Do you remember eating your first artichoke? By which poem where you first smitten?

Travel is good on so many levels.  The freedom to try something for the first time.  An Italian restaurant in The Hague sometime in the early '80s, I become personally engaged with a stuffed artichoke.  Ever since, artichokes are an intimate part of my life.  Though infrequently stuffed. Plain, boiled and each leaf raked through teeth.  Sublime & vegetal.  Fodder for poems, too.

First poem?  e.e. cummings   "If there are any heavens…."

Why is she thinking of broth and eventide outlining the neighbor's house?

Because both are poems.
Both nourish.
Both feed the senses.
Both whisper "possibilities."

Because in her house there are many pens.

How shall the last meal of the year influence words written in the new year?

Decide on the meal.  Prepare.  Enjoy.  Clean up.  Then, wait until morning.
Time is metronome for cooking & music. If poetry isn't music, what is it?  Then again, if cooking isn't music?

If the comma is an arbitrary construct, what of the onion?

Both are neither arbitrary. Nor capricious.
Both demonstrate kinship of form although the onion is exquisitely aligned to the circle.

The comma is the progenitor of the spoon.  Thus, spoon & onion.  Comma & circle.  I believe
we have come full….

What do "thus" and "beets" have in common?

The first is the go-to for words.  Especially when I know there is a connection but, perhaps, can't articulate in the moment.

The second is my go-to in the food kingdom.

Thus, get (thee) to beets.

And the backup?   Perhaps, persimmons.

What one word do food and poetry have in common?

Investigation.

Some take stock at the end of the year….

why not make it?  Simple -- onions, carrots, garlic, peppercorns, dried herbs.

And the poem?  Simple as that straight-forward recipe with a surprise ingredient.  Perhaps, dried lemons.  Or cinnamon.  Or beets.  Or a combination.