“
Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.
”
”
William Martin (The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents)
“
I have an apple that thinks its a pear. And a bun that thinks it’s a cat. And a lettuce that thinks its a lettuce."
"It’s a clever lettuce, then."
"Hardly," she said with a delicate snort. "Why would anything clever think it’s a lettuce?"
"Even if it is a lettuce?" I asked.
"Especially then," she said. "Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man’s Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
“
What happens if your choice is misguided?' I ask, softly.
Miss Moore takes a pear from the bowl and offers us the grapes to devour. 'You must try to correct it.'
'But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t?'
There's a sad sympathy in Miss Moore's catlike eyes as she regards my painting again. She paints the thinnest sliver of shadow along the bottom of the apple, bringing it fully to life.
'Then you must find a way to live with it.
”
”
Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1))
“
The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But now the theory goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose
But were always a rose.
”
”
Robert Frost
“
Once inside my skull, my doctor added some salt, just to taste. He also poured some fruit into my skull – an apple, a pear, a few seedless grapes, and a ripe banana. He then used an electric blender set on its highest speed to create what he had termed ‘a yogurt parfait.’ After he finished blending the ingredients, he beckoned the other doctors and a few of the nurses to sample his new concoction.
”
”
Harvey Havel (The Odd and The Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction)
“
Auri hopped down from the chimney and skipped over to where I stood, her hair streaming behind her. "Hello Kvothe." She took a half-step back. "You reek."
I smiled my best smile of the day. "Hello Auri," I said. "You smell like a
pretty young girl."
"I do," she agreed happily.
She stepped sideways a little, then forward again, moving lightly on the balls of her bare feet. "What did you bring me?" she asked.
"What did you bring me?" I countered.
She grinned. "I have an apple that thinks it is a pear," she said, holding it up. "And a bun that thinks it is a cat. And a lettuce that thinks it is a lettuce."
"It's a clever lettuce then."
"Hardly," she said with a delicate snort. "Why would anything clever think it was a lettuce?"
"Even if it is a lettuce?" I asked.
"Especially then," she said. "Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too." She shook her head sadly, her hair following the motion as if she were underwater.
I unwrapped my bundle. "I brought you some potatoes, half a squash,
and a bottle of beer that thinks it is a loaf of bread."
"What does the squash think it is?" she asked curiously, looking down at it. She held her hands clasped behind her back
"It knows it's a squash," I said. "But it's pretending to be the setting sun."
"And the potatoes?" she asked.
"They're sleeping," I said. "And cold, I'm afraid."
She looked up at me, her eyes gentle. "Don't be afraid," she said, and reached out and rested her fingers on my cheek for the space of a heartbeat, her touch lighter than the stroke of a feather. "I'm here. You're safe.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man’s Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
“
Mr. Constant," he said, "right now you’re as easy for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to watch as a man on a street corner selling apples and pears. But just imagine how hard you would be to watch if you had a whole office building jammed to the rafters with industrial bureaucrats—men who lose things and use the wrong forms and create new forms and demand everything in quintuplicate, and who understand perhaps a third of what is said to them; who habitually give misleading answers in order to gain time in which to think, who make decisions only when forced to, and who then cover their tracks; who make perfectly honest mistakes in addition and subtraction, who call meetings whenever they feel lonely, who write memos whenever they feel unloved; men who never throw anything away unless they think it could get them fired. A single industrial bureaucrat, if he is sufficiently vital and nervous, should be able to create a ton of meaningless papers a year for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to examine.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (The Sirens of Titan)
“
We have been careless with our pie repertoire. The demise of apple-pear pie with figs and saffron and orengeado pies are tragic losses.
”
”
Janet Clarkson (Pie: A Global History (The Edible Series))
“
Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself. William Martin*
”
”
Rachel Macy Stafford (Hands Free Life: 9 Habits for Overcoming Distraction, Living Better, and Loving More)
“
Once in a while I lie there, as the television runs, and I read something wild and ancient from one of several collections of folktales I own. Apples that summon sea maidens, eggs that fulfill any wish, pears that make people grow long noses that fall off again. Then sometimes I get up and don my robe and go out into our quiet neighborhood looking for a magic thread, a magic sword, a magic horse.
”
”
Denis Johnson (The Largesse of the Sea Maiden)
“
What time has been wasted during man's destiny in the struggle to decide what man's next world will be like! The keener the effort to find out, the less he knew about the present one he lived in. The one lovely world he knew, lived in, that gave him all he had, was, according to preacher and prelate, the one to be least in his thoughts. He was recommended, ordered, from the day of his birth to bid goodbye to it. Oh, we have had enough of the abuse of this fair earth! It is no sad truth that this should be our home. Were it but to give us simple shelter, simple clothing, simple food, adding the lily and the rose, the apple and the pear, it would be a fit home for mortal or immortal man.
”
”
Seán O'Casey
“
No person is just one person. Everyone is a crate of fruits, a crate of mixed fruits. The apple in there may have worms, a peach may be mildewed, a banana may be too green, a pear may be in perfect ripeness, and a melon may have the sweetest smell.
”
”
Victor Robert Lee (Performance Anomalies)
“
Recuerdo
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
”
”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
“
Such heaped up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tender oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst-- Heaven bless the mark!
”
”
Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow)
“
My feelings for Ansel were as real as they could have been at the time. But they were like a painting of...oh, I don't know, a basket of fruit. Nice to have but never truly satisfying. And Shen." She smiled, without meaning to. "Well, my feelings for Shen are like real fruit. A whole mountain of fresh fruit! Apples and berries and pears and bananas...
”
”
Catherine Doyle (Twin Crowns (Twin Crowns, #1))
“
Hmm, What did I love? I think all the scents. Mama's lilac trees, and the wild iris in the fields, and rain on the breeze on a hot day. Apple and pear blossoms. The hay just cut. The mix of odors in the barn when the sunlight was shafting through the cracks in the boards, heating everything up.
”
”
Jane Smiley (Golden Age (Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga #3))
“
All of us together were of a generation born of old country people who spoke English with an accent and prayed in another language, who drank red wine and cooked their food in the old country way, and peeled apples and pears after dinner.
”
”
Robert Laxalt (Sweet Promised Land)
“
Nevertheless"
you've seen a strawberry
that's had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,
a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food
than apple seeds - the fruit
within the fruit - locked in
like counter-curved twin
hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant -
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can't
harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear -
leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;
as carrots from mandrakes
or a ram's-horn root some-
times. Victory won't come
to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till
knotted thirty times - so
the bound twig that's under-
gone and over-gone, can't stir.
The weak overcomes its
menace, the strong over-
comes itself. What is there
like fortitude! What sap
went through that little thread
to make the cherry red!
”
”
Marianne Moore
“
THE ORGANIC FOODS MYTH
A few decades ago, a woman tried to sue a butter company that had printed the word 'LITE' on its product's packaging. She claimed to have gained so much weight from eating the butter, even though it was labeled as being 'LITE'. In court, the lawyer representing the butter company simply held up the container of butter and said to the judge, "My client did not lie. The container is indeed 'light in weight'. The woman lost the case.
In a marketing class in college, we were assigned this case study to show us that 'puffery' is legal. This means that you can deceptively use words with double meanings to sell a product, even though they could mislead customers into thinking your words mean something different. I am using this example to touch upon the myth of organic foods. If I was a lawyer representing a company that had labeled its oranges as being organic, and a man was suing my client because he found out that the oranges were being sprayed with toxins, my defense opening statement would be very simple: "If it's not plastic or metallic, it's organic."
Most products labeled as being organic are not really organic. This is the truth. You pay premium prices for products you think are grown without chemicals, but most products are. If an apple is labeled as being organic, it could mean two things. Either the apple tree itself is free from chemicals, or just the soil. One or the other, but rarely both. The truth is, the word 'organic' can mean many things, and taking a farmer to court would be difficult if you found out his fruits were indeed sprayed with pesticides. After all, all organisms on earth are scientifically labeled as being organic, unless they are made of plastic or metal. The word 'organic' comes from the word 'organism', meaning something that is, or once was, living and breathing air, water and sunlight.
