Miller & Kin Brand Book

2010 Preview Catalog

The world begins at a kitchen table.

O hurry, hurry, Daddy!

Some like it in the pot

I’m going to have the nicey plate.

You should not worry that you didn’t get the green cup.

Here come the sweet potatoes,Prepared, set on the table.

The ham and the yam and the clam,

In pâté or patty or pastry.

There’s nothing the matter with butter.

Hear the random clink of one fork against a plate.

They spill their broth on the tablecloth

Betwixt the two of themThey licked the platter clean.

Betwixt the two of themThey licked the platter clean.

And that we are here together.

Jack Sprat Jack Sprat could eat no fatHis wife could eat no leanAnd so betwixt the two of themThey licked the platter clean Jack ate all the lean,Joan ate all the fat.The bone they picked it clean,Then gave it to the cat

Jack Sprat was wheeling,His wife by the ditch.The barrow turned over,And in she did pitch.

Says Jack, “She’ll be drowned!”But Joan did reply,“I don’t think I shall,For the ditch is quite dry.”

Eat, Eat, EatHere come the sweet potatoesAnd here’s the Sunday meat,I guess we must be ready nowTo eat, eat, eat.

I’m going to have the nicey plateAnd Daddy’s leather seat,And wear my patent-leather shoesTo eat, eat, eat.

My Daddy’s talking all aboutThe war, and some old fleet,I wonder if he never, never,Never wants to eat.

We’re going to have some apple-cake,We’re going to have a treat.O hurry, hurry, Daddy,Let us eat, eat, eat.

I Do Not Care What Color Your Cup IsSobek

I do not care what color your cup is.It will not change how your milk tastes.And even if it did, that’s no excuse for not eating some chicken,Or some salad,Or some cornbread.If you want to go to bed without any dinner, that’s fine with me.If you are hungry, you should eat your dinner And not worry that you didn’t get the green cup.It’s your own choice, really. BecauseI do not care what color your cup is.

Table MannersGelett Burgess

The Goops, they lick their fingers.The Goops, they lick their knives. They spill their broth on the tableclothAnd live in untidy lives.

The Goops, they talk while eatingAnd loud and fast they chew.And that is why I’m glad that IAm not a Goop. Are you?

Perhaps the World Ends HereJoy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teeth at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end here at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Pease Porridge HotPease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;Some like it hot, some like it cold,Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

GraceWe thank thee, Lord, for happy hearts,For rain and sunny weather.

We thank thee, Lord, for this our food,And that we are here together.

The Clean PlatterOgden Nash

Some singers sing of ladies’ eyes,And some of ladies’ lips,Refined ones praise their ladylike ways,And coarse ones hymn their hips.The Oxford Book of English VerseIs lush with lyrics tender;A poet, I guess, is more or lessPreoccupied with gender.Yet I, though custom call me crude,Prefer to sing in praise of food.Food,Yes, food,Just any old kind of food.

Pheasant is pleasant, of course,And terrapin, too, is tasty,Lobster I freely endorse,In pâté or patty or pastry.But there’s nothing the matter with butter,And nothing the matter with jam,And the warmest greetings I utterTo the ham and the yam and the clam.For they’re food,All food,And I think very fondly of food.Through I’m broody at timesWhen bothered by rhymes,I broodOn food.

Some painters paint the sapphire sea,And some the gathering storm.Others portray young lambs at play,But most, the female form.T’was trite in that primeval dawnWhen painting got its start,That a lady with her garments onIs Life, but is she Art?By undraped nymphsI am not wooed;I’d rather painters painted food.Food,Just food,Just any old kind of food.

Go purloin a sirloin, my pet,If you’d win a devotion incredible;And asparagus tips vinaigrette,Or anything else that is edible.Bring salad or sausage or scrapple,A berry or even a beet.Bring an oyster, an egg, or an apple,As long as it’s something to eat.If it’s food,It’s food;Never mind what kind of food.When I ponder my mindI consistently findIt is gluedOn food.

The Sound of One ForkMinnie Bruce Pratt

Through the window screen I can see an angle of grey roofand the silence that spreads in the branches of the pecan treeas the sun goes down. I am waiting for a lover. I am alonein a solitude that vibrates like the cicada in hot midmorning,that waits like the lobed sassafras leaf just beforeits dark green turns into red, that waitslike the honeybee in the mouth of the purple lobelia.

While I wait, I can hear the random clink of one fork against a plate. The woman next door is eating supperalone. She is sixty, perhaps, and for many yearshas eaten by herself the tomatoes, the cornand okra that she grows in her backyard garden.Her small metallic sound persists, as quiet almostas the windless silence, persists like the steadyrandom click of a redbird cracking a fewmore seeds before the sun gets too low.She does not hurry, she does not linger.

Her younger neighbors think that she is lonely.But I know what sufficiency she may possess.I know what can be gathered from year to year,gathered from what is near to hand, as I doelderberries that bend in damp thickets by the road,gathered and preserved, jars and jars shiningin rows of claret red, made at times with help,a friend or a lover, but consumed long after,long after they are gone and I sitalone at the kitchen table.

And when I sit in the last heat of Sunday, afternoonson the porch steps in the acid breath of the boxwoods,I also know desolation. The week is over, the coming nightwill not lift. I am exhausted from making each day.My family, my children live in other states,the women I love in other towns. I would rather be herethan with them in the old ways, but when all that’s leftof the sunset is the red reflection underneath the clouds,when I get up and come in to fix supper,in the darkened kitchen I am often lonely for them.

In the morning and the evening we are by ourselves,the woman next door and I. Still, we persist.I open the drawer to get out the silverware.She goes to her garden to pull weeds and pickthe crookneck squash that turn yellow with late summer.I walk down to the pond in the morning to watchand wait for the blue heron who comes at first lightto feed on minnows that swim through her shadow in the water.She stays until the day grows so brightthat she cannot endure it and leaves with her hunger unsatisfied.She bows her wings and slowly lifts into flight,grey and slate blue against a paler sky.I know she will come back. I see the light createa russet curve of land on the farther bank,where the wild rice bends heavy and ripeunder the first blackbirds. I knowshe will come back. I see the light curvein the fall and rise of her wing.

Family DinnerThe world begins at a kitchen table. O hurry, hurry, Daddy!

Some like it in the pot;I’m going to have the nicey plate.You should not worry that you didn’t get the green cup.

Here come the sweet potatoes,Prepared, set on the table.The ham and the yam and the clam,In pâté or patty or pastry.There’s nothing the matter with butter.

Hear the random clink of one fork against a plate. They spill their broth on the tablecloth.Betwixt the two of themThey licked the platter clean.

And that we are here together.