Blackberry Best Quotes

Not like Homer would I write, Not like Dante if I might, Not like Shakespeare at his best, Not like Goethe or the rest, Like myself, however small, Like myself, or not at all.

I am doing my best here. I will make it back to New York, but frankly, to spend some time in Paris, Missouri, is to come to question the city, where it is normal to work 24/7, tapping away on your BlackBerry for someone who will fire you in an instant, but crazy to pause to help someone you love when they are falling.

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best; and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries, or cherries, the rich spurt in the back of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing. Give me the lover who yanks open the door of his house and presses me to the wall in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I’m drenched and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload and begin their delicious diaspora through the cities and small towns of my body. To hell with the saints, with martyrs of my childhood meant to instruct me in the power of endurance and faith, to hell with the next world and its pallid angels swooning and sighing like Victorian girls. I want this world. I want to walk into the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along like I’m nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass, and I want to resist it. I want to go staggering and flailing my way through the bars and back rooms, through the gleaming hotels and weedy lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks where dogs are let off their leashes in spite of the signs, where they sniff each other and roll together in the grass, I want to lie down somewhere and suffer for love until it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again and put on that little black dress and wait for you, yes you, to come over here and get down on your knees and tell me just how fucking good I look. - “For Desire

Long walks are off, and alas, bathing in the sea; fillet steaks and apples and raw blackberries (teeth difficulties) and reading fine print. But there is a great deal left. Operas and concerts, and reading, and the enormous pleasure of dropping into bed and going to sleep, and dreams of every variety. Almost best of all, sitting in the sun--gently drowsing and there you are again--remembering. I remember, I remember, the house where I was born....

There was toast, too, cooked beneath the grill as my father cooked it, with homemade blackberry jam. There was the best cup of tea I ever drunk. By the fireplace, the kitten lapped at a saucer of creamy milk, and purred so loudly I could hear it across the room. I wished I could purr too, I would have purred then.

I’m putting on my own oxygen mask,” she whispered, doing her best not to give in to the need to throw up. “I’m saving myself. I’m allowed to do that. It’s going to be okay.

Jacob remained by Mollie’s side throughout the night, clinging to her hand as well as to her vow. She wasn’t going to leave him. She’d given her word, and Mollie never broke a promise. He prayed. He tended the cuts she’d suffered from the blackberry brambles when she’d fallen. The vines had grown entangled within a cedar’s branches, and as best he could tell, she’d climbed the tree in order to reach the ripe berries that other pickers had left behind. Unfortunately, the limb she’d shimmied out on had been weak and had broken beneath her weight. “You know, this tree climbing and dropping through busted church floors is going to have to stop after we’re married. My heart won’t be able to take the stress.” He smiled and ran the back of his finger down the smooth line of her cheek. “Not that I expect any dictate I give you to have much effect. My only hope is that you’ll grow to care enough about me that you’ll take pity on me and cease taking unnecessary risks with your life.

That color doesn’t remind me of eggplant, for what it’s worth. It reminds me of blackberries. The best berry, if you ask me. It reminds me of irises. They have the best scent of any flower. It reminds me of night, just before dawn. The best time of day.

Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, every one- from the commonest Liebfraumilch to the imperious Vueve Clicquot- a humble miracle. Everyday magic, Joe had called it. The transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams. Layman's alchemy. Take these six in Jay's cellar, for instance. The Specials. Not wines really meant for keeping, but he kept them all the same. For nostalgia's sake. For a special, yet-to-be-imagined occasion. Six bottles, each with its own small handwritten label and sealed with candle wax. Each had a cord of a different color knotted around its neck; raspberry red, elderflower green, blackberry blue, rose hip yellow, damson black. The last bottle was tied with a brown cord. Specials '75, said the label, the familiar writing faded to the color of old tea.

He pulled out stiff starched sheets, yellowed at the creases, each sheet embroidered with an elaborate medallion in which the letters D.F. twined above a garland of roses; some woman's trousseau from a hundred- two hundred- years back. There were other treasures too: sandalwood boxes of handkerchiefs, copper saucepans dulled with verdigris, an old radio from before the war, he guessed, its casing cracked to reveal tubes as big as doorknobs. Best of all was a huge old spice chest of rough black oak, some of its drawers still labeled in faded brown ink: Cannelle, Poivre Rouge, Lavande, Menthe Verte. The long-empty compartments were still fragrant with the scents of those spices, some dusted with a residue which colored his fingertips with cinnamon and ginger and paprika and turmeric.