So, the next time you stroll through your local supermarket and see brown pears that are labeled as being organic, know that they could have been third-rate fare sourced from the last day of a weekend market, and have been re-labeled to be sold to a gullible crowd for a premium price. I have a friend who thinks that organic foods have to look beat up and deformed because the use of chemicals is what makes them look perfect and flawless. This is not true. Chemical-free foods can look perfect if grown in your backyard. If you go to jungles or forests untouched by man, you will see fruit and vegetables that look like they sprouted from trees from Heaven. So be cautious the next time you buy anything labeled as 'organic'. Unless you personally know the farmer or the company selling the products, don't trust what you read. You, me, and everything on land and sea are organic.
Suzy Kassem,
Truth Is Crying
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
In the morning they rose in a house pungent with breakfast cookery, and they sat at a smoking table loaded with brains and eggs, ham, hot biscuit, fried apples seething in their gummed syrups, honey, golden butter, fried steak, scalding coffee. Or there were stacked batter-cakes, rum-colored molasses, fragrant brown sausages, a bowl of wet cherries, plums, fat juicy bacon, jam. At the mid-day meal, they ate heavily: a huge hot roast of beef, fat buttered lima- beans, tender corn smoking on the cob, thick red slabs of sliced tomatoes, rough savory spinach, hot yellow corn-bread, flaky biscuits, a deep-dish peach and apple cobbler spiced with cinnamon, tender cabbage, deep glass dishes piled with preserved fruits-- cherries, pears, peaches. At night they might eat fried steak, hot squares of grits fried in egg and butter, pork-chops, fish, young fried chicken.
”
”
Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward, Angel)
“
And then the leaves break out on the trees, and the petals drop from the fruit trees and carpet the earth with pink and white. The centers of the blossoms swell and grow and color: cherries and apples, peaches and pears, figs which close the flower in the fruit. All California quickens with produce, and the fruit grows heavy, and the limbs bend gradually under the fruit so that little crutches must be placed under them to support the weight.
”
”
John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath)
“
Loaded my black patent leather bag with sherry, cream cheese (for grammy’s apricot tarts), thyme, basil, bay leaves (for Wendy’s exotic stews—a facsimile of which now simmers on the stove), golden wafers (such an elegant name for Ritz crackers), apples and green pears.
I was getting worried about becoming too happily stodgily practical: instead of studying Locke, for instance, or writing—I go make an apple pie, or study the Joy of Cooking, reading it like a rare novel. Whoa, I said to myself. You will escape into domesticity & stifle yourself by falling headfirst into a bowl of cookie batter.
”
”
Sylvia Plath
“
Liza Hempstock, who had been Bod's friend for the last six years, was different in another way; she was less likely to be there for him when Bod went down to the nettle patch to see her, and on the rare occasions when she was, she would be short-tempered, argumentative and often downright rude.
Bod talked to Mr Owens about this, and after a few moments' reflection, his father said, "It's just women, I reckon. She liked you as a boy, probably isn't sure who you are now you're a young man. I used to play with one little girl down by the duck pond every day until she turned about your age, and then she threw an apple at my head and did not say another word to me until I was seventeen."
Mrs Owens stiffened. "It was a pear I threw," she said, tartly, "and I was talking to you again soon enough, for we danced a measure at your cousin Ned's wedding, and that was but two days after your sixteenth birthday."
Mr Owens said, "Of course you are right, my dear." He winked at Bod, to tell him that it was none of it serious. And then mouthed "Seventeen" to show that, really, it was.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
“
Having shaved, washed, and dexterously arranged several artificial teeth, standing in front of the mirror, he moistened his silver-mounted brushes and plastered the remains of his thick pearly hair on his swarthy yellow skull. He drew on to his strong old body, with its abdomen protuberant from excessive good living, his cream-colored silk underwear, put black silk socks and patent-leather slippers on his flat-footed feet. He put sleeve-links in the shining cuffs of his snow-white shirt, and bending forward so that his shirt front bulged out, he arranged his trousers that were pulled up high by his silk braces, and began to torture himself, putting his collar-stud through the stiff collar. The floor was still rocking beneath him, the tips of his fingers hurt, the stud at moments pinched the flabby skin in the recess under his Adam's apple, but he persisted, and at last, with eyes all strained and face dove-blue from the over-tight collar that enclosed his throat, he finished the business and sat down exhausted in front of the pier glass, which reflected the whole of him, and repeated him in all the other mirrors.
" It is awful ! " he muttered, dropping his strong, bald head, but without trying to understand or to know what was awful. Then, with habitual careful attention examining his gouty-jointed short fingers and large, convex, almond-shaped finger-nails, he repeated : " It is awful. . . .
”
”
Ivan Bunin (The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories)
“
In May, when the grass was so green it hurt to look at it, the air so overpoweringly sweet you had to go in and turn on the television just to dull your senses- that's when Claire knew it was time to look for the asparagus in the pastures. If it rained she wondered if she should check our secret places for morels. In June, when the strawberries ripened, we made hay and the girls rode on top of the wagon. I was ever mindful of the boy who had fallen off and broken his neck. In July, the pink raspberries, all in brambles in the woods and growing up our front porch, turned black and tart. In August, the sour apples were the coming thing. In September there were the crippled-up pears in the old orchard. In October, we picked the pumpkin and popcorn. And all winter, when there was snow, we lived for the wild trip down the slopes on the toboggan.
”
”
Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)
“
You may prefer apples to oranges, oranges to pears, but pears to apples—it depends on how the choices are presented to you. The
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto Book 1))
“
A pear, an apple, and a banana in a basket on a table isn’t art, no matter how skillfully painted. But it is something to talk about, or at least a tasty way to utilize one’s mouth.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (At even one penny, this book would be overpriced. In fact, free is too expensive, because you'd still waste time by reading it.)
“
So he raced from dogwood to blossoming peach. When they thinned out he headed for the cherry blossoms, then magnolia, chinaberry, pecan, walnut and prickly pear. At last he reached a field of apple trees whose flowers were just becoming tiny knots of fruit. Spring sauntered north, but he had to run like hell to keep it as his traveling companion. From February to July he was on the lookout for blossoms. When he lost them, and found himself without so much as a petal to guide him, he paused, climbed a tree on a hillock and scanned the horizon for a flash of pink or white in the leaf world that surrounded him. He did not touch them or stop to smell. He merely followed in their wake, a dark ragged figure guided by the blossoming plums.
”
”
Toni Morrison (Beloved)
“
… Birch and fir logs burn too fast Blaze up bright and do not last … But ash green or ash brown Is fit for a queen with golden crown Poplar gives a bitter smoke Fills your eyes and makes you choke Apple wood will scent your room Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom Oaken logs, if dry and old Keep away the winter’s cold But ash wet or ash dry A king shall warm his slippers by Mattie
”
”
Viola Shipman (The Hope Chest)
“
Slowly, Delphine began to understand that each dish was created, not merely cooked as one would cook a slice of toast. Each had its own beauty and depth: its own poetry.
Course after course, the finished plates were passed among the chefs and sampled with care: small briny oysters from Corsica were nestled into a bed of pink rock salt; white asparagus were trimmed and served alongside a smoked duck salad; cream-fed pork was braised with pears and apples, and new potatoes were browned in duck fat and dusted with late summer truffles. Each dish was more amazing than the last.
”
”
N.M. Kelby (White Truffles in Winter)
“
I go to the larder for the quinces and stop in amazement. For the larder is brimming over with food. Baskets of field mushrooms. Trugs of green apples and yellow pears. A metal bath containing two pink crabs. Slabs of newly churned butter as bright as a dandelion flower. Wheels of pale yellow cheese the size of my head. An earthenware bowl of cobnuts. A ham soaking in a pail of water.
”
”
Annabel Abbs (Miss Eliza's English Kitchen)
“
The Langhe is a paradise, a giardino: pears, apples, pomegranates, chestnuts. Everything you could want to eat falling from a tree. And above all, nocciole. You see those trees? Those are South American hazelnuts. Fatter. Rounder. There are also the smaller Turkish hazelnuts, but Ferrero Rocher uses the big ones to make Nutella. And wine- everywhere, wine. Barbera, Bonarda, Dolcetto, and the king, Nebbiolo, the king of all grapes.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents))
“
It was Friday, so the farmers' market was in full autumnal swing, a sea of potted chrysanthemums and bushel after bushel of apples, pears, Fauvist gourds, and pumpkins with erotically fanciful stems. On one table stood galvanized buckets of the year's final roses; on another, skeins of yarn in muted, soulful purples and reds. Walter loved this part of the season- and not just because it was the time of year his restaurant flourished, when people felt the first yearnings to sit by a fire, to eat stew and bread pudding and meatloaf, drink cider and toddies and cocoa. He loved the season's transient intensity, its gaudy colors and tempestuous skies.
