A recipe for GoatHead

Nocturne - 17 Pygmies (Song of the Week)

Here is my recipe for a sugar-free Goat head: 

1. Goat Head

2. All-Spice

3. Beef Tallow

4. An herb for freshness 

5. A bed of juniper

6. one misogynistic sous-chef

7. one, two, or three feminist ones crafting inside

8. A college town full of tools 

9. An important, difficult, and important conversation. 

First, buy the goat head in Vallejo while your Mom is in town, and put it in your freezer. Wrapped in a thin plastic bag, to scare your room mate.  Wonder why you decided to cook a goat part again because the last time you fretted so much over the dead carcass you got no sleep at all. 

Then, keep the goat head in your freezer for a week while you do schoolwork, call friends, and bike to and fro Oakland countless times. Plot the homemade pit you will make out of crumbling bricks.

Take the head on a balmy almost-fall Sunday, put the plastic bag with the head in a cardboard box with other provisions, and drive it to the house where you used to live. Take it out on the dirty counter, and remember when you cooked the Goat whole in April. 

Are you better now? I think so, it is, after all, a head, not an entire body. Remember to calm down, and that the head doesn't need homemade flatbreads or gravy, but will be good just on its own. That simplicity is its essence. 

Wonder, who will eat the eyes? 

Put a pot of boiling water on. Go out into the yard, to pile bricks with your misogynistic sous-chef for this pit. Agree about how flammable grass is. Get frustrated because maybe your goat head pit will catch on fire. Get frustrated because no one seems to care about the Goat head because last April you cooked two whole bodies, and that was much more impressive and everyone was happier then anyway. 

Walk back into the kitchen, ignore the boiling water, stare down at the linoleum counter, and think about the last time you cooked a whole goat when you met someone you love. Keep staring for a few moments until the water boils over and shocks you awake. 

Unwrap the head and throw it in. Look at it's teeth. The last goats were headless, and you couldn't see their eyes. Feel bad, because the part already smells strong and carnal, perfuming the kitchen. Wonder again, why you are doing this again. 

Make a small t-shaped wooden thing over flammable grass, next to a classic California craftsman (your old house). Seems risky.  

Wonder, will anything catch on fire? While your misogynistic sous-chef, who is resembling more and more a strong and ample imp, finishes the pit for the goat head. Do all of this really fast, accelerate your movements. 

After removing the head from the water after some ambiguous amount of time, decide not to go with your friends to Blue Bottle because cooking a goat is no time for fun, something died. Take the head and put it on the counter, still steaming. 

Has memory hit you again? The whole goat carcass floating in the water. The coffee rub you put on it. The approaching summer.  The friend who doesn't talk to you anymore. The house you don't live in. The rest of the body parts you are missing. All the love that has changed. 

Channel your fear into the meal. Come to, and remember, you forgot the juniper. Charcoal won't do, the head must be sweet, supple, and perfumed. Pick up your imp by the ears, throw him in the car, and take off to scavenge for wood. Drive around the single-family homes of South Berkeley, heisting wood used for unfortunate front yard landscaping.  Collect what looks like a juniper from overhanging front yard trees.

Come back, but not come to. Pile the juniper and wood in the brickyard pit and underneath the fish. Light it hastily. Change into an extravagant strapless dress you purchased online. Fix your hair. Text your then and now love, despite all that has changed. Accelerate your movements. Hug your friends. Kick your imp. Pick an herb for freshness, stick it in the mouth because an apple won't fit in the Goat's clenched jaws. Render a pound of beef tallow, because the head is dry and people shall have gravy. Powder some all-spice on top head, 

God this is so much worse this time. 

Walk outside, almost tripping over the dress. Fling the head on the flamed juniper, and watch as the college tools show up to eat it and the Hawaiian roles from Costco. Christ, last April was bright. Watch as the sun sets behind the adjacent house. Feel the yard grow cold and dark. 

Sit in your chair, next to the flaming pit, as people surround you, feasting. Eat three Hawaiian rolls, but feel disgusted by both the fish and the head. Lose your phone. Get a little drunk. Lose your head, hope, love, peace. Space out. Sit and chew. Then stare out into the pit and 

Forget the fish, the fire, the goat, the water, the place, the time, and remember a lake; Remember a lasting content. Not in goat. Not in showing and telling an ability to handle and cook big animal bodies. Not in showing or telling anything. Just laying on a hot stone rock next to cool water. Remember owing nothing to these animals. 

Remember simply and bravely,