Cakes Are Special Quotes

We fatties have a bond, dude. It's like a secret society. We got all kinds of shit you don't know about. Handshakes, special fat people dances-we got these secret fugging lairs in the center of the earth and we go down there in the middle of the night when all the skinny kids are sleeping and eat cake and friend chicken and shit. Why d'you think Hollis is still sleeping, kafir? Because we were up all night in the secret lair injecting butter frosting into our veins. ...A fatty trusts another fatty.

She talked about wanting to be a part of something, wanting to be desired, to be 'special', craving to be loved. She talked about experiencing the kind of loneliness so immense it could swallow you up. She called it 'loneliness that crowds couldn't cure'.

Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, flaky scones. Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavoured and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins. There was enough food there to keep a starving family for a week.

what love looks like what does love look like the therapist asks one week after the breakup and i’m not sure how to answer her question except for the fact that i thought love looked so much like you that’s when it hit me and i realized how naive i had been to place an idea so beautiful on the image of a person as if anybody on this entire earth could encompass all love represented as if this emotion seven billion people tremble for would look like a five foot eleven medium-sized brown-skinned guy who likes eating frozen pizza for breakfast what does love look like the therapist asks again this time interrupting my thoughts midsentence and at this point i’m about to get up and walk right out the door except i paid too much money for this hour so instead i take a piercing look at her the way you look at someone when you’re about to hand it to them lips pursed tightly preparing to launch into conversation eyes digging deeply into theirs searching for all the weak spots they have hidden somewhere hair being tucked behind the ears as if you have to physically prepare for a conversation on the philosophies or rather disappointments of what love looks like well i tell her i don’t think love is him anymore if love was him he would be here wouldn’t he if he was the one for me wouldn’t he be the one sitting across from me if love was him it would have been simple i don’t think love is him anymore i repeat i think love never was i think i just wanted something was ready to give myself to something i believed was bigger than myself and when i saw someone who probably fit the part i made it very much my intention to make him my counterpart and i lost myself to him he took and he took wrapped me in the word special until i was so convinced he had eyes only to see me hands only to feel me a body only to be with me oh how he emptied me how does that make you feel interrupts the therapist well i said it kind of makes me feel like shit maybe we’re looking at it wrong we think it’s something to search for out there something meant to crash into us on our way out of an elevator or slip into our chair at a cafe somewhere appear at the end of an aisle at the bookstore looking the right amount of sexy and intellectual but i think love starts here everything else is just desire and projection of all our wants needs and fantasies but those externalities could never work out if we didn’t turn inward and learn how to love ourselves in order to love other people love does not look like a person love is our actions love is giving all we can even if it’s just the bigger slice of cake love is understanding we have the power to hurt one another but we are going to do everything in our power to make sure we don’t love is figuring out all the kind sweetness we deserve and when someone shows up saying they will provide it as you do but their actions seem to break you rather than build you love is knowing who to choose

Because, ten-year-olds of the world, you shouldn't believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know it won't make a bit of difference until after puberty. It's Newton's lost law: anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid. Won't it, Sebastian? Oh, yes, it will, my little Mandarin Chinese-learning, Poe-reciting, high-top-wearing friend. God bless you, wherever you are.

It was a moment he remembered for years after, as though a special small slice had been cut from the cake of time. If nothing fires between two people, such an instant simply falls back into the general wrack of memory.

It’s great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

It was sort of like Macbeth, thought Fat Charlie, an hour later; in fact, if the witches in Macbeth had been four little old ladies and if, instead of stirring cauldrons and intoning dread incantations, they had just welcomed Macbeth in and fed him turkey and rice and peas spread out on white china plates on a red-and-white patterned plastic tablecloth -- not to mention sweet potato pudding and spice cabbage -- and encouraged him to take second helpings, and thirds, and then, when Macbeth had declaimed that nay, he was stuffed nigh unto bursting and on his oath could truly eat no more, the witches had pressed upon him their own special island rice pudding and a large slice of Mrs. Bustamonte's famous pineapple upside-down cake, it would have been exactly like Macbeth.