”
”
Julia Glass (The Whole World Over)
“
Do you know much about Aaron Burr? There's a man, now, who is only damned and damned again in history and yet who had his parts. I have always designed writing something about him to show I did not stand in the jam of his vilifiers. I had a piece on him which should have gone into this book. You don't know (I guess I never told you) that when I was a lad, working in a lawyer's office, it fell to me to go over the river now and then with messages for Burr. Burr was very gentle--persuasive. He had a way of giving me a bit of fruit on these visits--an apple or a pear. I can see him clearly, still--his stateliness, gray hair, courtesy, consideration.
”
”
Walt Whitman (Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication)
“
Wild Peaches"
When the world turns completely upside down
You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,
You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown
Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color.
Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,
We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.
The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.
2
The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass
Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
The misted early mornings will be cold;
The little puddles will be roofed with glass.
The sun, which burns from copper into brass,
Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold
Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold
Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.
Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;
A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;
The spring begins before the winter’s over.
By February you may find the skins
Of garter snakes and water moccasins
Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.
3
When April pours the colors of a shell
Upon the hills, when every little creek
Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake
In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,
When strawberries go begging, and the sleek
Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak,
We shall live well — we shall live very well.
The months between the cherries and the peaches
Are brimming cornucopias which spill
Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black;
Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches
We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill
Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.
4
Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
There’s something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate,
Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
There’s something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,
A thread of water, churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.
”
”
Elinor Wylie
“
Roses climbed the shed, entwined with dark purple clematis, leaves as glossy as satin. There were no thorns. Patience's cupboard was overflowing with remedies, and the little barn was often crowded with seekers. The half acre of meadow was wild with cosmos and lupine, coreopsis, and sweet William. Basil, thyme, coriander, and broad leaf parsley grew in billowing clouds of green; the smell so fresh your mouth watered and you began to plan the next meal. Cucumbers spilled out of the raised beds, fighting for space with the peas and beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and bright yellow peppers.
The cart was righted out by the road and was soon bowed under glass jars and tin pails of sunflowers, zinnias, dahlias, and salvia. Pears, apples, and out-of-season apricots sat in balsa wood baskets in the shade, and watermelons, some with pink flesh, some with yellow, all sweet and seedless, lined the willow fence.
”
”
Ellen Herrick (The Sparrow Sisters)
“
If we are cultivating fruit in an orchard, we wish that particular fruit to grow in its own way; we give it the soil it needs, the amount of moisture, the amount of care, but we do not treat the apple tree as we would the pear tree or the peach tree as we would the vineyard on the hillside. Each is allowed the freedom of its own kind and the result is the perfection of growth which can be accomplished in no other way. The time must come when the same freedom is allowed the individual; each in his own way must develop according to nature's purpose, the body must be but the channel for the expression of purpose, interest, emotion, labor. Everywhere freedom must be the sign of reason.
”
”
Robert Henri (The Art Spirit)
“
Beaumont's intention was to promote the virtue and nutritional value of fruit-bearing trees. Fifteen different genera of fruit and a number of their different species are described in the work: almonds, apricots, a barberry, cherries, quinces, figs, strawberries, gooseberries, apples, a mulberry, pears, peaches, plums, grapes, and raspberries. Each colored plate illustrates the plant's seed, foliage, blossom, fruit, and sometimes cross sections of the species.
”
”
Lucinda Riley (The Lavender Garden)
“
I know a beautiful garden, where there are a great many children in fine little coats, and they go under the trees and gather beautiful apples and pears, cherries and plums; they sing and run about and are as happy as they can be. Sometimes they ride on nice little ponies, with golden bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man whose garden it is, “What little children are these?” And he told me, “They are little children who love to pray and learn and are good.
”
”
Martin Luther
“
The french language is emotive. The verbs are strong and definite. The nouns are masculine or french. I could never understand why the farm would be feminine yet the farmhouse masculine; the pear and apple trees masculine yet the fruit feminine.
”
”
Vicki Archer (My French Life)
“
I was drawn on. Conscious now that something needed doing, I moved ever higher on the land. Here entering an orchard of immense and archaic beauty. I say orchard: The trees were dense in one place, scattered in another, as though planted by random throw, but all were heavy trunked and capaciously limbed, and they were fruit trees, every one of them. Apples, gold-skinned apricots, immaculate pears. The leaves about them were thick and cool and stirred at my approach; touched with a finger, they imparted a palpable rhythm.
It took a long while to traverse the orchard. I began to feel hungry but didn't pause; though all this fruit appeared perfectly available, I felt prodded to appear before the master. The place had a master! Realizing this, I know he was already aware of me - comforting and fearful knowledge. Still I wanted to see him. The farther I went the more I seemed to know or remember abut him - the way he'd planted this orchard, walking over the hills, casting seed from his hand. I kept moving.
”
”
Leif Enger (Peace Like a River)
“
The Sparrow Sisters' roses still bloomed on New Year's Day, their scent rich and warm even when snow weighted their petals closed. When customers came down the rutted road to the small eighteenth-century barn where the sisters worked, they marveled at the jasmine that twined through the split-rail fence, the perfume so intense they could feel it in their mouths. As they paid for their purchases, they wondered (vaguely, it must be said, for the people of Granite Point knew not to think too hard about the Sisters) how it was that clematis and honeysuckle climbed the barn in November and the morning glories bloomed all day. The fruit trees were so fecund that the peaches hung on the low branches, surrounded by more blossoms, apples and pears ripened in June and stayed sweet and fresh into December. Their Italian fig trees were heavy with purple teardrop fruit only weeks after they were planted. If you wanted a tomato so ripe the juice seemed to move beneath the skin, you needed only to pick up a punnet at the Nursery.
”
”
Ellen Herrick (The Sparrow Sisters)
“
The woman, one of those usually known as a good-time girl, was famous for the premature portliness which had earned her the nickname Boule de Suif. Small, round as a barrel, fat as butter and with fingers tightly jointed like strings of small sausages, her glowing skin and the enormous bosom which strained under the constraints of her dress — as well as her freshness, which was a delight to the eye — made her hugely desirable and much sought after. She had a rosy apple of a face, a peony bud about to burst into bloom. Out of it looked two magnificent dark eyes shaded by thick black lashes. Further down was a charming little mouth complete with invitingly moist lips and tiny, gleaming pearly-white teeth. She was said to possess a variety of other inestimable qualities.
”
”
Guy de Maupassant (A Parisian Affair and Other Stories)
“
The sun shone with all the gaiety and promise of early summer. The new green leaves glistened with it, and the apple and pear blossoms, just past their prime, drifted in the warm air like white butterflies, powdering the orchard floor with their bruised petals.
”
”
Louisa Morgan (The Age of Witches)
“
Poem in October"
It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.
My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.
A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.
It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels
And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.
And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.
”
”
Dylan Thomas (Collected Poems)
“
People came from far and wide to see the Italian Gardens and buy a honeycomb or damson jam in the farm shop. The wool from the sheep and the cheese from the goats drew buyers in a queue the day they were ready for purchase. In June, the pick-your-own strawberry fields were filled with children carrying baskets of berries, their lips stained red with sweet juice. In August, the dahlia fields were so flush with color that the cloudy days seemed brighter, and in autumn the apple and pear orchards were woven through with ladders and littered with overflowing bushels.
