<< PREVIOUS SECTION < PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE > NEXT SECTION >>
|
Kathleen Pedulla grew up in Watsonville, California, a traditional coastal agricultural community, where her father won countless gold medals in the Santa Cruz County Fair for his wine, produced under the Pedulla Wines label. Her parents are accomplished home cooks and gardeners, and with their guidance and the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, Kathleen learned to cook while still in elementary school and herself won numerous gold medals for her baked goods and jams. In childhood Kathleen also mastered the arts of needlecraft, quilting and collage design and creation. She then turned to drawing, painting and photography, and her photograph Rites of Spring won the grand prize for Best of Show in the Santa Cruz County Fair.
Kathleen earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Jose State University in Studio Arts. While still in college, she embarked on several successful entrepreneurial ventures including catering, wedding planning and creating one of a kind wedding cakes. She later cooked in several bed and breakfasts in the Monterey Bay area, where she was responsible for providing afternoon tea for guests. She has taught cooking classes throughout northern California and is an expert in holiday baking. While her cooking style is firmly grounded in California cuisine, she has expanded her culinary expertise through her travels to England, Scotland, Mexico and Canada. Kathleen developed, tested and wrote the recipes for the baked goods featured in 350 Best Vegan Recipes published by Robert Rose Press. She continues to teach cooking classes and provide specialized catering services for afternoon tea parties, anniversaries, birthdays and wedding receptions. She lives in Happy Valley, California, and still finds time to paint, draw, take photographs and develop new recipes and menus. Her blog, Cakes and Tea is available on the website, myteaplanner.com. Kathleen’s aunt, Rose Higashi, was born in Joplin, Missouri, the “Gateway to the Ozarks.” In childhood her mother and grandmother introduced her to the custom of afternoon tea. Her grandmother gave her the china tea set passed on to each girl in the family when she reached the age of ten. Rose later gave this tea set to Kathleen on her tenth birthday. Rose was fascinated by the elegant simplicity of her grandmother’s country style home cooking and by the fact that art and aesthetics in the Ozarks are not things that are purchased in stores. This awareness stayed with her after her parents moved the family to the San Jose, California, area where Rose spent the majority of her adult life. Though not as skilled as her niece, Rose is an accomplished baker and devotee of the food, aesthetics and etiquette of afternoon tea. Literature was Rose’s second love. A high school valedictorian, she went on to study English Literature at San Jose State University where she graduated suma cum laude as a President’s Scholar. A year later she earned her Master’s Degree in English Literature and began teaching college English. At Evergreen Valley College she taught courses in English Literature, Japanese Literature, Asian and Asian American Literature, Women in Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing. She founded the college literary magazine, Leaf by Leaf, as well as the Spring Poetry Festival. Rose strengthened her managerial skills by coordinating the college’s Language Arts Division. Later, on sabbatical leave, she continued her studies in Japanese Language and Literature and American Poetry at Stanford University. Rose’s love for both western and Asian literature inspired her own poetry and furthered her knowledge of Asian philosophy, including the Japanese Tea Ceremony, an outgrowth of Zen Buddhism and a catalyst for haiku poetry. Rose’s extensive travels in Asia and Europe, especially China, India, Japan, Thailand, Korea, England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy deepened her appreciation of art and philosophy as well as cuisine and personal decorum. She has visited every major art gallery in the world and has enjoyed afternoon tea in every country she has visited. Rose’s writings reflect her east-west perspective. Her poems and essays have appeared in a variety of literary magazines and college textbooks. Her poetry journal, Blue Wings, was published by Paulist Press, and her essay, “Eating with Immigrants,” has appeared in multiple editions of the college writing textbook, Visions Across the Americas. Now retired from teaching, Rose lives in Kaaawa in rural Hawaii with her high school sweetheart and husband, Wayne Higashi. She writes a haiku poem every day. She continues to travel, and her travel food blog, Tea and Travels, is available on the website: myteaplanner.com |
Poetry List
All the poems in this book are by Rose Anna Higashi unless otherwise noted.
“Tea”
“Decorum”
“Tidepooling”
“Spring”
“Anasazi Summer”
“Autumn”
“For Dad, an Elegy”
Haiku: On New Year’s Day
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats
Haiku: In the hot wind
“The Myth of a Thousand Pies”
“Gram”
“Thanksgiving”
“Patience”
Haiku in China
Two Haiku: In the great Spanish Cathedral In the candle glow
A California Haiku Road Trip
San Jose: Before Silicon Valley
Hawaiian Haiku
Haiku: Near the white ginger
Haiku: “In Milano”
Haiku: “Near Assisi”
“This is Mississippi”
“Sonnet Counterpoint”
“Like a Low Sweet Flute”
“Quake”
“The Rose”
All the poems in this book are by Rose Anna Higashi unless otherwise noted.
“Tea”
“Decorum”
“Tidepooling”
“Spring”
“Anasazi Summer”
“Autumn”
“For Dad, an Elegy”
Haiku: On New Year’s Day
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats
Haiku: In the hot wind
“The Myth of a Thousand Pies”
“Gram”
“Thanksgiving”
“Patience”
Haiku in China
Two Haiku: In the great Spanish Cathedral In the candle glow
A California Haiku Road Trip
San Jose: Before Silicon Valley
Hawaiian Haiku
Haiku: Near the white ginger
Haiku: “In Milano”
Haiku: “Near Assisi”
“This is Mississippi”
“Sonnet Counterpoint”
“Like a Low Sweet Flute”
“Quake”
“The Rose”
Art List
Silver Tea Set Drawings, by Kathleen Pedulla
Dia de los Muertos Skull Print, by Peggy Sue Welch
Silver Tea Set Drawings, by Kathleen Pedulla
Dia de los Muertos Skull Print, by Peggy Sue Welch
About Haiku
A haiku is a poem that captures a single moment in time, like a photograph. Relying solely on imagery, including all of the senses, a haiku may also evoke a season of the year and the nuances and feelings associated with that season.
As a poetic genre, haiku originated in Japan. Its traditional structure is three lines with a total of seventeen syllables, divided among the three lines into five, seven and five syllables. Other haiku conventions include the use of objective point of view, meaning that the poet does not refer to himself or herself as “I” and does not make any comments about the images in the poem. Thus haiku relies entirely on the composition of the images in the poem and the reader’s response to those images.
A reader does not need to ask what a haiku means, but rather how it makes him or her feel. We hope the haiku and the other poems in this book will help our readers feel the deep and abiding joy of sharing tea and all the creative energy that radiates from these special moments in time.
A haiku is a poem that captures a single moment in time, like a photograph. Relying solely on imagery, including all of the senses, a haiku may also evoke a season of the year and the nuances and feelings associated with that season.
As a poetic genre, haiku originated in Japan. Its traditional structure is three lines with a total of seventeen syllables, divided among the three lines into five, seven and five syllables. Other haiku conventions include the use of objective point of view, meaning that the poet does not refer to himself or herself as “I” and does not make any comments about the images in the poem. Thus haiku relies entirely on the composition of the images in the poem and the reader’s response to those images.
A reader does not need to ask what a haiku means, but rather how it makes him or her feel. We hope the haiku and the other poems in this book will help our readers feel the deep and abiding joy of sharing tea and all the creative energy that radiates from these special moments in time.