NUTRIENT DENSITY SCORES OF THE TOP 30 SUPER FOODS To make it easy for you to achieve Super Immunity, I’ve listed my Top 30 Super Foods below. These foods are associated with protection against cancer and promotion of a long, healthy life. Include as many of these foods in your diet as you possibly can. You are what you eat. To be your best, you must eat the best! Collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens 100 Kale 100 Watercress 100 Brussels sprouts 90 Bok choy 85 Spinach 82 Arugula 77 Cabbage 59 Broccoli 52 Cauliflower 51 Romaine lettuce 45 Green and red peppers 41 Onions 37 Leeks 36 Strawberries 35 Mushrooms 35 Tomatoes and tomato products 33 Pomegranates / pomegranate juice 30 Carrots / carrot juice 30/37 Blackberries 29 Raspberries 27 Blueberries 27 Oranges 27 Seeds: flax, sunflower, sesame, hemp, chia 25 (avg) Red grapes 24 Cherries 21 Plums 11 Beans (all varieties) 11 Walnuts 10 Pistachio nuts 9 If you are a female eating

The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.

RIM shipped PlayBooks to major retail clients, such as Best Buy, which had preserved premium display space for the new product. Unfortunately, RIM had neglected to create a demo program to showcase and explain its latest product. With no helpful presentation on the screen of the device, shoppers were left to rummage around PlayBook programs on their own. Countless PlayBooks were immobilized after customers armed the devices with passwords, which the sales staff couldn’t unlock. “This happened hundreds of times,” says McDowell.

Not everyone was thrilled with Gutenberg’s creation. As today, there were pessimists and scolds who viewed new technology as a blight on civilization. In his recent book, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future, Robert Darnton quotes from a letter written in 1471 by an Italian scholar named Nic-colò Perotti. Though he’d initially seen the printed book as a good thing, just a decade and a half into the print age, Perotti concluded it was a menace: I see that things turned out quite differently from what I had hoped. Because now that anyone is free to print whatever they wish, they often disregard that which is best and instead write, merely for the sake of entertainment, what would best be forgotten, or, better still be erased from all books. And even when they write something worthwhile they twist it and corrupt it to the point where it would be much better to do without such books, rather than having a thousand copies spreading falsehoods over the whole world.

I’m really enjoying my solitude after feeling trapped by my family, friends and boyfriend. Just then I feel like making a resolution. A new year began six months ago but I feel like the time for change is now. No more whining about my pathetic life. I am going to change my life this very minute. Feeling as empowered as I felt when I read The Secret, I turn to reenter the hall. I know what I’ll do! Instead of listing all the things I’m going to do from this moment on, I’m going to list all the things I’m never going to do! I’ve always been unconventional (too unconventional if you ask my parents but I’ll save that account for later). I mentally begin to make my list of nevers. -I am never going to marry for money like Natasha just did. -I am never going to doubt my abilities again. -I am never going to… as I try to decide exactly what to resolve I spot an older lady wearing a bright red velvet churidar kurta. Yuck! I immediately know what my next resolution will be; I will never wear velvet. Even if it does become the most fashionable fabric ever (a highly unlikely phenomenon) I am quite enjoying my resolution making and am deciding what to resolve next when I notice Az and Raghav holding hands and smiling at each other. In that moment I know what my biggest resolve should be. -I will never have feelings for my best friend’s boyfriend. Or for any friend’s boyfriend, for that matter. That’s four resolutions down. Six more to go? Why not? It is 2012, after all. If the world really does end this year, at least I’ll go down knowing I completed ten resolutions. I don’t need to look too far to find my next resolution. Standing a few centimetres away, looking extremely uncomfortable as Rags and Az get more oblivious of his existence, is Deepak. -I will never stay in a relationship with someone I don’t love, I vow. Looking for inspiration for my next five resolutions, I try to observe everyone in the room. What catches my eye next is my cousin Mishka giggling uncontrollably while failing miserably at walking in a straight line. Why do people get completely trashed in public? It’s just so embarrassing and totally not worth it when you’re nursing a hangover the next day. I recoil as memories of a not so long ago night come rushing back to me. I still don’t know exactly what happened that night but the fragments that I do remember go something like this; dropping my Blackberry in the loo, picking it up and wiping it with my new Mango dress, falling flat on my face in the middle of the club twice, breaking my Nine West heels, kissing an ugly stranger (Az insists he was a drug dealer but I think she just says that to freak me out) at the bar and throwing up on the Bandra-Worli sea link from Az’s car. -I will never put myself in an embarrassing situation like that again. Ever. I usually vow to never drink so much when I’m lying in bed with a hangover the next day (just like 99% of the world) but this time I’m going to stick to my resolution. What should my next resolution be?