”
”
Ellen Herrick (The Forbidden Garden)
“
Mr. Constant,” he said, “right now you’re as easy for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to watch as a man on a street corner selling apples and pears. But just imagine how hard you would be to watch if you had a whole office building jammed to the rafters with industrial bureaucrats—men who lose things and use the wrong forms and create new forms and demand everything in quintuplicate, and who understand perhaps a third of what is said to them; who habitually give misleading answers in order to gain time in which to think, who make decisions only when forced to, and who then cover their tracks; who make perfectly honest mistakes in addition and subtraction, who call meetings whenever they feel lonely, who write memos whenever they feel unloved; men who never throw anything away unless they think it could get them fired. A single industrial bureaucrat, if he is sufficiently vital and nervous, should be able to create a ton of meaningless papers a year for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to examine. In the Magnum Opus Building, we will have thousands of them! And you and I can have the top two stories, and you can go on keeping track of what’s really going on the way you do now.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (The Sirens of Titan)
“
Pear and Arugula Salad Although it sounds like a weird combination at first, this salad is delicious. It combines the pears with arugula and walnuts and the final result is rich and filling. Time: 20 minutes Servings: 4 Ingredients: · 1 pound arugula · 2 pears, sliced · ½ lemon, juiced · 1 teaspoon honey · 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar · 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard · Salt and pepper to taste · ¼ cup walnuts, chopped Directions: 1 Place the arugula on a platter. Arrange the pear slices over the arugula. 2 In a small glass jar, mix the lemon juice, honey, vinegar and mustard. Add salt and pepper to taste and cover the jar with a lid. 3 Shake well then drizzle the dressing over the salad. 4 Top with walnuts and serve immediately. Nutritional information per serving Calories: 145 Fat: 5.7g Protein: 5.4g Carbohydrates: 22.8g
”
”
Jonathan Vine (Clean Food Diet: Avoid Processed Foods and Eat Clean with Few Simple Lifestyle Changes)
“
I mentioned earlier in which people lost weight after adding three apples or pears to their daily diets.2223 Certain other fruits were not as successful, though. Adding three grapefruit halves, around three kiwifruits, or half a mango a day didn’t result in significant weight loss (although it didn’t result in weight gain either).
”
”
Michael Greger (How Not to Diet)
“
I thought you'd left me," he said.
"Monday is shopping night," she replied.
"Yeah, but I thought you left me. I was so scared," he rasped, face folding.
Two pints of milk, two tubs of Greek yoghurt, Parmesan, and smoked mackerel for the fridge.
"Well, I haven't," she said. "I went shopping."
Whole wheat spaghetti, two tins of chickpeas, two tins of tomatoes, and red lentils for the cupboard.
"Are you OK?" he asked.
Garlic, sweet potatoes, and red onions for the bottom drawer.
"Darling, please talk to me," he begged.
Bananas, apples, and Comte pears for the fruit bowl.
"Darling, please. I can't have you not talking to me."
A bar of 85 percent Green and Black's and Kettle Chips for the top cupboard.
”
”
Lottie Hazell (Piglet)
“
On the cutting board there are two peanut butter and red currant jam sandwiches for Emerson and two Serrano ham, shaved cheddar, and apricot chutney sandwiches for Felice. Nieves wraps them smartly in waxed paper, tapes them, and puts them back in the fridge. There's also a cooler Nieves opens: packed with trail mix, sliced pears and apples, and the lemon bars.
”
”
Diana Abu-Jaber (Birds of Paradise)
“
The ancient pages rose among the others, palisaded with strange letters and words, the faint script hardly more readable than the footprints of birds. He read until his eyelids drooped. But as his head dropped, he fancied he caught the sharp savor of sap beneath the chalky dust of the pages, or the heavy perfumes of blossom from the orchards of plums and pears and apples.
”
”
Lawrence Norfolk (John Saturnall's Feast)
“
They drank from a spring which filled an ancient stone trough behind the ruin. Beyond it lay overgrown beds and plants John had never set eyes on before: tall resinous fronds, prickly shrubs, long grey-green leaves hot to the tongue. Nestling among them he found the root whose scent drifted among the trees like a ghost, sweet and tarry. He knelt and pressed it to his nose.
'That was called silphium.' His mother stood behind him. 'It grew in Saturnus's first garden.'
She showed him the most ancient trees in the orchards, their gnarled trunks cloaked in grey lichen. Palm trees had grown there too once, she claimed. Now even their stumps had gone.
Each day, John left the hearth to forage in the wreckage of Belicca's gardens. His nose guided him through the woods. Beyond the chestnut avenue, the wild skirrets, alexanders and broom grew in drifts. John chased after rabbits or climbed trees in search of birds' eggs. He returned with mallow seeds or chestnuts that they pounded into meal then mixed with water and baked on sticks. The unseasonal orchards yielded tiny red and gold-streaked apples, hard green pears and sour yellow cherries.
”
”
Lawrence Norfolk (John Saturnall's Feast)
“
Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom- apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the 'Mittel Land' ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillside like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadors would not repair them, lest the Turks should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point.
Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colors of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water.
”
”
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
“
Mosul, the native city of the historian Ibn al-Athir, was the capital of Jazira, or Mesopotamia, the fertile plain watered by the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates. It was a political, cultural, and economic centre of prime importance. The Arabs boasted of its succulent fruit: its apples, pears, grapes, and pomegranates. The fine cloth it exported - called 'muslin', a word derived from the city's name - was known throughout the world. At the time of the arrival of the Franj, the people of the emir Karbuqa's realm were already exploiting another natural resource, which the traveller Ibn Jubayr was to describe with amazement a few dozen years later: deposits of naphtha. This precious dark liquid, which would one day make the fortune of this part of the world, already offered travellers an unforgettable spectacle.
”
”
Amin Maalouf (The Crusades Through Arab Eyes)
“
If she thought of the labor and resources that went into each piece of fruit—the water, the light, the earth, the training and harvesting of each plant—a box of apples could be special, a sacred thing. Perhaps in this land of plenty, of myth and wide-open spaces, trucks and factories, mass production, we lost track of that: the miracle of an object as simple as a pear, nutritious and sweet, created by something as beautiful as a tree.
”
”
Nancy Jooyoun Kim (The Last Story of Mina Lee)
“
HIGH-ALKALINE FOODS
Vegetables
Beets, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Celery, Cucumbers, Kale, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Onions, Peas, Peppers, Pumpkin, Spinach, Sprouts, Wheatgrass
Fruits
Apples, Apricots, Avocados, Bananas, Blueberries, Cantaloupe, Cherries (sour), Grapes, Melon, Lemon, Oranges, Peaches, Pears, Pineapple, Raspberries, Strawberries, Watermelon
Protein
Almonds, Chestnuts, Whey Protein Powder, Tofu
Spices
Cinnamon, Curry, Ginger, Mustard, Sea Salt
”
”
Derek Hough (Taking the Lead: Lessons from a Life in Motion)
“
As a general rule, sour or acidic fruits (grapefruits, kiwis, and strawberries) can be combined with “protein fats” such as avocado, coconut, coconut kefir, and sprouted nuts and seeds. Both acid fruits and sub-acid fruits like apples, grapes, and pears can be eaten with cheeses; and vegetable fruits (avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers) can be eaten with fruits, vegetables, starches, and proteins. I’ve also found that apples combine well with raw vegetables.
”
”
Tess Masters (The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks--100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes!)
“
to bring a furrin child into the coonthry; an' depend on't, whether you an' me lives to see't or noo, it'll coom to soom harm. The first sitiation iver I held—it was a hold hancient habbey, wi' the biggest orchard o' apples an' pears you ever see—there was a French valet, an' he stool silk stoockins, an' shirts, an' rings, an' iverythin' he could ley his hands on, an' run awey at last wi' th' missis's jewl-box. They're all alaike, them furriners. It roons i' th' blood.
”
”
George Eliot (Scenes of Clerical Life)
“
A chilled pea soup of insane simplicity, garnished with creme fraiche and celery leaves. Roasted beet salad with poached pears and goat cheese. Rack of lamb wrapped in crispy prosciutto, served over a celery root and horseradish puree, with sautéed spicy black kale. A thin-as-paper apple galette with fig glaze. Everything turned out brilliantly, including Patrick, who roused himself as I was pulling the lamb from the oven to rest before carving. He disappeared into the bathroom for ten minutes and came out shiny; green pallor and under-eye bags gone like magic. Pink with health and vitality, polished and ridiculously handsome, he looked as if he could run a marathon, and I was gobsmacked. He came up behind me just as I was finishing his port sauce for the lamb with a sprinkle of honey vinegar and a bit of butter, the only changes I made to any of his recipes, finding the sauce without them a bit one-dimensional and in need of edge smoothing.
