Raspberry Mahogany

I dedicate this tart, sweet, nutty and gooey dessert to my old companion Raspberry Mahogany. It embodies many of his contradictions and will put a smile on your heart.

Raspberry Mahogany Smores

12 Pecan Halves
8 Graham Crackers
1 Handful Chocolate Chips
4 Marshmallows
1 Handful Raspberries

1. Put 4 graham crackers on a glass plate.
   
2. Place 3 pecans on each cracker.
3. Place a few chocolate chips on each cracker.
4. Microwave for 40 seconds.
5. Place one marshmallow on each chocolatey cracker.
6. Microwave for 40 seconds.
7. Place a few raspberries on each melted marshmallow.
8. Place a graham cracker on top of each raspberry mound.
   
9. Press gently down.
10. Serve.

Most of my adult life has been spent in rented rooms. These are often inhabited by marginalized people who almost by definition tend to be edgy. In Montreal I met an aging beatnik who called himself Raspberry Mahogany. He was a short compact man with a straggly beard usually wearing a military surplus jacket. He claimed to be a former USMC gunnery corporal.

Photo by Irvin Shizgal 1969 McGill U Campus http://plastic-roseland.ca/

A sweet and kind man who kept trying to act the wild child. He was a writer, poet and illustrator. His life was lived as if it were sketches for a drawing to be made at some later date. He was torn between emulating Allen Ginsberg and Ernest Hemingway. One minute he would be polishing up a rap. The next he would be challenging me to fight for the bedroom his younger brother took away from him decades past. Every attractive woman was greeted with a pick up line. The inevitable rejection would be followed by a self critique.
He had broken the glass top of his coffee percolator. This let the hot coffee geyser up into the air. It would run along the lid. Some would drain back into the pot and some would run down the sides onto the burner further enhancing the many aromas of his pad. Every few week

Allen Ginsberg via last.fm

s he would replenish some of the coffee grounds.

Once he bought a big turkey that didn't fit into his oven. He would carve off pieces with his pocket knife and fry them up. Unfortunately the turkey spoiled and I accompanied Raspberry up the hill to the Royal Victoria Hospital emergency ward.

He had a story for every stain on his couch and a kind word for every person that he met.