What is thIS?
Roll Your Bones is my recipe binder, travellogue, and art project. I collect the recipes I have prepared and enjoyed, and write short posts about places I don’t want to forget. Most of the recipes on this blog are vegetarian or pescatarian. Most of the posts are about places in the United States, Europe and Canada.
I don’t take credit for having created any of the recipes on this blog, as they are nearly all revisions of recipes others have created. Most of my changes are intended to make the recipe a little healthier, lower in calories, vegetarian, simpler in preparation and in quantities meant to serve two people.
Because these are the recipes I use every day, they are light on specific instructions. For more thorough explanations of each step, click through to the original recipe, which in most cases you’ll find in the first paragraph.
Inspiration
In November of 1959 Jack Kerouac appeared on The Steve Allen Show. While he joyously read an excerpt from his book, On The Road, Allen laid down a jazzy piano riff in the background. In this appearance, Kerouac attempted to explain why he wrote “that book or any book.” He described seeing God, and being given the following instruction:
come on, boy,
go thou across the ground
go moan for man
go moan
go groan
go groan alone
go roll your bones
alone
go thou and be little beneath my sight
go thou and be minute as seed in the pod
go thou go thou die hence
and of this world, report you well and truly
What does “Roll Your Bones” mean?
I interpret it as a command: Experience life, testify, push forward, quietly and with purpose. Gather together all the parts of you because they go where you go. It’s also a way of living; a way of responding to the world.
Below is a clip of Jack Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show, 1959, where he reads more of the excerpt above.