”
”
Stacey Ballis (Off the Menu)
“
Your jam puts store-bought to shame. As I ate it on a fresh croissant from the French bakery at the Farmers Market down the street from my house, I savored the image you painted with your words. I would love to spend a summer morning in the Pacific Northwest sunshine picking wild blackberries. I also crave your backyard access to crisp apples, plums, and pears, although I am not sure I would trade them for the grapefruit and oranges I pluck from my own trees for breakfast whenever I like.
”
”
Kim Fay (Love & Saffron)
“
Song using her poem as lyrics that inspired me to read her biography -YouTube Aaron Shay Recuerdo
Recuerdo
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
”
”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
“
Ode to the Beloved’s Hips"
Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered
percussion in the morning—are the morning.
Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little
longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me—
I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock
right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb
chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna.
How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed
Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur.
My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena,
ecstatic devourer.
O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped
the amber—fast honey—from their openness—
Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked
smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa
coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire
to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet-
dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond—
to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue—
come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips,
I am—strummed-song and succubus.
They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book—
the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel.
Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays,
Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray.
Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera.
Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle:
What do I see? Hips:
Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone.
Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread,
wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be:
Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel.
Bone basin bone throne bone lamp.
Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery—
slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade
in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me
to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit,
laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God,
I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth
for pear upon apple upon fig.
More than all that are your hips.
They are a city. They are Kingdom—
Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire—
thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth.
Beloved, your hips are the war.
At night your legs, love, are boulevards
leading me beggared and hungry to your candy
house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late
and the tables have been cleared,
in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake.
O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve,
a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are
kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning
comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon,
let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me
circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming
for your dark matter.
Along las calles de tus muslos I wander—
follow the parade of pulse like a drum line—
descend into your Plaza del Toros—
hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros.
Your arched hips—ay, mi torera.
Down the long corridor, your wet walls
lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed.
I am the animal born to rush your rich red
muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan,
a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner
thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre
Manolete—press and part you like a wound—
make the crowd pounding in the grandstand
of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.
”
”
Natalie Díaz
“
In general, the sweeter fruits (bananas, apples, grapes, pears) are less nutritionally dense and will also lead to a sharper rise in blood sugar, which, as a migraineur, is something you wish to avoid. This doesn’t mean you need to give up sweet fruits, just eat them in moderation, and always in the context of a larger meal (which helps to blunt the blood sugar rise). For many, eating a sweet fruit on an empty stomach is a big migraine trigger. The same goes for concentrated fruit juices, which should be avoided.
”
”
Josh Turknett (The Migraine Miracle: A Sugar-Free, Gluten-Free, Ancestral Diet to Reduce Inflammation and Relieve Your Headaches for Good)
“
I have a wedge of Brie and some crackers in the pantry, and I could slice a pear or an apple and drizzle the fruit with some orange blossom honey. That always makes a nice accompaniment for cheese. I've got some olives, too, Lucques. I wonder if I have time to make cheese sticks. I use store-bought puff pastry, roll it out, sprinkle it with salt and red pepper flakes and grated Parmesan, then cut the dough into strips, twist them, and bake. They are particularly delicious with a glass of Champagne, especially when you serve the cheese sticks warm.
”
”
Susan Rebecca White (A Place at the Table)
“
The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentleman, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered lanes; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.
”
”
Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)
“
Around the room, the traditional thirteen desserts of Christmas are stacked on glass dishes like pirates' treasure, gleaming and lustrous in topaz and gold. Black nougat for the devil, white nougat for the angels, and clementines, grapes, figs, almonds, honey, dates, apples, pears, quince jelly, mendiants all jeweled with raisins and peel, and fougasse made with olive oil and split like a wheel into twelve parts-
And of course there is the chocolate- the Yule log cooling in the kitchen; the nougatines, the celestines, the chocolate truffles piled onto the counter in a fragrant scatter of cocoa dust.
”
”
Joanne Harris (The Girl with No Shadow (Chocolat, #2))
“
Juicy apple, pear, and banana,
Gooseberry ... They all speak of
Death and life in the mouth ... I have a presentiment ...
Read it from a child’s expression
If she savours them. It comes from far, from far ...
Aren’t you slowly becoming aware of something inexpressible in your mouth?
Where a moment ago were words, a flowing discovery
Is released, startling, from the fruit’s flesh.
Venture to say what your apple is called.
This sweetness, which originally condensed itself,
Spreading out, slowly in being tasted rose up
To achieve a clarity, awake and of transparency,
Resonant of opposites, sunny, earthy, of the here and now -:
Oh the experience of it, the feeling, the joy -, immense!
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Sonnets to Orpheus)
“
Do it very gradually, a little bit more every day. That way, you’re less likely to experience intestinal distress. In other words, if your current diet is heavy on no-fiber foods such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, and cheese, and low-fiber foods such as white bread and white rice, don’t load up on bran cereal (35 grams dietary fiber per 3.5-ounce serving) or dried figs (9.3 grams per serving) all at once. Start by adding a serving of cornflakes (2.0 grams dietary fiber) at breakfast, maybe an apple (2.8 grams) at lunch, a pear (2.6 grams) at mid-afternoon, and a half cup of baked beans (7.7 grams) at dinner. Four simple additions, and already you’re up to 15 grams dietary fiber.
”
”
Carol Ann Rinzler (Nutrition for Dummies)
“
Fides, Spes
Joy is come to the little
Everywhere;
Pink to the peach and pink to the apple,
White to the pear.
Stars are come to the dogwood,
Astral, pale;
Mists are pink on the red-bud,
Veil after veil.
Flutes for the feathery locusts,
Soft as spray;
Tongues of the lovers for chestnuts, poplars,
Babbling May.
Yellow plumes for the willows’
Wind-blown hair;
Oak trees and sycamores only
Comfortless bare.
Sore from steel and the watching,
Somber and old,—
Wooing robes for the beeches, larches,
Splashed with gold;
Breath o’ love to the lilac,
Warm with noon.—
Great hearts cold when the little
Beat mad so soon.
What is their faith to bear it
Till it come,
Waiting with rain-cloud and swallow,
Frozen, dumb?
”
”
Willa Cather (April Twilights: and Other Poems (The Collected Works of Willa Cather))
“
His antipasto was the classic Roman fritto misto---tiny morsels of mixed offal, including slivers of poached brains and liver, along with snails, artichokes, apples, pears, and bread dipped in milk, all deep-fried in a crisp egg-and-bread-crumb batter. This was to be followed by a primo of rigatoni alla pajata---pasta served with intestines from a baby calf so young that they were still full of its mother's milk, simmered with onions, white wine, tomatoes, cloves, and garlic. For the secondo they would be having milza in umido--- a stewed lamb's spleen, cooked with sage, anchovies, and pepper. A bitter salad of puntarelle al' acciuga---chicory sprouts with anchovy---would cleanse the palate, to be followed by a simple dolce of fragole in aceto, gorella strawberries in vinegar.
”
”
Anthony Capella (The Food of Love)
“
... the exotic spices arriving daily from the East Indies and the Americas, the crates of sweet oranges and bitter lemons from Sicily, the apricots from Mesopotamia, the olive oil from Naples, the almonds from the Jordan valley... I have seen and smelled these delicacies at market. But does any English person know how to cook with such foods?
I think back to my time in France and Italy, of all the delicacies that passed across my tongue. And then to the gardens I've seen in Tonbridge with their raised beds of sorrel, lettuce, cucumbers, marrows, pumpkins. Already the banks are starred bright with blackberries and rose hips, with damsons and sour sloes, the bloom still upon them. Trees are weighted down with green apples and yellow mottled pears and crab apples flushed pink and gold. Soon there will be fresh cobnuts in their husks, and ripe walnuts, and field mushrooms, and giant puffballs.
”
”
Annabel Abbs (Miss Eliza's English Kitchen)
“
The Hunter then looked about him, saying, 'If only I had something to eat! I am so hungry, and it will go badly with me in the future, for I see here not an apple or pear or fruit of any kind—nothing but vegetables everywhere.' At last he thought, 'At a pinch I can eat a salad; it does not taste particularly nice, but it will refresh me.' So he looked about for a good head and ate it, but no sooner had he swallowed a couple of mouthfuls than he felt very strange, and found himself wonderfully changed. Four legs began to grow on him, a thick head, and two long ears, and he saw with horror that he had changed into a donkey. But as he was still very hungry and this juicy salad tasted very good to his present nature, he went on eating with a still greater appetite. At last he got hold of another kind of cabbage, but scarcely had swallowed it when he felt another change, and he once more regained his human form.