He told me how special you are," he said, flashing Shay an unfriendly smile. "Because of your great-great-times-a-hundred-grandmother Eira who got us into this mess when she became a demon's mistress." "Thanks for reminding me," Shay said. "So now you know why you and Calla were supposed to cut my throat instead of a cake at your wedding. Too bad that didn't happen." Ren Stiffened. "I'm not sorry you made it out of Vail alive. As for the rest of it ... we'll see how that turns out, won't we?

Old Prague was a story-book city caked in grime: ancient, soot-blackened. History lived in every detail: in the deerstalker rooftops and the blue-sparking trams. He wandered the streets in disbelief, photographing everything, images from Kafka crowding into his head. With the turn of every corner it came back to him: the special frisson you get behind enemy lines.

Blessings are waiting, so don't miss the flight Your Birth Day Gonna be very shiny bright Look everywhere and adore every single sight May your BirThDay be filled with chocolates, Cakes & Candle Light May the happiness hugs you like soo tight Take me serious, because I am gentle and polite

Where is Frankie, anyway?" Dad asks. "It's almost noon. I'm surprised you two can stand the separation." I take a deep breath and gulp down some orange juice. Well, Dad, first Frankie lied to me about losing her virginity to the foreign exchange student on the soccer field, and how your first time can't be special and all that. Then we decided to have this twenty boy contest but we only met, like, half, and she lied again about sleeping with one of them when really they just kind of fooled around naked and broke up. Meanwhile, when I was casting off my virginity with boy number five (or was he six?), Frankie read my journal and found out that I was in love with Matt for a million years and by the way, right after you took that picture of us with all the cake and frosting, he kissed me and started this whole long thing that we weren't allowed to tell her about. Frankie was so mad that she threw my journal into the bottom of the ocean, where it was banished for all eternity with a lovesick mermaid who cries out pieces of sea glass. Are you going to eat that bacon? ... "I'll probably see her later," I say.

…ten year olds of the world, you shouldn’t believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know it won’t make a bit of difference until after puberty. It’s Newton’s lost law: anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid.

God meant for the Bible to be bread for our daily use, not just cake for special occasions.

You found what makes you special. Don't let anyone take that away from you best friend!

There is also a dimension of patience which links it to a special reverence for life. Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance. Put another way, too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising. So it is with us. If we are always selfishly taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we will not be.

For high school graduation in Finland, you wear a fluffy white hat with a black band. There's a ceremony in which they hand out diplomas, and when you come home all your relatives are there with lots of champagne, flowers, and cake. And there's also a party for the entire class at a local restaurant. We did all that, and I guess I had fun, but I don't remember anything special about it. But ask me about the specs on my 68008-chip machine and I can rattle them off with total recall.