Joe had always pretended indifference to flowers. He preferred fruit trees, herbs and vegetables, things to be picked and harvested, stored, dried, pickled, bottled, pulped, made into wine. But there were always flowers in his garden all thee same. Planted as if on an afterthought: dahlias, poppies, lavender, hollyhocks. Roses twined among the tomatoes. Sweet peas among the bean poles. Part of it was camouflage, of course. Part of it a lure for bees. But the truth was that Joe liked flowers, and was reluctant even to pull weeds. Jay would not have seen the rose garden if he had not known where to look. The wall against which the roses had once been trained had been partly knocked down, leaving an irregular section of brick about fifteen feet long. Greenery had shot up it, almost reaching the top, creating a dense thicket in which he hardly recognized the roses themselves. With the shears he clipped a few briars free and revealed a single large red rose almost touching the ground. "Old rose," remarked Joe, peering closer. "Best kind for cookin'. You should try makin' some rose petal jam. Champion." Jay wielded the shears again, pulling the tendrils away from the bush. He could see more rosebuds now, tight and green away from the sun. The scent from the open flower was light and earthy.

TIO TITO’S SUBLIME LIME BAR COOKIES Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position. ½ cup finely-chopped coconut (measure after chopping—pack it down when you measure it) 1 cup cold salted butter (2 sticks, 8 ounces, ½ pound) ½ cup powdered (confectioners) sugar (no need to sift unless it’s got big lumps) 2 cups all-purpose flour (pack it down when you measure it)   4 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork) 2 cups white (granulated) sugar cup lime juice (freshly squeezed is best) cup vodka (I used Tito’s Handmade Vodka) ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ cup all-purpose flour (pack it down when you measure it) Powdered (confectioners) sugar to sprinkle on top Coconut Crust: To get your half-cup of finely-chopped coconut, you will need to put approximately ¾ cup of shredded coconut in the bowl of a food processor. (The coconut will pack down more when it’s finely-chopped so you’ll need more of the stuff out of the package to get the half-cup you need for this recipe.) Chop the shredded coconut up finely with the steel blade. Pour it out into a bowl and measure out ½ cup, packing it down when you measure it. Return the half-cup of finely chopped coconut to the food processor. (You can also do this by spreading out the shredded coconut on a cutting board and chopping it finely by hand.) Cut each stick of butter into eight pieces and arrange them in the bowl of the food processor on top of the chopped coconut. Sprinkle the powdered sugar and the flour on top of that. Zoop it all up with an on-and-off motion of the steel blade until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Prepare a 9-inch by 13-inch rectangular cake pan by spraying it with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray. Alternatively, for even easier removal, line the cake pan with heavy-duty foil and spray that with Pam. (Then all you have to do is lift the bar cookies out when they’re cool, peel off the foil, and cut them up into pieces.) Sprinkle the crust mixture into the prepared cake pan and spread it out with your fingers. Pat it down with a large spatula or with the palms of your impeccably clean hands. Hannah’s 1st Note: If your butter is a bit too soft, you may end up with a mass that balls up and clings to the food processor bowl. That’s okay. Just scoop it up and spread it out in the bottom of your prepared pan. (You can also do this in a bowl with a fork or a pie crust blender if you prefer.) Hannah’s 2nd Note: Don’t wash your food processor quite yet. You’ll need it to make the lime layer. (The same applies to your bowl and fork if you make the crust by hand.) Bake your coconut crust at 350 degrees F. for 15 minutes. While your crust is baking, prepare the lime layer. Lime Layer: Combine the eggs with the white sugar. (You can use your food processor and the steel blade to do this, or you can do it by hand in a bowl.) Add the lime juice, vodka, salt, and baking powder. Mix thoroughly. Add the flour and mix until everything is incorporated. (This mixture will be runny—it’s supposed to be.) When your crust has baked for 15 minutes, remove the pan from the oven and set it on a cold stovetop burner or a wire rack. Don’t shut off the oven! Just leave it on at 350 degrees F. Pour the lime layer mixture on top of the crust you just baked. Use potholders to pick up the pan and return it to the oven. Bake your Sublime Lime Bar Cookies for an additional 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and cool your lime bars in the pan on a cold stovetop burner or a wire rack. When the pan has cooled to room temperature, cover it with foil and refrigerate it until you’re ready to serve. Cut the bars into brownie-sized pieces, place them on a pretty platter, and sprinkle them lightly with powdered sugar. Yum! Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you would prefer not to use alcohol in these bar cookies, simply substitute whole milk for the vodka. This recipe works both ways and I can honestly tell you that I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like my Sublime Lime Bar Cookies!