”
”
Andrew Lang (The Yellow Fairy Book)
“
She maneuvered a cart through the produce section, which featured boxes of fruits as gifts, amping up the volume and variety this time of year. She packed several Asian pears in a plastic tear-off bag, then moved on to the most perfect Fuyu persimmons, smooth, orange, and firm. She had always been embarrassed when her mother had given people such odd practical "Korean gifts" - the boxes of apples or even laundry detergent - when in reality, outside of America, these objects might have some rich symbolic relevance that perhaps Margot didn't understand.
If she thought of the labor and resources that went into each piece of fruit - the water, the light, the earth, the training and harvesting of each plant - a box of apples could be special, a sacred thing. Perhaps in this land of plenty, of myth and wide-open spaces, trucks and factories, mass production, we lost track of that: the miracle of an object as simple as a pear, nutritious and sweet, created by something as beautiful as a tree.
”
”
Nancy Jooyoun Kim (The Last Story of Mina Lee)
“
If you're still hungry, I have some apples for dessert." She held one out that was a mix of reds and greens with a hint of gold. "These are Red Fire apples."
Henri took a bite. "That's heaven. What did you call it? A Red Fire? I've never had anything like it."
"They're only grown in our kingdom. My mother was the one who created the hybrid," Snow said proudly.
She used to beg her parents to tell her the story of their courtship over and over. She could picture her mother laughing. Snow, there must be something else you want to talk about!
"It's what you get when you cross red apple seeds with some pears and green apple seeds," Snow told Henri now. "She came up with it at the apple orchard she helped tend when she was my age. My father loved them and had them planted all over the countryside." Snow picked up one and stared at it. "It was the Red Fire apple that endeared my mother to my father, actually. He adored her apples."
Henri smirked. "So it was love at first bite?"
She laughed. "I suppose so!
”
”
Jen Calonita (Mirror, Mirror)
“
How to describe the woman? Silky hair, velvety lips. No, it won’t do, I’m using fabrics, constructing a doll. How about coppery hair, or golden locks of hair, or platinum blonde? No, now I’m doing some kind of industrial metallurgy with precious metals; in addition to everything else, the woman sounds like a commodity. And what’s “locks of hair” supposed to mean? Lock, some kind of bondage? No, strike it out. Ruby lips, pearly white teeth, brilliant smile. No, now I’m making the woman out of precious stones, and out of clichés. Almond-shaped eyes, hazel-colored eyes, pear-shaped waist, apple-red cheeks, lips like the bud of a moist flower, peachy fuzz on her upper lip. Now I’m making up a woman out of fruits, plants. She strode like a gazelle. Her snaky waist coiled and uncoiled. Now I’m demeaning the woman, making her into an animal. On the other hand, you can call a woman a goddess. Aphrodite, Venus, or at least a demi-god, angelic beauty. But these terms were all invariably overused, clichés. In addition, if you call a woman Aphrodite, it might seem like an oblique way of saying that the woman is overweight.
”
”
Josip Novakovich (Shopping for a Better Country)
“
Clearings opened on either side. Familiar smells drifted in the air: fennel, skirrets and alexanders, then wild garlic, radishes and broom. John looked about while his mother tramped ahead. Then a new scent rose from the wild harvest, strong in John's nostrils. He had smelt it the night the villagers had driven them up the slope. Now, as his mother pushed through a screen of undergrowth, he saw its origin.
Ranks of fruit trees rose before him, their trunks shaggy with lichen, their branches decked with pink and white blossom. John and his mother walked forward into an orchard. Soon apple trees surrounded them, the sweet scent heavy in the air. Pears succeeded them, then cherries, then apples again. But surely the blossom was too late, John thought. Only the trees' arrangement was familiar for the trunks were planted in diamonds, five to a side. He knew it from the book.
The heavy volume bumped against his mother's leg. He gave her a curious look but she seemed unsurprised by the orchards. As the scent of blossom faded, another teased his nostrils, remembered from the same night. Lilies and pitch. Looking ahead, John saw only a stand of chestnuts overwhelmed by ivy, the glossy leaves blurring the trunks and boughs into a screen.
”
”
Lawrence Norfolk (John Saturnall's Feast)
“
Since my biographer may be too staid
Or know too little to affirm that Shade
Shaved in his bath, here goes:
"He'd fixed a sort
Of hinge-and-screw affair, a steel support
Running across the tub to hold in place
The shaving mirror right before his face
And with his toe renewing tap-warmth, he'd
Sit like a king there, and like Marat bleed."
The more I weigh, the less secure my skin;
In places it's ridiculously thin;
Thus near the mouth: the space between its wick
And my grimace, invited the wicked nick.
Or this dewlap: some day I must set free
The Newport Frill inveterate in me.
My Adam's apple is a prickly pear:
Now I shall speak of evil and despair
As none has spoken. Five, six, seven, eight,
Nine strokes are not enough. Ten. I palpate
Through strawberry-and-cream the gory mess
And find unchanged that patch of prickliness.
I have my doubts about the one-armed bloke
Who in commercials with one gliding stroke
Clears a smooth path of flesh from ear to chin,
Then wipes his faces and fondly tries his skin.
I'm in the class of fussy bimanists.
As a discreet ephebe in tights assists
A female in an acrobatic dance,
My left hand help, and holds, and shifts its stance.
Now I shall speak...Better than any soap
Is the sensation for which poets hope
When inspiration and its icy blaze,
The sudden image, the immediate phrase
Over the skin a triple ripple send
Making the little hairs all stand on end
As in the enlarged animated scheme
Of whiskers mowed when held up by Our Cream.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire)
“
Cendrillon specialized in seafood, so we had four fish stations: one for poaching, one for roasting, one for sautéing, and one for sauce. I was the chef de partie for the latter two, which also included making our restaurant's signature soups.
O'Shea planned his menu seasonally- depending on what was available at the market. It was fall, my favorite time of the year, bursting with all the savory ingredients I craved like a culinary hedonist, the ingredients that turned my light on. All those varieties of beautiful squashes and root vegetables- the explosion of colors, the ochre yellows, lush greens, vivid reds, and a kaleidoscope of oranges- were just a few of the ingredients that fueled my cooking fantasies. In the summer, on those hot cooking days and nights in New York with rivulets of thick sweat coating my forehead, I'd fantasize about what we'd create in the fall, closing my eyes and cooking in my head.
Soon, the waitstaff would arrive to taste tonight's specials, which would be followed by our family meal. I eyed the board on the wall and licked my lips. The amuse-bouche consisted of a pan-seared foie gras served with caramelized pears; the entrée, a boar carpaccio with eggplant caviar, apples, and ginger; the two plats principaux, a cognac-flambéed seared sea scallop and shrimp plate served with deep-fried goat cheese and garnished with licorice-perfumed fennel leaves, which fell under my responsibility, and the chief's version of a beef Wellington served with a celeriac mash, baby carrots, and thin French green beans.
”
”
Samantha Verant (The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux (Sophie Valroux, #1))
“
Next, I drink a few more glasses of water containing liquid chlorophyll to build my blood. If I’m stressed, I’ll have some diluted black currant juice for an antioxidant boost to the adrenals. Once I’m hungry, I sip my way through a big green alkaline smoothie (a combination of spinach, cucumber, coconut, avocado, lime, and stevia is a favorite) or tuck into a fruit salad or parfait. And tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados are fruits, too; a morning salad is a good breakfast and keeps the sugar down. But, this kind of morning regime isn’t for everyone. You can get really hungry, particularly when you first start eating this way. And some people need to start the day with foods that deliver more heat and sustenance. If that’s how you roll, try having fruit or a green smoothie and then waiting for 30 minutes (if your breakfast includes bananas, pears, or avocados, make it 45) before eating something more. As a general rule, sour or acidic fruits (grapefruits, kiwis, and strawberries) can be combined with “protein fats” such as avocado, coconut, coconut kefir, and sprouted nuts and seeds. Both acid fruits and sub-acid fruits like apples, grapes, and pears can be eaten with cheeses; and vegetable fruits (avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers) can be eaten with fruits, vegetables, starches, and proteins. I’ve also found that apples combine well with raw vegetables. Leafy greens (spinach, kale, collard greens), along with the vegetable fruits noted above, are my go-to staples. They are the magic foods that combine well with every food on the planet. I blend them together in green smoothies, cold soups, and salads.
