Creative Writing: Pinto Beans

Audrey Petty uses “Late Night Chitlins with Momma” to express her own close bond with her mother and how it shaped her identity; this is expressed through the narrative style, the diction and syntax, the use of food as a metaphor, and the short story’s structure.

In the narrator’s childhood, she used to love the kitchen in her family house and how her family have meals together. She described the house with details, “the ceilings were yellowed with grease” and she loved the weight of the air in the kitchen, which is “dense with the smell of countless meals cooked” (7). Yet, what she loved about the kitchen is not the greasy wall and the smells, but what they symbolizes, her father. Her father was the chef in her family and there is a great amount of memories with him in the kitchen.

In this novel the character's in the story, and the bean trees help us realize that there are a lot of miracles in life, and how quickly the world around us can change.

This poem is about the comfort of the safe past and the tension created by change.

Everyone's culture is different, that's why the majority of people have different opinions on certain subjects. Even though everyone goes through different experiences, the way they were taught growing up effects how they will be in the future. One's culture has a very big impact on how they view others and the world.

Moving to America brings great opportunity to an individual and their family. When my parents moved to America, success was within their reach. My parents could purse their education and soon find their career. My mother has always explained why she was so relieved when my grandparents first told her that they were moving to America. My mother knew that her and her family will be free, they would not have to live in poverty anymore. My father explained to me that life in Vietnam was not easy, my father stressed that life was rough in Vietnam. Kids had to work hard for their families, leaving them no time for school. Moving to America brought a great feeling to my parents, but when they arrived it surprised them the most.

For different people, comparable situations do not always reproduce the same end results or leave the same impressions. Rather, the resulting conclusion is often highly variable. As is the case of two labors featured in the poems, My Father’s Lunch” and “The life of a Digger”. While Erica Funkhouser’s speaker, Henry, experiences injustice and lack of reward for his hard labor in “The Life of a Digger,” Margarita Engle’s speaker experiences prosperity and remuneration for their father’s hard work in “My Father’s Lunch.” Each author uses the setting of a laboring man’s lunch break to demonstrate the ramifications of a hard day’s work and the rewards or lack thereof for their efforts.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s story, “The Bean Trees”, something that makes it so effective is her use of figurative language to depict scenery. In chapter 12, Mattie takes Taylor, Esperanza and Estevan to a beautiful desert at the time of the first rain, so they can see the natural world come to life. In order to make the scene come alive, Kingsolver uses sillies, metaphors and personification as a mean of figurative language.

“Snapping Beans” expresses the conflict between the granddaughter and the grandmother are not as close as they were prior to her leaving for school. She longs to tell her everything but cannot for she is afraid the closeness will be gone. The grandmother’s perspective of the world is very religious versus the new experiences she is having at school but yet she likes it. The narrator of poem is the granddaughter, who is home from college located in the North to visit her grandmother for the weekend. (5 & 6) The poem is 46 lines, one stanza and flows like a song or is conversational. Alliteration used is the “s” and “b” sounds in phrases “I snapped beans into the silver bowl” (1), “that sat on the splintering slats” (2) and “about sex, about

There are many aspects to the culture of any country, and a very important one is food. Whether it is a group of friends at a social gathering or a small family at the dinner table, food and drinks bring people together. Moreover, the variety of food in a country helps make it stand out from others. Guatemala is a prime example of this due to its great variety of foods and drinks.

This explication will be discussing Gary Soto’s poem, Oranges. This poem is a narrative about the speaker, a twelve-year-old boy, and his first date with a girl. The poet opens the poem about the young boy walking to the girl’s house to pick her up for their date. Then, once he picked her up they walked down the street and went to a drugstore to get candy. He wanted to pay for the candy, but the girl picked out chocolate that cost a dime, when he only had a nickel. The twelve-year-old boy worked out a deal with the lady at the counter in order to be able to get the chocolate, then the young boy and girl continued their date. Gary Soto uses symbolism, imagery, form and meter in this poem in order for the reader get a feel and truly understand what is happening in the poem.

While both sex and sibling behavioral issues aren’t often related to cooking, both Elaine Magarrell and Sally Croft are able to integrate these themes into their poems. In both of the poems “The Joy of Cooking”, by Elaine Magarrell, and “Home Baked Bread”, by Sally Croft, the authors use different types of imagery and figurative language in order to convey a completely different idea through the art of cooking. Both authors use rather explicit ideas and themes in their writing, and use remarkable figurative language and imagery in order to convey their themes.

In the poem, “‘Race’ Politics,” Luis J. Rodriguez it is about the author and his brother crossing over the border from Watts to Southgate. Southgate is a all white all american community that treats the two brothers as lesser because of their different race and where they had come from. The purpose of this poem is to use syntax, connotation, and imagery to help enhance the writing for the readers.

My mother and sisters cook the enchiladas. They do the majority of the work such as dishes. This process reinforces traditional family roles. This leaves more time for the men to relax. We are quite lucky. To start off, they cook the chicken and roast the green chilies. Then they sauté the onions and garlic. In the same pan they put cream of mushroom soup, pieces of the shredded chicken breast, and chopped green chilies. My sister usually adds some milk into mixture as well. They then take corn tortilla and lightly toast them in a skillet. They take the tortillas out and put the ingredients inside along with a little cheddar cheese. Then, they roll the enchiladas and place them upon a cookie sheet. The steps are repeated until the cookie sheet is filled with enchiladas.

Love. A singular feeling I have when I look at him. My Mr. Hooper, I am ecstatic that I get to marry the love of my life, MY Reverend. When I am with him, I feel as if I am on top of a cloud floating above reality. It is a feeling unlike any other. It has the perks of being happy, that feeling in your gut from guilt, and it settles your brain like peace does. Two weeks too this day I will officially be married to my best friend and will become Mrs. Hooper.