"One From One Leaves Two' - by Ogden Nash

"One From One Leaves Two"
by Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971)


Higgledy piggledy, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Gentlemen come every day
To count what my black hen doth lay.
If perchance she lays too many,
They fine my hen a pretty penny;
If perchance she fails to lay,
The gentlemen a bonus pay.



Mumbledy pumbledy, my red cow,
She’s cooperating now.
At first she didn’t understand
That milk production must be planned;
She didn’t understand at first
She either had to plan or burst,
But now the government reports
She’s giving pints instead of quarts.

Fiddle de dee, my next-door neighbors,
They are giggling at their labors.
First they plant the tiny seed,
Then they water, then they weed,
Then they hoe and prune and lop,
Then they raise a record crop,
Then they laugh their sides asunder,
And plow the whole caboodle under.

Abracadabra, thus we learn
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you’re given,
The less you lead, the more you’re driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need,
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take
If the tax-collector hasn’t got it before I wake.      

Asmara Restaurant - by Jialu Chen

Asmara Restaurant in Boston
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By Jialu Chen
Boston Globe Staff / July 27, 2011

We always sit at the traditional tables. Others may choose the familiar glass-topped rectangular tables, but I, and whomever I have lured to Asmara Restaurant with the promise of comfortingly mushy fare, always sit at the mesop, the traditional Eritrean table. There, we rest our arms on the mesop’s side and dig our hands into the shallow basin made of woven straw to scoop up chunks of meat and vegetables using strips of injera, Eritrea’s staple bread, while listening to the plucky twangs and throaty voices of that country’s music.

Eritrea shares a cuisine but not a government with Ethiopia. Asmara is its capital, revealing the political sympathies of Lettensa Afeworki, who opened her restaurant in 1986. The recipes here are her own interpretations of traditional Eritrean dishes. She still maintains a presence in the kitchen and the dining room and oversees the sourcing of bebere - a mix of chili peppers, fenugreek, and other less common herbs that gives Eritrean food its distinctive spiciness - directly from the northeast African country.

The first visit can be intimidating, and you need a guide. The waitress will bring you a platter of food so large you wonder how you are going to finish it, with saucy dishes poured over layers of injera. You tear off a piece of injera - a thick fluffy crepe with a sourdough flavor that soaks up sauces - loading it up with a layer of beef and a smattering of lentils with your hands before eating it.

To top your injera, there is fluy tibsy ($15.95), cubes of tenderloin tips sauteed in tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bebere. Or begeeh mloukhiya ($15.95), a lamb stew with meat so tender it falls apart. Both chicken in red pepper sauce ($15.95) and chicken in mild yellow sauce ($15.95) are also delicious.

Asmara’s vegetarian options, which are also all vegan, include bersen ($13.95), sunshine yellow lentils mashed into a thick paste; alitcha ahmilti ($15.95), a vegetable stew with tender carrots, potato, and cauliflower; hamli ($13.95), spinach that is soft and slightly tart; and shuro ($13.95), pureed pepper chickpeas the texture of refried beans.

If you cannot decide what to order, there’s a meat combination ($17.95 per person) that offers a sample of chicken, lamb, beef, and two vegetable dishes; and a vegetable combination ($16.95) with five different dishes.

For adventurous diners, there is kitfo ($16.95), a traditional specialty of slightly cooked ground beef that resembles steak tartare, best enjoyed by those who like raw meat. Or dine on stuffed green peppers ($8.95), which are so hot that everything else tastes bland by contrast.

To pair with the food, order mes, a homemade honey wine ($7.75), sweet and chilled. Instead of the desserts, which are all Italian, try the after-dinner coffee ($3.75), which comes in a small earthen jug cradled in a miniature mesop and poured into espresso cups. It’s very strong and very bitter, but mellowed by the addition of spices. At the end of the meal, the check comes, balanced in a little mesop, the perfect end to an Eritrean adventure.
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Jialu Chen can be reached at jchen@globe.com.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.