”
”
Tess Masters (The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks--100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes!)
“
My mother had a passion for all fruit except oranges, which she refused to allow in the house. She named each one of us, on a seeming whim, after a fruit and a recipe- Cassis, for her thick black-currant cake. Framboise, her raspberry liqueur, and Reinette after the reine-claude greengages that grew against the south wall of the house, thick as grapes, syrupy with wasps in midsummer. At one time we had over a hundred trees (apples, pears, plums, gages, cherries, quinces), not to mention the raspberry canes and the fields of strawberries, gooseberries, currants- the fruits of which were dried, stored, made into jams and liqueurs and wonderful cartwheel tarts on pâte brisée and crème pâtissière and almond paste. My memories are flavored with their scents, their colors, their names. My mother tended them as if they were her favorite children. Smudge pots against the frost, which we base every spring. And in summer, to keep the birds away, we would tie shapes cut out of silver paper onto the ends of the branches that would shiver and flick-flack in the wind, moose blowers of string drawn tightly across empty tin cans to make eerie bird-frightening sounds, windmills of colored paper that would spin wildly, so that the orchard was a carnival of baubles and shining ribbons and shrieking wires, like a Christmas party in midsummer. And the trees all had names.
Belle Yvonne, my mother would say as she passed a gnarled pear tree. Rose d'Aquitane. Beurre du Roe Henry. Her voice at these times was soft, almost monotone. I could not tell whether she was speaking to me or to herself. Conference. Williams. Ghislane de Penthièvre. This sweetness.
”
”
Joanne Harris (Five Quarters of the Orange)
“
PORK WITH HONEY-LIME MARINADE (Serves 4) Juice of two limes ¼ cup honey ¼ cup olive oil 1 garlic clove, grated 1 teaspoon hot sauce (you can use red pepper flakes for less heat) Pork tenderloin, trimmed (1 pound) Whisk first five ingredients together. Pour half of marinade into a ziplock bag and add pork tenderloin. Marinate for at least 1 hour. Preheat gas or charcoal grill for indirect grilling. Brush grate with canola or vegetable oil. Cook pork indirectly 4 to 6 minutes per side until a meat thermometer registers 145 degrees. Remove from grill and brush with remaining marinade. Let meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing. KALE SALAD WITH HONEY LEMON VINAIGRETTE 1 bunch kale ½ lemon, reserving other half for vinaigrette Pinch of sea salt Wash and dry kale, tear into small pieces. In a large bowl, squeeze lemon over kale, sprinkle the sea salt over kale, and gently massage the lemon and salt into the kale. This will slightly soften the kale. VINAIGRETTE 1 tablespoon honey Juice of ½ lemon Pinch of ground pepper ¼ cup olive oil In a small bowl combine honey, juice from remaining lemon, ground pepper, and oil. Whisk gently and pour over kale. Suggested Toppings Sliced almonds and sliced pears Crushed walnuts and sliced apples Goat cheese and pine nuts (honey pine nuts recipe below can be used) HONEY PINE NUTS 2 tablespoons honey ½ cup pine nuts (any nut can be substituted) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray. In a small pan stir honey and nuts until honey becomes liquid. Spread mixture on baking sheet and let it set for 30 to 60 minutes. Break into small pieces and use on top of salads or ice cream. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. HONEY-GLAZED SPICED DONUTS (Makes a dozen)
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Mad Honey)
“
Yuda and myself did not dwell much on the matter, but it brought about discussions about food constantly. As an example, in the first 4 to 5 years of my life in Israel, I never ate an apple. I enjoyed the plentiful citrus fruits and never made an issue that apples, pears and peaches were beyond my means and expectations. The first few years, known as years of "Tsena," austerity, shortages, remained in my mind as trying times because other areas of daily life were also hard to cope with: housing, high rates for electricity, no telephone, shortages of textiles - a tough life.
”
”
Pearl Fichman (Before Memories Fade)
“
The Gandhian idea of basic education is to observe the child, to help like a gardener helps the acorn, or the seed, an apple seed, or a tomato seed, or a potato seed, or whatever seed it is. A gardener does not tell an oak to be an ash. A gardener does not tell an apple to be a pear. A gardener says, “Apple if you are an apple seed, be an apple, and I will help you: I will water you, I will put some stakes so that you are not blown away in the wind.
”
”
Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko (Natural Born Learners: Unschooling and Autonomy in Education.)
“
Man and woman could enjoy everything in God’s entire creation, with the exception of one thing, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it” (Gen. 2:17). That one tree speaks to us of choice; and we know that love cannot be real unless it can be chosen or refused. Notice this is a tree of the “knowledge of good and evil,” not a pear tree or an apple tree or a common fruit tree. God’s perfect plan was to make an incomplete man-woman whose perfect love, sufficiency, and completion was found only in his and her God. It’s accurately been said that there’s a God-shaped hole in all of us, and until that void is filled with God alone, we remain incomplete and unfulfilled.
”
”
Steve C. Shank (Schizophrenic God?: Finding Reality in Conflict, Confusion, and Contradiction)
“
An apple never bares a pear.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Browsing among the stalls, the sisters feasted on hand-sized pork pies, leek pasties, apples and pears, and to the girls’ delight, “gingerbread husbands.” The gingerbread had been pressed into wooden man-shaped molds, baked and gilded. The baker at the stall assured them that every unmarried maiden must eat a gingerbread husband for luck, if she wanted to catch the real thing someday.
A laughing mock argument sprang up between Amelia and the baker as she flatly refused one for herself, saying she had no wish to marry.
“But of course you do!” the baker declared with a sly grin. “It’s what every woman hopes for.”
Amelia smiled and passed the gingerbread men to her sisters. “How much for three, sir?”
“A farthing each.” He attempted to hand her a fourth. “And this for no charge. It would be a sad waste for a lovely blue-eyed lady to go without a husband.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Amelia protested. “Thank you, but I don’t—”
A new voice came from behind her. “She’ll take it.”
Discomfiture and pleasure seethed low in her body, and Amelia saw a dark masculine hand reaching out, dropping a silver piece into the baker’s upturned palm.
Hearing her sisters’ giggling exclamations, Amelia turned and looked up into a pair of bright hazel eyes.
“You need the luck,” Cam Rohan said, pushing the gingerbread husband into her reluctant hands. “Have some.”
