprea, Haikuniverse, June 26th, 2022
The act of shelling or cleaning beans can be a fun social activity. While it wasn’t something that happened in my family, I’ve cleaned a big garden haul with friends, many of whom shared fond memories of doing so in childhood. The green beans place this haiku in the summer. If you’re familiar with fresh sea air, it’s easy to feel the breeze, smell the salt, and feel the connection that comes from cleaning, preparing, or preserving food with a loved one.
I hope that as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, you have plenty of opportunity to share good meals with people you care about.
(PS – A shout out to the wonderful folks a Kampai who know my favorite items on the menu.)
Join the Conversation I’m seeking guests for December! If you’d like to be on the podcast, visit https://culinarysaijiki.com/join-the-conversation/ and fill out the form. My life is a little hectic right now, so if I don’t follow up in a timely manner, send me a reminder.
Support the Project You can make a one-time or recurring donation to the Culinary Saijiki at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/culinarysaijiki. You also can help by sharing this episode with people you think will love it!
Theme Music “J’attendrai” by Django Reinhardt, performing at Cleveland Music Hall, 1939. This recording is in the public domain. Hear the whole song at https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/show/6045.
Those familiar with the history of haiku know that the style emerged from the longer, collaborative form called renga. Renga were typically written at social gatherings, which often involved tea or sake. In my podcast episode with Jennifer Hambrick, we spoke a bit about alcohol in the haiku tradition, and acknowledged the challenges of celebrating what is a genuinely toxic substance that can lead to serious health issues, including addiction. I believe it’s important to acknowledge these complexities, and recognize the fact that, whether we like it or not, people have written, and are going to continue writing, libation haiku and senryu. I think it helps that these poems also are complex, and address sensuality, taste, pleasure, and problems.
So far in my research, I haven’t come across many alcohol terms that are clearly seasonally specific. Certainly, they exist; I’ve referenced Oktoberfest beer before, and that is certainly a fall term. Eggnog and hot toddies could correspond with winter, and if I find any of those, I’ll add them to my database. At this point, though, much of my collection includes drinking words that could best be described as all-year; all of the seasonal poems in this post include kigo not specifically related to drinking.
All Year
a friendship— the whole universe drowned in a wineglass
Franjo Ordanić, Failed Haiku 70
The loss of a friendship can be at least as devastating (if not more) than the end of a romantic relationship. I interpret this senryu as one in which drinking leads to a friendship’s tragic demise. Certainly if you know the pain of losing a close friend, it really can feel like drowning. In my interpretation of the poem, resentment has been building for some time, and one night after a drink too many, things blow up. As with many senryu, there’s no explicit seasonal referent. We would either need a standard kigo, or perhaps the name of a specific wine, to place this at a particular time of year.
ramen and beer . . . the self-checkout lets me avoid speaking
Joshua Gage, First Frost #1
Going out for ramen and beer can be a social activity, but in the second line of Joshua Gage’s haiku, we see it turned into a solitary venture. The second and third lines indicate that this solitude is a choice; the self-checkout lets him avoid speaking. The speaker of the haiku doesn’t just want to eat and drink alone; he wants to avoid conversation with the cashier as well. Ramen can be eaten any time of year, and I maintain that beer is an all-season word (more on that in the summer section of this post), so I consider this an all-season piece.
Communion is an all-year act (more on that in the winter section of this post), so without a further seasonal word, this is an all-year senryu. Written in homage to Jack Kerouac, Eve Castle’s poem speaks to the desire for transcendence and the limits of human fallibility. Even with the rituals that absolve us, we turn around and go back to our bad habits.
Summer
beer with a bourbon chaser a wasp disappears under a shingle
While William J. Higginson lists beer as a summer kigo in Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac, as I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t inherently agree with that assessment. Beer and bourbon are consumed year-round; it’s the presence of the wasp that makes this clearly a summer haiku. I’m also intrigued by the first image, because it inverts what I understand to be the usual drinking lineup. I admittedly have never had a chaser, and it was my understanding that people drank liquor first, and chased it with a beer. In my interpretation of Kirsten Lindquist’s haiku, the inversion of the standard order (beer coming before bourbon) mirrors the wasp as it goes upside-down beneath a shingle. (If you disagree with my interpretation, please let me know in the comments! Maybe I’m just seriously ignorant in the ways of drinking.)
Autumn
will you, too, sink into tonight’s last whiskey? full moon
Mark E. Brager, Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga, ed. Scott Wiggerman and Constance Campbell. Dos Gatos Press, 2013.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere (and as is mentioned in a number of saijiki), the moon is an autumn kigo. Neither whiskey nor tequila have their specific seasons (though aficionados should leave a comment correcting me if I’m wrong!), but the presence of the moon means I interpret these two haiku as taking place in autumn. What interests me about both of them is the way the moon appears to be immersed in liquor. In Joshua Gage’s poem, the full moon might sink. In Mark E. Brager’s poem, the half-moon floats suspended in the glass. Perhaps the drinkers are holding their glasses up to the sky. Perhaps they are slumped across tables, so the perspective of the moon appears low. I think Joshua’s poem is a little more morose, while Mark’s poem is a little more mystical, so in the first poem, I see someone slumped, but in the second, I see someone holding a glass.
