Gold-Gilded Cottage Cheese

Mar 8, 2024
2 min read

by Mureall Hebert

Page 87 out of Recipes from a Magickal Cookbook

(aka Transformation Tapenade)

Ingredients:

· Gold Leaf

· Cottage Cheese

Backstory:

Polyphemus (aka Ole One-Eye; Mr. Cyclops; El Gigantor) stored milk in animal stomachs, creating the world’s first cottage cheese. Odysseus (aka The Braggart; Mr. Complicated) tied himself to the underside of a sheep’s stomach to escape being eaten by Polyphemus. Odysseus sailed away, but Polyphemus, blind and in pain, discovered the last laugh, calling on his father, Poseidon, to hurl rocks at Odysseus’s ship. So goes the ways of gods and men.

Cottage cheese, at the epicenter of mythical struggles, curdled, waiting for Little Miss Muffet (aka Li’l Muffie) on her tuffet (aka The Grassy Tuft). Li’l Muffie didn’t kill the spider. She ran away. Why? Conspiracy theories abound.

Directions:

1. Shape your cottage cheese into the likeness of whom you’d like to become. You are malleable. You are a giant. A god. You don’t frighten easily. You do NOT have arachnophobia. Get in there. Get curd-y.

Backstory:

Ladon, an immortal dragon, (aka Sir 100-Head; Snakey Snake) guarded golden apples in Hera’s Garden of Hesperides. Ladon was an insomniac. He spent his time curling around trees. He might have believed himself to be a sloth. The apples may have actually been oranges. Either way, Atlas stole them. He didn’t know he was stealing them; Heracles tricked him. Atlas was gullible. There’s no moral to this story.

Gold leaf is gold that’s been hammered by the art of goldbeating (aka pummeling gold). Applying gold leaf to objects arises from the desire to create the illusion of importance. If you eat it, that might make you feel important. Gold is an inert metal. It has no nutritional value. Eat it and you will have gold poo. Bits of you may cling to the poo. One day, a gold miner may pan you. He will think you’re important.

Directions — Part 2:

2. Sprinkle gold leaf on the floor. Lay down. Roll in it. Roll some more. Plaster yourself. Breathe it in. Be the sun. Be the rise of light; the winged-ram’s fleece. Be new. Be gilt. Be golden.

Mureall Hebert is a writer and editor near Seattle, WA. Her work can be found in Arc Poetry Magazine, Tab Journal, Qu, The Normal School, The Adirondack Review, Carve, Hobart, decomP, and elsewhere. She’s been nominated for Best Microfiction, Best New Poets, and a Pushcart Prize. Mureall holds an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. You can find her virtually @mureallhebert and www.mureallhebert.com