She obeyed, deliberately biting off the head, and he laughed.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1))
“
FOODS KNOWN TO BE HIGH IN FODMAPS THAT SHOULD THEREFORE BE RESTRICTED* Additives (sweeteners and added fiber): fructo-oligosaccharides, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, inulin, isomalt, mannitol, maltitol, polydextrose, sorbitol, xylitol Cereal and grain foods: bran (from wheat, rye, or barley); bread (from wheat, rye, or barley); breakfast cereals, granolas, and muesli (from wheat, rye, or barley); crackers (from wheat or rye); pasta, including couscous and gnocchi (from wheat); wheat noodles (chow mein, udon, etc.) Drinks: chamomile and fennel tea, chicory-based coffee substitutes, juices made from unsuitable fruits (below) Fruits: apples, apricots, Asian pears, blackberries, boysenberries, cherries, figs, mangoes, nectarines, peaches, pears, persimmons, plums, prunes, tamarillos, watermelon, white peaches Legumes: beans (all kinds, including certain forms of soy, such as textured vegetable protein/TVP), chickpeas, lentils Milk and milk products: custard, ice cream, milk (cow’s, goat’s, and sheep’s, including whole, low-fat, skim, evaporated, and condensed), pudding, soft cheeses, yogurt (cow’s, sheep’s, or goat’s) Nuts: cashews, pistachios Vegetables: artichokes (globe and Jerusalem), asparagus, cauliflower, garlic (and garlic powder in large amounts), leeks, mushrooms, onions (red, white, yellow, and onion powder), scallions (white part), shallots, snow peas, sugar snap peas
”
”
Sue Shepherd (The Low-FODMAP Diet Cookbook: 150 Simple, Flavorful, Gut-Friendly Recipes to Ease the Symptoms of IBS, Celiac Disease, Crohn's Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, and Other Digestive Disorders)
“
Tarek Mohamed Bouazizi, who burned himself to death in front of the governor’s offices in the town of Sidi Bouzid in December 2010.12 Bouazizi killed himself precisely one hour after a policewoman, backed by two municipal officers, had seized from him two crates of pears, a crate of bananas, three crates of apples and a second-hand electronic weight scale worth $179. Those scales were his only capital. He did not have legal title to his family’s home, which might otherwise have served as collateral for his business. His economic existence depended on the ‘fees’ he paid to officials to allow him to operate his fruit-stand on
”
”
Niall Ferguson (The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die)
“
PROTEIN one serving: ¼ egg, 2 thin strips of chicken, ½ meatball, 1 ounce fish, or 2 table-spoons purée. Good protein choices include meat, fish, poultry, eggs, tofu, or beans and lentils. grain one serving: ½ cup oatmeal or cooked rice, quinoa, pasta, or couscous; 2 slices baked oatmeal; or ½ slice toast, cut into sticks. fruit or vegetable one serving: 2 pieces, such as 2 slices of soft pear or steamed apple, 2 steamed carrot sticks, ¼ medium avocado, 2 small steamed broccoli florets, or 2 tablespoons purée. dairy one serving: ½ cup (4 ounces) full-fat yogurt; ¾ ounce full-fat cheese, shredded or cut into thin sticks. Cow’s milk is not recommended as a main drink for infants under 12 months. 4 to 6 months FIRST THING IN THE MORNING: Breastmilk on demand or 6–7 ounces formula BREAKFAST: 1–2 tablespoons cereal • 1–2 tablespoons fruit or vegetable MIDMORNING: Breastmilk on demand or 6–7 ounces formula LUNCH: 1–2 tablespoons cereal • 1–2 tablespoons fruit or vegetable OR breastmilk on demand or 6–7 ounces formula
”
”
Jenna Helwig (Baby-Led Feeding: A Natural Way to Raise Happy, Independent Eaters)
“
While I searched for Clothilde's ingredients, I found a few bottles of juniper eau-de-vie in the dry storage area, nestled among hundreds of glass jam jars filled with Grand-mère Odette's homemade compotes- fig, cherry, apple, strawberry, apricot, raspberry, pear, and peach.
”
”
Samantha Verant (The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux (Sophie Valroux, #1))
“
TIP: Want to get organic but budget and/or availability has you down? Get selective. Here’s the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2017 list of the “Dirty Dozen”—the top non-organic foods to avoid, due to their high content of potentially harmful pesticide residue as well as their “Clean 15” list of conventionally grown plants with the least amount of potentially harmful pesticides:*10 DIRTY DOZEN CLEAN 15 Strawberries Sweet Corn Spinach Avocados Nectarines Pineapples Apples Cabbage Peaches Onions Pears Sweet Peas Cherries Papayas Grapes Asparagus Celery Mangoes Tomatoes Eggplant Sweet Bell Peppers Honeydew Potatoes Kiwi Cantaloupe Cauliflower Grapefruit
”
”
Rich Roll (Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself)
“
Phase I Shopping List For smoothies: 5 red apples 5 small bananas 3 medium oranges 1 bag red or green grapes 5 pears 3 avocados (can use for soups, too) 1 bunch fresh spinach 3 limes 4 (10- or 12-ounce) bags frozen raspberries 2 (10- or 12-ounce) bags frozen blueberries 2 (16-ounce) bags frozen strawberries 1 (16-ounce) bag almonds (can also use for snacking) Ground cinnamon Almonds or 1 (16-ounce) bag almond meal, depending on the strength of your blender Plain or vanilla protein powder (see this page for a complete guide to buying protein powder) 1 (12-ounce) bag ground or whole flaxseeds or chia seeds, depending on the strength of your blender (Some, like the blenders I describe on this page, will be able to grind the seeds themselves. Less powerful machines might require ground seeds.) ½ gallon fat-free, 1 percent, or 2 percent organic milk (or unsweetened nondairy milk of your preference) 1 quart fat-free, 1 percent, or 2 percent plain Greek yogurt (Chobani, Oikos, Fage, Trader Joe’s, Siggi’s, or Icelandic Skyr) For soups: 1 head broccoli 2 medium zucchini 1 pound carrots (can be used for snacking, too) 1 box bouillon cubes (I prefer Knorr’s) Garlic powder Onion powder For snacks: 1 pint fresh blackberries or raspberries 1 small package high-fiber crackers, like Ryvita ½ pound low-fat cheese of your choice 1 (5-or-so-ounce) bag air-popped, low-cal popcorn 1 pound sliced turkey 1 (12-ounce) package frozen or fresh peeled edamame
”
”
Harley Pasternak (The Body Reset Diet: Power Your Metabolism, Blast Fat, and Shed Pounds in Just 15 Days)
“
Looking back a few years, we see that the first Bisy Backsons in this part of the world, the Puritans, practically worked themselves to death in the fields without getting much of anything in return for their tremendous efforts. They were actually starving until the wiser inhabitants of the land showed them a few things about working in harmony with the earth's rhythms. Now you plant; now you relax. Now you work the soil; now you leave it alone. The Puritans never really understood the second half, never really believed in it. And so, after two or three centuries of pushing, pushing, and pushing the once-fertile earth, and a few years of depleting its energy still further with synthetic stimulants, we have apples that taste like card-board, oranges that taste like tennis balls, and pears that taste like sweetened Styrofoam, all products of soil that is not allowed to relax. We're not supposed to complain, but There It Is.
”
”
Benjamin Hoff (The Tao of Pooh)
“
Red and white wine/Manischewitz cocktails
Apple cider challah/homemade date honey
Potato and apple tart with horseradish cream
Old-Fashioned braised brisket with tomatoes and paprika
Tzimmes duo: Honeyed parsnips with currants and saffron,
sweet potatoes with dried pears and prunes
Stuffed cabbage
Mini Jewish apple cakes with honeycomb ice cream
"What's the difference between 'Jewish apple cake' and regular apple cake?" Rachel asks.
I shrug. "Not sure. Maybe the fact that it's made with oil instead of butter? I think it's a regional thing.
”
”
Dana Bate (The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs)
“
There was Le Petits Mitrons, a cute little pink pâtisserie in Montmartre that specialized in tarts: chocolate-walnut, chocolate-pear, apple-pear, straight-up chocolate, straight-up apple, apricot, peach, rhubarb, fig, fruits-rouges, strawberry-cream, mixed fruit, and on and on.
”
”
Amy Thomas (Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate))
“
Nono kept his bees until 1966, the year of my birth...that Spring he gave all his hives into the care of a beekeeper neighbor, whose name we no longer remember. This was near the Draznica station, on the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina. Twenty-seven years later, in a new war, an entire village would be killed in this exact place. The living descendants of Nono's bees would buzz around the open eyes and nostrils of people who would no longer shoo them away.
An orchard grew just behind (his) apiary. Apples and the odd short, humble pear, up to the edge of the property. Every little piece of his land...borrowed from his son-in-law and daughter, was attended to, and its purpose and significance was clear to everyone - almost an entire human age would need to pass in order for the earth to forget him completely, to wipe from its surface his choices of what was to grow, and where.
”
”
Miljenko Jergović
“
There is one and only one answer to the question of how “rational” people satisfying their best interests would act. Rational actors must be coherent: they cannot prefer apples to oranges, oranges to pears, then pears to apples. If they did, then it would be difficult to generalize their behavior. It would also be difficult to project their behavior in time.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable)
“
Ask your lover what flavor of topping is preferred; there are endless possibilities. Peach and fresh ginger. Mixed berry. Apple, cinnamon, clove. Cardamom and pear. Lemon plum.
”
”
Jennifer Gold (The Ingredients of Us)
“
A plate of lobster rolls came next, followed by a romaine lettuce salad in a cut-glass bowl topped with fresh pear slices, walnuts, cranberries, and blue cheese crumbles. Glasses of sparkling water.
"Apple dumplings for dessert," said Amelia, as she settled on the chair Cade held for her. She gave him a soft smile, patted his hand. "Help yourselves.
”
”
Kate Angell (The Cottage on Pumpkin and Vine)