Winter
crunch of snow in the crosswalk dirty martini
Jennifer Hambrick, Kingfisher 3
A dirty martini is one one which a splash of olive brine is added to the cocktail. The end result is a martini that is cloudy with a tinge of green. There’s nothing inherently seasonal about this particular cocktail; it’s the first image in Jennifer Hambrick’s haiku that places this poem in winter. When I read this poem, I picture a late winter snow, one that is icier, and a little gray from foot traffic and tires. Unlike fresh, early snow, this snow has been adulterated, and is less visually appealing. Of course, those who enjoy dirty martinis might not agree with the comparison, but I nonetheless think it’s a striking image.
his bartending story while I set up the cups winter communion
Dan Scherwin, bottle rockets #46
While a child’s first communion typically takes place in the spring in Western countries, the general act of communion happens year-round. Dan Scherwin specifically names the season here, which in my reading, enhances the sense of intimacy. The speaker of the senryu is setting up cups for the formal ritual, while someone keeping them company tells a story. The speaker of the poem and the teller of the story are in their own form of communion, being present with each other, keeping the bleakness of winter at bay with each other’s company.
As always, I look forward to your comments and questions! Feel free to also suggest post topics of you have them. While I do keep a list, I’m also curious about what people want to read on this site!
More from Jennifer Hambrick You can order Jennifer’s haibun collection, Joyride (Red Moon Press, 2021) and her newest collection, In the High Weeds (National Federation of State Poetry Societies, 2022) from her website: https://jenniferhambrick.com/order/
Join the Conversation I’m seeking guests for October, November, and December! If you’d like to be on the podcast, visit https://culinarysaijiki.com/join-the-conversation/ and fill out the form. My life is a little hectic right now, so if I don’t follow up in a timely manner, send me a reminder.
Support the Project You can make a one-time or recurring donation to the Culinary Saijiki at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/culinarysaijiki. You also can help by sharing this episode with people you think will love it!
Theme Music “J’attendrai” by Django Reinhardt, performing at Cleveland Music Hall, 1939. This recording is in the public domain. Hear the whole song at https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/show/6045.
While saijiki generally focus on contemporary haiku, I also felt called to take a look at classical haiku to see how poets of the past incorporated food into their work. Since I have to rely on translation, and no two translations are the same, I plan to revisit this topic from time to time, exploring different translations of the same poem when I can. For this post, all poems come from The Sound of Water (Shambhala Centaur Editions, 2000), which is Sam Hamill’s collection of classical haiku translations.
Earlier this year, I wrote about how I detected three primary ways that food relates to haiku seasons:
Food words that are a definite seasonal referent;
Food words that are not part of any specific season;
Food words that become seasonal with an additional modifying word
In The Sound of Water, most of the haiku I found fit into the first two categories. I also found that most of the poems connected to food were summer poems. Of course, this is just one small book, so I’m not making definitive statements yet. At the very least, it was interesting to see what turned up in the context of this anthology.
Summer
Breakfast enjoyed in the fine company of morning glories
Matsuo Bashō
I begin each day with breakfast greens and tea and morning glories
Takarai Kikaku
Breakfast is an all-year word. You either eat breakfast, or you don’t. While the Muslim observance of Ramadan requires fasting during the day, this holy period isn’t tied to a specific season. Even the image of “breakfast greens” in Kikaku’s poem doesn’t inherently create a specific season; there are bitter herbs in spring, abundant greens in summer, and hardy greens in autumn. Only in winter is it tough to find fresh greens. Even then, the poem might be referring to pickled greens. It’s the word morning glories in each poem that signify summer.
Wet with morning dew and splotched with mud, the melon looks especially cool
Matsuo Bashō
All by itself, that beautiful melon, entirely self-sufficient
Hattori Ransetsu
Melon is generally a summer kigo. While there can be some early spring melons, and some that appear in autumn as well (you could get a decent cantaloupe shockingly late in Texas), they are generally at their best in the summer. These 17th-century haiku have a timeless feel to them. While there are some stylistic elements that indicate they are classical rather than contemporary, they don’t seem stodgy or old. I love that haiku poets have been writing about cool, beautiful melons for centuries. The above poems show me how food really does connect us to ancestors, whether they be family members, or our artistic lineage.
Singing, planting rice, village songs more lovely than famous city poems
Matsuo Bashō
With the noon conch blown those old rice-planting songs are suddenly gone
Yosa Buson
My noontime nap disrupted by voices singing rice-planting songs
Kobayashi Issa
For rice-planting women there’s nothing left unsoiled but their song
Konishi Raizan
Rice was the food I found referenced the most in The Sound of Water, yet in this collection, poems about it are entirely related to agriculture. Many poets wrote specifically about rice-planting, and about the songs that the field workers sang. (I’m sure it’s an effect of the translation, but Bashō’s rice-planting poem has a certain Whitmanesque quality to it . . . or perhaps “Song of Myself” has a certain Bashōesque aspect.) These poems also illustrate the value of not just having a saijiki, but having a few different ones on hand! It’s easy to make assumptions about a time of year based on your own experience, which is necessarily limited. I associate planting of all kinds with spring, which isn’t even accurate in the United States! There are a number of crops and flowers that get planted in the fall to winter over, and bloom in spring. At first, I was putting these classical rice-planting haiku in the spring category. Then, however, I consulted with Yamamoto Kenkichi’s The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words. There, I found that rice-planting related to summer! It would have been so easy for me to assume these were spring haiku, and I’m glad I had reference material on hand to guide me in the right direction.