But…” Hazel gripped his shoulders and stared at him in amazement. “Frank, what happened to you?” “To me?” He stood, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t…” He looked down and realized what she meant. Triptolemus hadn’t gotten shorter. Frank was taller. His gut had shrunk. His chest seemed bulkier. Frank had had growth spurts before. Once he’d woken up two centimeters taller than when he’d gone to sleep. But this was nuts. It was as if some of the dragon and lion had stayed with him when he’d turned back to human. “Uh…I don’t…Maybe I can fix it.” Hazel laughed with delight. “Why? You look amazing!” “I—I do?” “I mean, you were handsome before! But you look older, and taller, and so distinguished—” Triptolemus heaved a dramatic sigh. “Yes, obviously some sort of blessing from Mars. Congratulations, blah, blah, blah. Now, if we’re done here…?” Frank glared at him. “We’re not done. Heal Nico.” The farm god rolled his eyes. He pointed at the corn plant, and BAM! Nico di Angelo appeared in an explosion of corn silk. Nico looked around in a panic. “I—I had the weirdest nightmare about popcorn.” He frowned at Frank. “Why are you taller?” “Everything’s fine,” Frank promised. “Triptolemus was about to tell us how to survive the House of Hades. Weren’t you, Trip?” The farm god raised his eyes to the ceiling, like, Why me, Demeter? “Fine,” Trip said. “When you arrive at Epirus, you will be offered a chalice to drink from.” “Offered by whom?” Nico asked. “Doesn’t matter,” Trip snapped. “Just know that it is filled with deadly poison.” Hazel shuddered. “So you’re saying that we shouldn’t drink it.” “No!” Trip said. “You must drink it, or you’ll never be able to make it through the temple. The poison connects you to the world of the dead, lets you pass into the lower levels. The secret to surviving is”—his eyes twinkled—“barley.” Frank stared at him. “Barley.” “In the front room, take some of my special barley. Make it into little cakes. Eat these before you step into the House of Hades. The barley will absorb the worst of the poison, so it will affect you, but not kill you.” “That’s it?” Nico demanded. “Hecate sent us halfway across Italy so you could tell us to eat barley?” “Good luck!” Triptolemus sprinted across the room and hopped in his chariot. “And, Frank Zhang, I forgive you! You’ve got spunk. If you ever change your mind, my offer is open. I’d love to see you get a degree in farming!” “Yeah,” Frank muttered. “Thanks.” The god pulled a lever on his chariot. The snake-wheels turned. The wings flapped. At the back of the room, the garage doors rolled open. “Oh, to be mobile again!” Trip cried. “So many ignorant lands in need of my knowledge. I will teach them the glories of tilling, irrigation, fertilizing!” The chariot lifted off and zipped out of the house, Triptolemus shouting to the sky, “Away, my serpents! Away!” “That,” Hazel said, “was very strange.” “The glories of fertilizing.” Nico brushed some corn silk off his shoulder. “Can we get out of here now?” Hazel put her hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Are you okay, really? You bartered for our lives. What did Triptolemus make you do?” Frank tried to hold it together. He scolded himself for feeling so weak. He could face an army of monsters, but as soon as Hazel showed him kindness, he wanted to break down and cry. “Those cow monsters…the katoblepones that poisoned you…I had to destroy them.” “That was brave,” Nico said. “There must have been, what, six or seven left in that herd.” “No.” Frank cleared his throat. “All of them. I killed all of them in the city.” Nico and Hazel stared at him in stunned silence. Frank

At Rainbow Cake, January's special flavors would be dark chocolate and coffee, those pick-me-ups we all needed to start the day- or a new year. To me, their toasty-toasty flavors said that even if you only had a mere handful of beans and your life went up in flames, you could still create something wonderful. A little trial by fire could do you good. After all, if it worked so well with raw cacao and coffee beans, it could work for others, including me.

There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. At Zomick's are specializations within the pastry chef field. Some pastry chefs specialize in baking breads, while others are master cake designers. Each field requires an exceptional level of creativity and attention to detail.

It was a moment he remembered for years after, as though a special small slice had been cut from the cake of time.

This way, when I do have something like special-occasion engagement cake, I can enjoy the whole damn thing without a twinge of remorse. I

If you promise to be good Paul you can have a piece of birthday cake but you won't have to eat any of the special candle-

If you promise to be good Paul you can have a piece of birthday cake but you won’t have to eat any of the special candle so he promised to be good because he didn’t want to be forced to eat any of the special candle but also because mostly because surely because Annie was great Annie was good let us thank her for our food including that we don’t have to eat girls just wanna have fun but something wicked this way comes please don’t make me eat my thumb Annie the mom Annie the goddess when Annie’s around you better stay honest she knows when you’ve been sleeping she knows when you’re awake she knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goddess’ sake you better not cry you better not pout but most of all you better not scream don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream don’t He

Luella had been Lou's favorite grandma. Some grandmas took their grandchildren to parks, or bought them books and dolls, or shared their special stories. Her grandma shared her recipes. She taught Lou how to check when a roast turkey was done, chop veggies without cutting off a finger, and bake a coconut cake grown men swooned over. A fog of comforting smells had perpetually blanketed her kitchen- an expression of her love so strong you could taste it. Lou caught the culinary bug during those early days and loved that she was named after her grandma, even if Lou believed she'd never make food quite as delicious.

Scarlet brushed her hair off her shoulder. "It's a lemon cake. My grandmother's special recipe. But" - her gaze swooped down Cinder's dress - "you might want to wait until after the coronation so you don't get frosting all over yourself." Winter snorted and grabbed the tray away from Kai. "Let's not be cruel. One should never save cake for later when it can be eaten now." She slid the cake onto a priceless silk divan.

