I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who attended the launch of ‘Appetite’ on Saturday and another thanks to those who supported me by purchasing the book! To wrap up this chapter (Then I promise I’ll stop!) I’ll share one of my faves from my selection of odes to favourte fruit and vegetables that are an important part of the book – almost as important as the politics… It is entitled Perfect Persimmon.

Perfect Persimmon (Diospyros – Divine fruit)

Orange oozy sumptuousness

skin-sliding off like a skun rabbit

(but the cheery orange stops you

balking at this comparison.)

Appeals to your inner messy kid, who wallows

in sloppy squelchy chin-dripping food

which no-one can eat and keep themselves clean.

Defies all the rules of ‘fresh off the tree.’

Actually has to sit on the sill till it’s old

and squashy enough to be sweet.

Too early and it’s puckering sour…

So – a fruit which is perfectly ripe

when it’s wrinkled and ancient.

Gives you a new perspective on aging…

A divinely beautiful fruit, bright shiny

apricot tones – glowing as it ripens on the ledge

perfect sunset globes gracing the tree’s naked arms.

Just for the artists, ripe after leaf fall

Much painted, printed and etched, in its native

Japan --you’d plant it for that art in your garden.

Male and female flowers grow on separate trees,

but sometimes there’s a special one:

both male and female, pink and creamy white

making a ‘perfect’ hermaphrodite.

So it doesn’t need its ‘other half.’

Gives you a new perspective on we spinsters…

In Ozark folklore it can predict

the severity of the coming winter.

In Korea the dried persimmon has

a reputation for scaring away tigers.

In our folklore it could be a symbol

of exquisite and succulent

mature spinsterhood.