Without a sound, munching young rice-plant stalks, a caterpillar dines
Hattori Ransetsu
The only haiku I found related to eating rice didn’t involve humans, nor the grains of rice that make up a staple of the human diet. Rather, a caterpillar is dining on the fresh, young stalks. The young stalks, as well as the caterpillar that is not yet a butterfly, ground us in summer.
When the wild turnip burst into full blossom a skylark sang
Kobayashi Issa
While I’ve never seen a wild turnip in real life, Issa’s haiku reminded me of the giant squash blossoms that appear in the summer, and how glorious they are. Whether in a domestic garden, or something you might forage, the vibrancy of summer is something that endures over the centuries in the haiku tradition.
Autumn
Autumn breezes spin small fish hung to dry from beach house eaves
Yosa Buson
While certain species of fish are best harvested at certain times of the year, that level of specificity doesn’t appear in Buson’s haiku. Rather, the direct naming of the season tells us where we are in the year. The general concept of fish is an all-year term, but the seasonal referent can lend clues to what type of fish they might be. Perhaps Buson is referring to sardines, which are in season late summer and through the fall. The image of the drying fish also reminds the reader that this is the time to preserve food for the long winter ahead.
In this mountain village, shining in my soup bowl, the bright moon arrives
Kobayashi Issa
Here in Shinano are famous moons, and buddhas, and our good noodles
Kobayashi Issa
Neither soup nor noodles are inherently seasonal. As with fish, specific types of soup or noodles better correspond to certain parts in the year. A chilled soup is more appropriate in the summer. Soba noodles are part of the New Year’s ritual. Yet the words “soup” and “noodles” in and of themselves need modifiers. I place these two haiku in autumn because of the presence of the moon, an autumn kigo.
Spring
Plum blossoms in bloom in a Kitano teahouse, the master of sumo
Yosa Buson
As I mentioned in my June post “The Seasons of Tea,” people consume tea year-round. In formal tea ceremony, the dishes you serve varies from season to season. The presence of plum blossoms in Buson’s haiku indicate that we’re at a teahouse in springtime.
Only the shoots of new green leaves, white water, and yellow barley
Yosa Buson
The shoots of young plants, whether leaves or grasses, is a common spring kigo. None of the plants are fully formed. The water is frothy with melted snow and spring rain. There is nothing yet to harvest, whether that be mature barley or fruit from the tree. Yet this haiku points to the sheer amount of potential inherent in springtime.
People, more people scurrying through spring breezes along the rice-field dikes
Ichihara Tayo-Jo
Rice fields once again appear in spring. Here, the emphasis is on humans coming and going on their journeys, walking along the fields that grow their food. The verb “scurrying” suggests that these people are busy, inattentive, perhaps not even noticing that the source of a staple crop is all around them. It turns out it’s not only the modern age that takes people out of the present moment!
Winter
Through frozen rice fields moving slowly on horseback, my shadow creeps by
Matsuo Bashō
One of the things I found interesting while rereading The Sound of Water is the extent to which rice fields can appear in all seasons, but no haiku about people eating rice. That’s not to say those types of haiku don’t exist in the classical tradition; they just didn’t make their way into this book. I’m curious to reread more classical anthologies to see what differences I find. The above haiku also points to how a rice field in and of itself isn’t inherently seasonal; it’s other words, such as frozen, that ground us in a specific time of year.
Walking on dishes the rat’s feet make the music of the shivering cold
Yosa Buson
Maybe the dishes are lying dirty in a basin, because it’s so cold, nobody wants to deal with them. Or maybe the dishes are clean and put away, but the rat is rattling around on them, looking for some warmth. While my mind initially went to the first interpretation, the second is just as valid. Either way, I delight in this haiku because it reminds me that something as simple as doing the dishes are worthy of poetic moments.
In Gratitude Thank you to our anonymous donor who bought me a total of six coffees in August! I’m now 20% of the way toward my goal of covering website costs for the year. Those who want to support the podcast financially can do so at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/culinarysaijiki/.
Join the Conversation I’m seeking guests for October, November, and December! If you’d like to be on the podcast, visit https://culinarysaijiki.com/join-the-conversation/ and fill out the form. My life is a little hectic right now, so if I don’t follow up in a timely manner, send me a reminder.
Theme Music “J’attendrai” by Django Reinhardt, performing at Cleveland Music Hall, 1939. This recording is in the public domain. Hear the whole song at https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/show/6045.