So long as Sam wanted to take it up the ass with another dick in his mouth instead of politely pounding a pussy, he couldn't belong. Not here. Not ever. Any wedding Sam planned in this environment wouldn't just be an also-ran. It would be nothing short of a total disaster.

Beginning with Bilbo's unexpected party in chapter 1 with its tea, seed-cakes, buttered scones, apple-tarts, mince-pies, cheese, eggs, cold chicken, pickles, beer, coffee, and smoke rings, we find that a reverence, celebration, and love of the everyday is an essential part of Tolkien's moral vision

That's the other reason I came actually," Rhys continued. " I need to ask a favor." My eyebrows went up in surprise. "Okay, I'm listening." "Can you teach me how to bake a cake?" he asked. "My mom's birthday is next week , and I want to do something special." Be still my heart. This guy was something else.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the base Only sentries were stirring--they guarded the place. At the foot of each bunk sat a helmet and boot For the Santa of Soldiers to fill up with loot. The soldiers were sleeping and snoring away As they dreamed of “back home” on good Christmas Day. One snoozed with his rifle--he seemed so content. I slept with the letters my family had sent. When outside the tent there arose such a clatter. I sprang from my rack to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash. Poked out my head, and yelled, “What was that crash?” When what to my thrill and relief should appear, But one of our Blackhawks to give the all clear. More rattles and rumbles! I heard a deep whine! Then up drove eight Humvees, a jeep close behind… Each vehicle painted a bright Christmas green. With more lights and gold tinsel than I’d ever seen. The convoy commander leaped down and he paused. I knew then and there it was Sergeant McClaus! More rapid than rockets, his drivers they came When he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Cohen! Mendoza! Woslowski! McCord! Now, Li! Watts! Donetti! And Specialist Ford!” “Go fill up my sea bags with gifts large and small! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away, all!” In the blink of an eye, to their trucks the troops darted. As I drew in my head and was turning around, Through the tent flap the sergeant came in with a bound. He was dressed all in camo and looked quite a sight With a Santa had added for this special night. His eyes--sharp as lasers! He stood six feet six. His nose was quite crooked, his jaw hard as bricks! A stub of cigar he held clamped in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. A young driver walked in with a seabag in tow. McClaus took the bag, told the driver to go. Then the sarge went to work. And his mission today? Bring Christmas from home to the troops far away! Tasty gifts from old friends in the helmets he laid. There were candies, and cookies, and cakes, all homemade. Many parents sent phone cards so soldiers could hear Treasured voices and laughter of those they held dear. Loving husbands and wives had mailed photos galore Of weddings and birthdays and first steps and more. And for each soldier’s boot, like a warm, happy hug, There was art from the children at home sweet and snug. As he finished the job--did I see a twinkle? Was that a small smile or instead just a wrinkle? To the top of his brow he raised up his hand And gave a salute that made me feel grand. I gasped in surprise when, his face all aglow, He gave a huge grin and a big HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! from the barracks and then from the base. HO! HO! HO! as the convoy sped up into space. As the camp radar lost him, I heard this faint call: “HAPPY CHRISTMAS, BRAVE SOLDIERS! MAY PEACE COME TO ALL!

If you’re trying to create a company, it’s like baking a cake. You have to have all the ingredients in the right proportion. There’s certain special skills, especially in advanced engineering, that are the limiting factor in creating new companies; we send these people home after training them in our graduate schools.

When the clowns of British politics - arch-Brexiteer cartoon characters 'Boorish Johnson' and 'JackOff Grease-Smug' advocate ad infinitum that Britain should leave the EU in order to be free to sign her own trade deals; they seem to have overlooked the towering elephant in the room, namely the current occupant of the White House (another clown) - who appears hell-bent on destabilising world trade via crude protectionist policies. Both Tories, despite receiving the best British education money can buy, would do well to revisit their post war history books and be reminded of one of the key objectives of the European Project and in due course the European Union - specifically to promote peace and prosperity amongst previously warring neighbours by forming a unified trading bloc which in time, due to its effective size, also acted as a useful counterweight to US hegemony. Go find another circus for your buffoonery and leave the deadly serious business of politics to principled individuals with the true national interest at heart !