He ran long at the White House, and arrived late to his next meeting with Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan and Frank Ruggiero—their first major strategy session on Taliban talks after the secret meeting with A-Rod. She was waiting in her outer office, a spacious room paneled in white and gilt wood, with tasseled blue and pink curtains and an array of colorfully upholstered chairs and couches. In my time reporting to her later, I only ever saw Clinton take the couch, with guests of honor in the large chair kitty-corner to her. She’d left it open for him that day. “He came rushing in. . . . ” Clinton later said. “And, you know, he was saying ‘oh I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’ ” He sat down heavily and shrugged off his coat, rattling off a litany of his latest meetings, including his stop-in at the White House. “That was typical Richard. It was, like, ‘I’m doing a million things and I’m trying to keep all the balls in the air,’ ” she remembered. As he was talking, a “scarlet red” flush went up his face, according to Clinton. He pressed his hands over his eyes, his chest heaving. “Richard, what’s the matter?” Clinton asked. “Something horrible is happening,” he said. A few minutes later, Holbrooke was in an ambulance, strapped to a gurney, headed to nearby George Washington University Hospital, where Clinton had told her own internist to prepare the emergency room. In his typically brash style, he’d demanded that the ambulance take him to the more distant Sibley Memorial Hospital. Clinton overruled him. One of our deputies on the SRAP team, Dan Feldman, rode with him and held his hand. Feldman didn’t have his BlackBerry, so he scrawled notes on a State Department expense form for a dinner at Meiwah Restaurant as Holbrooke dictated messages and a doctor assessed him. The notes are a nonlinear stream of Holbrooke’s indomitable personality, slashed through with medical realities. “Call Eric in Axelrod’s office,” the first read. Nearby: “aortic dissection—type A . . . operation risk @ > 50 percent”—that would be chance of death. A series of messages for people in his life, again interrupted by his deteriorating condition: “S”—Secretary Clinton—“why always together for medical crises?” (The year before, he’d been with Clinton when she fell to the concrete floor of the State Department garage, fracturing her elbow.) “Kids—how much love them + stepkids” . . . “best staff ever” . . . “don’t let him die here” . . . “vascular surgery” . . . “no flow, no feeling legs” . . . “clot” . . . and then, again: “don’t let him die here want to die at home w/ his fam.” The seriousness of the situation fully dawning on him, Holbrooke turned to job succession: “Tell Frank”—Ruggiero—“he’s acting.” And finally: “I love so many people . . . I have a lot left to do . . . my career in public service is over.” Holbrooke cracked wise until they put him under for surgery. “Get me anything you need,” he demanded. “A pig’s heart. Dan’s heart.

Personally, I type the left-hand side of my calendar on Microsoft Outlook, then print out the pages and write the right-hand side in longhand. That way I can easily revise my goals throughout the day using a pen, instead of tapping on my BlackBerry’s keyboard. Other people manage their calendar exclusively on their computer or smartphone, through Outlook or products such as Google Calendar. It doesn’t matter—do whichever works best for you. The Left-Hand Side: Meetings, Phone Calls, and Other Assignments Take a look at my schedule for the day. Note that I have not filled up every hour—there are several blocks of “free time” in my schedule.

Alan had loved her breakfast pastries best; Charlie craved her pies. He liked them true-blue American, folded roundabout in a blanket of pastry so that when you cut through it, out rushed the captive soft flesh of peaches, apricots, rhubarb, berries. His favorite was a pie she made with Anjou pears and blackberries, the bottom lined with frangipane.

