jowritesongs

Songwriter & singer Jo Girdlestone

Slow Cooking

’I can see her through the open window

Working in the steam 

To the rhythm of her Slow Cooking’

For Slow Cooking and for Susan I imagine La Huesera or Bone Woman (from Mexican Myth) who brings back (with her song) that which is in danger of being lost to the world. Time is unwound and (for the duration of the song) the spirit lives again. These are songs of remembrance. Slow Cooking for Grandma and Susan for my Mother.  

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Lyrics

My Grandmother’s kitchen was a temple by the sea

Like a holy woman she followed the practice of Slow Cookery


My Grandmother’s kitchen was a heart beating like a drum in the middle of my life Somewhere far beyond the humdrum

I can see her through the open window, working in the steam 

To the rhythm of her Slow Cooking

I never saw no recipe

It was more like alchemy 


The sea gulls cry and the waves hit the shore

She took her salt from the air

She took her time and she put her care 

Into everything that she ever cooked up in there 


She was cooking up soul food, she was soul cooking

And the taste of the time and the care

Was in everything that she ever cooked up in there 


My Grandmother’s kitchen was a temple by the sea

Oh the aromas, the mysterious flavours captivated me 

And the taste of the time and the care was in everything that she ever cooked up in there

I never saw no recipe

It was alchemy


In my Grandmother’s Kitchen

In my Grandmother’s Kitchen

My Grandmother’s kitchen

All content copyright ©2021 Jo Girdlestone except where noted. Home page photograph by Ela Law.

Recordings: guitar & voice - Jo Girdlestone; fretless bass - Richard J Finch-Turner.