I've been keeping an eye out for the Charlie Brown Valentine's Day special. I know it will be on soon, and I never miss a Charlie Brown special. The best one is the Halloween show about the Great Pumpkin - which I've only missed one year in my life, due to the local ABC station having technical difficulties - but all the Peanuts shows make me feel like I'm one step closer to Halloween. The thing I like about the shows isn't the characters - it's the background. The colors are so amazing it almost takes my breath away. Every time I watch The Great Pumpkin I feel like I'm going to have a seizure during the scenes where Snoopy is in a dogfight. Just look at the background in those scenes. It really is too much to take. I can barely keep from holding my head in my hands and involuntarily groaning like I have a mouthful of the best chocolate cake ever made. I look at them and can literally smell the crisp autumn air - even in this cell. No horror movie in the world makes me feel the magick of Halloween as strongly as The Great Pumpkin.

focus on one cake. Each and every cake had its own personality. If you ignored a cake’s personality the cake would ignore you. It’ll be a rude, boring cake. I avoided making rude cake. These days, I avoided making cake, period. But if I had to do it, I made great cake. Fun cake. Cake with big dreams, difficult to ignore. Special cake. “Are you finished with the

Bake Week is a special kind of entertainment. It’s not just a show for bakers, though obviously that is the main activity. It is something else too, an escape of sorts, a glimpse into a simpler way of being where people are kind to one another and sugar isn’t thought of as junk food, but as something special to be shared and cherished. Where you can say “I love you” with a slice of cake.

It was not that long ago that dinner had meant swallowing down whatever you could get your filthy hands on. . . Dinner meant something different here. It meant half a day's work for two women. It mean polished crystal and silver, it meant a change of dress for the diners and a special suit of clothes for the servants to serve it up in. Here, dinner meant delay; it meant extending, with all the complexities of preparation and all those rituals of civility, the gap between hunger and its satisfaction. Here, now, it seemed that hunger itself might be relished, because its cessation was guaranteed; there always was - there always would be - meat and vegetables and dumplings and cakes and pies and plates and forks and pleases and thank yous, and endless plates of bread and butter.

We drank a cup of tea and ate a little umeboshi cake. I still remember the nice taste of that little cake in the shape of the sour umeboshi plum. Nothing special happened—we just sat there, eating that cake—but I felt really comfortable. That memory is very clear for me. Spending the day with my mother, just being present with her. No disturbance, no brothers there, just my mother and I, just living.

Promise me one thing, Lucy.” “Anything.” “Don’t tell anybody.” “I wouldn’t even tell Ike.” “I don’t care about Ike, or any of these people, what they think. It’s on account of the children, and I don’t want anybody at all to know it, for fear somebody’ll say something to them. They mustn’t know it—and specially not Veda.” “That Veda, if you ask me, has some funny ideas.” “I respect her ideas.” “I don’t.” “You don’t understand her. She has something in her that I thought I had, and now I find I haven’t. Pride, or whatever it is. Nothing on earth could make Veda do what I’m going to do.” “That pride, I wouldn’t give a snap of my finger for it. You’re quite right about her. Veda wouldn’t do it herself, but she’s perfectly willing to let you do it and eat the cake.” “I want her to have it. Cake—not just bread.

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

It’s not other people’s job to make you happy and fulfilled; it’s yours. It’s important to always be nice and respectful of others, but it’s even more important to be nice and respectful toward yourself. You have to live with yourself the rest of your life, so stop being so hard on yourself. Focus on your strengths and lead by example. You are special and unique in every way. And if other people don’t appreciate you for who you are, it’s their loss. Remember, there are some people who don’t even like chocolate cake!

Dear Lara Jean, I will give you your letter back on one condition. You have to make a solemn unbreakable vow that you will return it to me after you’re done reading it. I need physical proof that a girl liked me in middle school, otherwise who would ever believe it? And for what it’s worth, that peanut butter chocolate cake you baked was the best I ever ate. I never had another cake quite like that one, with my name written in Reese’s Pieces. I still think about it sometimes. A guy doesn’t forget a cake like that. I have one question for you. How many letters did you write? Just wondering how special I should feel. John

A lot of Britain’s secret war was fought at the end of long, sweeping drives like this one, running through neglected parks, between overgrown rhododendrons and dripping elms, to hidden country houses where codes were broken, special operations planned, the conversations of captured Nazi generals bugged, spies interrogated, agents trained. Kay had walked this drive for the past two years – always with an unwanted memory of school – and at the end of it stood Danesfield House, a mock-Elizabethan mansion, built at the turn of the century, as sparkling white as the icing on a wedding cake, with crenellated walls, steep red roofs and tall red-brick chimneys.