But Stanley persisted in the kitchen, performing the small yet demanding apprentice's tasks she set for him- removing the skin from piles of almonds, grating snowy hills of lemon zest, the nightly sweeping of the kitchen floor and sponging of metal shelves. He didn't seem to mind: every day after school, he'd lean over the counter, watching her experiment with combinations- shifting flavors like the beads in a kaleidoscope- burnt sugar, hibiscus, rum, espresso, pear: dessert as a metaphor for something unresolvable. It was nothing like the slapdashery of cooking. Baking, to Avis, was no less precise than chemistry: an exquisite transfiguration. Every night, she lingered in the kitchen, analyzing her work, jotting notes, describing the way ingredients nestled: a slim layer of black chocolate hidden at the bottom of a praline tart, the essence of lavender stirred into a bowl of preserved wild blueberries. Stanley listened to his mother think out loud: he asked her questions and made suggestions- like mounding lemon meringue between layers of crisp pecan wafers- such a success that her corporate customers ordered it for banquets and company retreats. On the day Avis is thinking of, she sat in the den where they watched TV, letting her hand swim over the silk of her daughter's hair, imagining a dessert pistou of blackberry, creme fraiche, and nutmeg, in which floated tiny vanilla croutons. Felice was her audience, Avis's picky eater- difficult to please. Her "favorites" changed capriciously and at times, it seemed, deliberately, so that after Avis set out what once had been, in Felice's words, "the best ever"- say, a miniature roulade Pavlova with billows of cream and fresh kumquat- Felice would announce that she was now "tired" of kumquats.

When they woke the next morning, the fire had gone out and the Liddle was gone, but he’d left a sausage for them, and a dozen oatcakes folded up neatly in a green and white cloth. Some of the cakes had pinenuts baked in them and some had blackberries. Bran ate one of each, and still did not know which sort he liked the best. One day there would be Starks in Winterfell again, he told himself, and then he'd send for the Liddles and pay them back a hundredfold for every nut and berry.

From Shanghai, Meyer had sent seeds and cuttings of oats, millet, a thin-skinned watermelon, and new types of cotton. The staff of Fairchild's office watched with anticipation each time one of Meyer's shipments were unpacked. There were seeds of wild pears, new persimmons, and leaves of so-called Manchurian spinach that America's top spinach specialist would declare was the best America had ever seen. Meyer had delivered the first samples of asparagus ever to officially enter the United States. In 1908, few people had seen a soybean, a green legume common in central China. Even fewer people could have imagined that within one hundred years, the evolved descendants of soybeans that Meyer shipped back would cover the Midwest of the United States like a rug. Soybeans would be applied to more diverse uses than any other crop in history, as feed for livestock, food for humans (notably vegetarians), and even a renewable fuel called biodiesel. Meyer also hadn't come empty-handed. He had physically brought home a bounty, having taken from China a steamer of the Standard Oil Company that, unlike a passenger ship, allowed him limitless cargo and better onboard conditions for plant material. He arrived with twenty tons, including red blackberries, wild apricots, two large zelkova trees (similar to elms), Chinese holly shrub, twenty-two white-barked pines, eighteen forms of lilac, four viburnum bushes that produced edible red berries, two spirea bushes with little white flowers, a rhododendron bush with pink and purple flowers, an evergreen shrub called a daphne, thirty kinds of bamboo (some of them edible), four types of lilies, and a new strain of grassy lawn sedge.

MANY YEARS AGO, I had joined the local news desk of a prominent newspaper in Bengaluru, the sleepy south Indian town that became the country’s Silicon Valley. After trying my hand at crime reporting and general business journalism, I developed an interest in tracking technology. Among other things in the mid noughties, I had half a page in the paper to feature new gadgets every week. Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung and a few other companies were regulars on the page. While I was enjoying my work, my salary needed a boost. (The media industry’s decline was just about beginning, and salaries were as poor then as they are today.) Getting out of the rather difficult circumstances that I found myself in, I moved on to the Economic Times to report on technology. The business daily was India’s largest pink paper by circulation, and I worked with some of the best journalists of the time. My job was mainly to write about technology services companies. Soon I got bored with tracking quarterly results and rehearsed statements. This was around 2012, and India’s start-up ecosystem was in its infancy. I quit the paper to join a start-up blog. I didn’t ask for a raise. I was just happy to be able to write about start-ups and their founders. It was something new, and their excitement was infectious. In those days, ‘start-up’ was not a mainstream beat in India. Only niche blogs wrote about them. On the personal front, there were months when I was flat broke. One evening I sold my old Nokia 5800 for ₹300 at a second-hand electronics shop to buy a packet of biryani. That is still the best biryani I’ve ever had. The two years at the start-up blog were also my best two years ever. As start-ups became the buzzword, I went back to the pink paper to write about them. I was able to upgrade my life a little. I moved into a middle-class apartment with my family. I got some furniture and so on. After selling the Nokia phone, I used a feature phone for a few days. But now I had to upgrade my phone. After much research, I zeroed in on a Micromax handset. Micromax, a Gurgaon-based company that began making handsets in 2008, had some smartphones that were affordable on a young journalist’s salary. It was also a leading brand and had some interesting features such as dual SIM and a great touchscreen display. Going from a phone that ran on Symbian (Nokia’s proprietary operating system that failed) to an Android-based phone was like suddenly being

