ANNABELLE / ALLIUM / ALLITERATION

My last name is Roses, but they aren’t my favorite flowers.

I prefer tulips and carnations and peonies.

Roses are fourth, maybe. Maybe.

For my twenty-first birthday, I baked myself a pistachio lemon cake.

I write poetry about cannibalism… for fun. Now, I attempt to publish it… for torture.

When I was ten, I baked a scale model of the Giza Pyramids out of lemon cake for a school project.

(I like lemon cake.)

I make people laugh and I make people confused and I say “sorry” a lot.

I am the General Manager of Dry Goods Refillery, a sustainable grocery store, where I spend the day singing to organic produce and beans.

My life is a twisted swirl of food and words.

I have an oral fixation, I guess.

On That Note… is a journey through my chewy, sprinkle-covered brain… the brain that I spill onto paper scraps and into my notes app.

It’s a collection of foods I make, words I write, poetry I peruse, wonders I witness, and oodles of noodles.

Take a bite. Slurp it up. Al dente.

Every Wednesday, you’ll get insights into my writing journey, tips for tasty treats, and whatever other tidbits I feel like providing.

And, on that note…

“All you need to do to get your house smelling good is put onions and garlic on the stove.”

Many people have said this.

These many people are correct.

My Impostor Syndrome is rooted in the belief that my food only tastes good because I use a shit ton of garlic.

People eat my food and say it’s great… and this is only due to the garlic.

This is my truth. It’s toxic, it’s harsh………. it’s incredibly hyperbolic………. but it’s truth nonetheless.

I’m really letting you in here.

Whatever, though, right? Because garlic is incredible.

And

You know what? You have to know what to do with the garlic…

To know how to fry the garlic without burning and how to caramelize the onion without sugar

You need technique.

I’ve accumulated many techniques over the years. That’s cool! Yay! I credit my childhood love of the Food Network. #AltonBrown #InaGarten #Autism :)

Here are some examples of these skills being put to the test recently:

SOUPS:

I made two soups this past month in which onions were featured heavily.

Honestly, though… most soups I enjoy heavily feature onions…

Scallions topping eggy ramen, shalloty aromas in smoky split pea…

Soups are just onion depositories… onion carriers… oniony liquids to slurp and feel safe.

My sister and I made matzo ball soup in her dorm room this week for Passover.

We plopped hunks of brown onion (skin on… makes broth have a deeper/richer color) and a garlic bulb— chopped in half— into the broth and let it boil away with some carrots, celery, parsnip (like how Grandma made it), parsley, dill, bony chicken thighs, chicken stock, and peppercorns.

My Grandma’s recipe didn’t include some additions (such as the garlic bulb).

Again, my food is “good” because I use a shit ton of garlic! I honestly don’t know how I would handle a garlic or onion hater.

That should be the next test of my skills!

Ooh! Idea! A good meal sans garlic/onion…

Those “sensitive” marinara sauces exist. It CAN be done!

hmm…

For the matzo balls, we made them from the box because the availability of ingredients at the GWU Safeway was not ideal.

We made sure to jazz them up, though, with fresh parsley flecks, seltzer (floaters, baby), extra garlic powder (OF COURSEEEE), and cracked pepper.

The majority of it was eaten on the bedroom carpet out of eclectic bowls… the finest college fashion.

A different type of onion soup, one of the French variety, was whipped up by my boyfriend and me one of these past weeks, too. He procured some soup crocks from Fishs Eddy, so we had to put them to use.

Caramelizing onions is a labor of love, and it absolutely cannot be sped up if you actually want them to be good. It’s better to get the real, low and slow sugars out of the onions themselves. Little tricks like adding sugar to the process might speed things up, but won’t feel as rewarding or taste as good.

We added some cabbagey-oniony vegetable stock that we made prior, some beef boullion, wine, some thyme, and other seasonings, topped it with gruyère and baguette…

and ate some scrumptious onion soup.

RICE:

I’ve been making variations on Jeremy Scheck’s Arroz Verde recipe for a few years now.

Put simply, it is rice cooked with diced onions and corn in a green liquid.

This green liquid is made by pulverizing stock, raw onions, raw garlic, poblanos, and bunches of cilantro with an immersion blender.

You top it with a slit jalapeño and, as it cooks, the rice soaks up the herbaceous goodness and you end up with some gorgeous green rice that is speckled with yellow corniness and crunchy/soft onion pieces.

I adore it with black beans.

I feel as though love for an ingredient and understanding its versatility is super cool, but I also have that aforementioned inner battle…

Is it simply the allium making my food edible?

Is this understanding of onion just a reliance on it?

Am I using garlic as a crutch?????

On that note…

A professor reviewing my final poetry portfolio once told me I relied too heavily on alliteration in my work.

She was implying, I can only assume, that my writing sucks and that the only thing I can do well is find words that have the same starting letter… and put them next to each other.

She was probably right!!!!!!

Impostor Syndrome is one thing, but I also occasionally have what I should call Failure Syndrome.

Sometimes— and now we’re getting deep here— I feel as though I’m not only an impostor in the field I hope to infiltrate, but actually very unaccomplished and lacking in skills.

It’s Comparison Syndrome and Lack-of-Confidence Syndrome that I possess; I’m not merely an impostor… because there’s, in my estimation, nowhere I’ve imposed upon adequately.

I’m not hardworking enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not published enough, and I’m not really “Impostor” enough or “Fraud” enough either… because impostors and frauds have to be impositions somewhere.

I feel I’ve yet to find my somewhere.

It’s like…

The writing I post on Instagram isn’t even my best work because I’m saving my best work for “formal” publication.

It’s like…

Constantly feeling like publications will reject me anyway.

This lack of confidence in others’ ability to see my potential has, at times, made me unable to see my potential either.

Maybe my professor was right. Maybe my writing is chock-full of alliteration, and others can do so much better.

“Good” writers experiment with more interesting wordplay.

Their subject matter is “deeper”.

But, uh…

Peter Piper picked a patch of pickled peppers, bitch!

And

Pickled peppers are yummy!

And

If one of my pickled pepper poems can make someone wonder…

If I can make their brains buckle and their perplexities pucker…

Then I have imposed…

somewhere.

Most recently, I’ve been (im)posting for escapril 2025 / National Poetry Month on my drafty writing Instagram @writing.on.roses. This is the third year I’ve written a poem every day of April, and this year I’m using it as a tool to generate the beginnings of pieces I plan on tending to even further… they are drafts, yet to be fully fledged florals. I intend on editing more and sowing more from these little seedlings.

Read below:

Confidence wavers.

Believing and trusting in oneself is a continuous process.

We all have doubts about ourselves.

Everyone.

If you can think of someone who doesn’t have any doubts, well… that’s just fake and unrealistic.

There will always be someone you perceive as “better than" you … and that someone has their person who’s “better than” them, too.

Nobody knows everything.

Everybody knows nothing.

Roasted & salted cashews

Lemon lavender iced matcha from Maman

Summer Harvest by Burren Perfumery

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Colorful striped sweaters