Berry Good Smoothie When trying to eat healthy, smoothies are your best friend. They taste great, they are packed full of fruit, and they're healthy. I feel as though we often forget about smoothies in our day to day life. Take full advantage of using smoothies when trying to keep a well-balanced diet. They make great snacks in between meals, are refreshing, and can cure cravings when you're looking for something sweet. When it comes to smoothies there's some really cool creations you can make and you can decide what you like the best, but here’s three great short recipes to get you started. Ingredients– - 1 Banana - 1/2 cup of Strawberries - 1/3 cup of Blackberries - 1/2 cup of Blueberries - 1/2 cup of Greek or Regular Yogurt - 5-6 Ice Cubes - 1/4 cup of Orange Juice Directions– Blend all of that goodness together. If consistency is too thick, add a bit more of milk to fit liking. Adjust flavors to fit desired taste. Serve.

Naturally, the air conditioner wasn’t working. It seemed the only time it worked was in the winter when she didn’t need it. Ditto for the heater, which seemed to work best in the summer.

The unexpected dinner invitation from the budgerow started Mr Doughty off on a journey of garrulous reminiscence. 'Oh my boy!' said the pilot to Zachary, as they stood leaning on the deck rail. 'The old Raja of Raskhali: I could tell you a story or two about him--Rascally-Roger I used to call him!' He laughed, thumping the deck with his cane. 'Now there was a lordly nigger if ever you saw one! Best kind of native--kept himself busy with his shrub and his nautch-girls and his tumashers. Wasn't a man in town who could put on a burra-khana like he did. Sheeshmull blazing with shammers and candles. Paltans of bearers and khidmutgars. Demijohns of French loll-shrub and carboys of iced simkin. And the karibat! In the old days the Rascally bobachee-connah was the best in the city. No fear of pishpash and cobbily-mash at the Rascally table. The dumbpokes and pillaus were good enough, but we old hands, we'd wait for the curry of cockup and the chitchky of pollock-saug. Oh he set a rankin table I can tell you--and mind you, supper was just the start: the real tumasher came later, in the nautch-connah. Now there was another chuckmuck sight for you! Rows of cursies for the sahibs and mems to sit on. Sittringies and tuckiers for the natives. The baboos puffing at their hubble-bubbles and the sahibs lighting their Sumatra buncuses. Cunchunees whirling and tickytaw boys beating their tobblers. Oh, that old loocher knew how to put on a nautch all right! He was a sly little shaytan too, the Rascally-Roger: if he saw you eyeing one of the pootlies, he'd send around a khidmutgar, bobbing and bowing, the picture of innocence. People would think you'd eaten one too many jellybees and needed to be shown to the cacatorium. But instead of the tottee-connah, off you'd go to a little hidden cumra, there to puckrow your dashy. Not a memsahib present any the wiser--and there you were, with your gobbler in a cunchunee's nether-whiskers, getting yourself a nice little taste of a blackberry-bush.' He breathed a nostalgic sigh. 'Oh they were grand old goll-mauls, those Rascally burra-khanas! No better place to get your tatters tickled.' Zachary nodded, as if no word of this had escaped him.

That color doesn’t remind me of eggplant, for what it’s worth. It reminds me of blackberries. The best berry if you ask me. It reminds me of irises. They have the best scent of any flower. It reminds me of night, just before dawn. The best time of day.” “You’re all the best things to me, Sloane. No matter how many bruises are in your heart or on your skin.

Mona rushed through the shower and selected her best dress, a slinky black wraparound number that she ordered on a whim, online. She piled her hair into a messy up do and lined her eyes in black liner with grey eye shadow for a smoky effect. Berry lip stick, dangly silver earrings and a spritz of perfume completed the look. Just as she was slipping on a pair of strappy heels, her cell phone buzzed. It was her Aunt Bee calling. “Darling! The BOGO sale is a great success. Alana says you almost brought the Frugalicious server down!” “I did!” “Blackberry ginger jam is a knock out!” “Well, it may have been knocked off too.” “Whatdya mean?” Aunt Bee asked. “Lacey MacInroy got hold of my recipes, and I understand she’s preparing my jam for the As You Slice It gala reception tonight.” “Why that little rat!” Aunt Bee said. “Are you going to the reception?” Mona asked. “No way! Alexander has never honored, not one of the Coupon Clipper’s requests for a sale. Are you going?” Aunt Bee asked. “Yup. On my way now. Wish me luck,” and as Mona hung up, she heard Aunt Bee squeak out, “Luck with what?” Mona admired her reflection in the mirror and declared herself ready for action. Grabbing her car keys and purse, she nearly stumbled, racing down the front steps. Driving into town, she felt a feeling she had not experienced in a long time, bravery. This new-found liberation from caring about what anyone thought about her was freeing. She felt like her old self once more, that girl she used to be the

Ask anyone in Pariva, and they would have agreed that Chiara Belmagio was the kindest, warmest girl in town. Her patience, especially, was legendary. Then again, anyone who had grown up with a sister like Ilaria Belmagio---local prima donna in both voice and demeanor---and still considered her to be their best friend had to be nothing short of an angel. Chiara was newly eighteen, having celebrated her birthday a month earlier, in June, and she was the middle child of Anna and Alberto Belmagio, beloved owners of Pariva's only bakery. In short, she had modest ability on the harpsichord, favored blackberry jam over chocolate, and loved to read outside under her family's lemon tree, where she often helped children with their arithmetic homework and nurtured nests of young doves. Like her neighbors, she knew each name and face of the 387 people in Pariva, but unlike most, she took the time to make anyone she encountered smile, even grumpy Mr. Tommaso---who was a challenge. And she took pleasure in it.

There is a reason, after all, that Mark Twain sent a lengthy bill of fare home ahead of him after he’d spent so much time in Europe. Among the things he’d missed the most were: "Virginia bacon, broiler; peach cobbler, Southern style; butter beans; sweet potatoes; green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper; succotash; soft-shell crabs." … And then there’s the exchange between Katherine Anne Porter and William Faulkner that occurred at a swanky French restaurant that was probably Maxim’s. They had dined well and enjoyed a fair amount of Burgundy and port, but at the end of the meal Faulkner’s eyes glazed over a bit and he said, "Back home the butter beans are in, the speckled ones," to which a visibly moved Porter could only respond, "Blackberries." Now, I’ve repeated this exchange in print at least once before, but I don’t care. No matter who we are or where we’ve been, we are all, apparently, ‘leveled’ by the same thing: our love of our sometimes lowly, always luscious cuisine—our love, in short, of Home.

Consume in limited quantities Non-cheese dairy—milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, butter Fruit—Berries are the best: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cranberries, and cherries. Be careful of the most sugary fruits, including pineapple, papaya, mango, and banana. Avoid dried fruit, especially figs and dates, due to the excessive sugar content. Whole corn (not to be confused with cornmeal or cornstarch, which should be avoided) Fruit juices Nonwheat, nongluten grains—quinoa, millet, sorghum, teff, amaranth, buckwheat, rice (brown and white), oats, wild rice Legumes—black beans, kidney beans, butter beans, Spanish beans, lima beans; lentils; chickpeas; potatoes (white and red), yams, sweet potatoes Soy products—tofu, tempeh, miso, natto; edamame, soybeans

WHOM DO YOU SPEND MORE time with: your best friend or your Blackberry? Thought so. Technology allows you to be constantly connected, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay available to everyone at all times. To give yourself time to recharge, get in the habit of setting aside time to literally unplug, says Linda Lantieri, director of The Inner Resilience Program, an organization focused on building emotional strength in school teachers. “I try not to turn on my computer at least one day a weekend,” says Lantieri. “At the end of a stressful week, I need to shift out of work mode in order to be present during my time off.” If taking a technology break isn’t an option, set some boundaries for yourself, like not viewing work e-mails after 8 p.m., or avoiding social networking sites on the weekend. By limiting your online distractions, you’ll be better able to engage with the friends and family who are physically—not virtually—with you, and make time for activities you enjoy, like reading or playing a sport, which help you recharge and beat burnout.