Anything good on the trucks?" "Some beautiful lake salmon, fresh asparagus, and new potatoes." "New enough their skin is peeling?" "Yes." "I know what we're going to do today!" Lou felt the excitement surge. This was why she loved cooking: getting amazing fresh ingredients and making something extraordinary. Luella's traditional French menu didn't leave much room for creativity, so the daily special had become Lou's canvas, where she was limited only by her imagination and whims. "We'll keep it a simple spring dinner. Roast the potatoes in butter, salt, and pepper. Maybe some thyme or tarragon, too. We'll top the salmon fillets with hollandaise and roast the asparagus.

I love you for the million kindnesses in your heart, your infectious enthusiasm, your search for the perfect deep-fried cheese curds. I love that you take apart a recipe, look at the parts, then put it back together better than before. I love that my first memory of you is the smell of vanilla, coconut, and bacon. I love that you wear Crocs in the kitchen and heels when we go on dates. I want to fill a wall with magnets for all our special memories. I want to carve the Thanksgiving turkey using your hand-painted carving set every year for the next fifty. I want to cook with you, laugh with you, make love to you, and most of all, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

You see I'm wearing the tie," said Bingo. "It suits you beautiful," said the girl. Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their age and sex; but poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification, and smirked in the most gruesome manner. "Well, what's it going to be today?" asked the girl, introducing the business touch into the conversation. Bingo studied the menu devoutly. "I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?" I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick. "Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to wash it down?" said Bingo. You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite au gourmet au champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right. Ghastly! Ghastly! A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them, and Mabel hopped it.

With the whip adequately cracked, the three of them formed an assembly line to fill each mold with dough and sweetened pineapple before pinching the edges together and placing the little cakes onto a cookie sheet that slid promptly into the oven. They crowded around to watch the squares turn golden until Waipo deemed them ready. She let them cool a touch before cutting one into thirds for them to taste. "They're hot," she cautioned. Andie took the smallest of bites. "Holy cow. This is incredible." The filling burned Charlie's tongue, but he had to agree. Waipo's pineapple cakes were the stuff of legend, and this particular batch tasted extra special. The crust was perfectly flaky, and the filling had hit that sweet spot of not too sugary and not too tart.

I knew how to bake. The first thing I was sure of was that this was all about cake. Pies, tarts and tartlets, a dozen different kinds of gorgeous cookies, soufflés- they all spun through my head and I dismissed them all. I was going to specialize. It also seemed to me that there was no single cake that could really represent what I could do. I got on my hands and knees and emptied out a low cupboard until I found a set of six-inch cake pans. With these it would be reasonable to take every restaurant three different kinds of cakes, one chocolate, one fruit, and one wild card, like the sweet potato cake or the scarlet empress. I had a Bundt pan that held about three cups of batter, and I thought of an almond cake surrounded by little marzipan birds, tiny yellow buntings asleep at the base. I was a fool for marzipan.

Each bite is a tidal wave of savory, fatty eel juices... ... made fresh and tangy by the complementary flavors of olive oil and tomato! ...! It's perfect! This dish has beautifully encapsulated the superbness of Capitone Eel!" "Capitone specifically means 'Large Female Eel'! It's exactly this kind of eel that is served during Natale season from Christmas to New Year's. Compared to normal eels, the Capitone is large, thick and juicy! In fact, it's considered a delicacy!" "Yes, I've heard of them! The Capitone is supposed to be significantly meatier than the standard Anguilla." *Anguilla is the Italian word for regular eels.* "Okay. So the Capitone is special. But is it special enough to make a dish so delicious the judges swoon?" "No. The secret to the Capitone's refined deliciousness in this dish lies with the tomatoes. You used San Marzanos, correct?" "Ha Ragione! (Exactly!) I specifically chose San Marzano tomatoes as the core of my dish!" Of the hundreds of varieties of tomato, the San Marzano Plum Tomato is one of the least juicy. Less juice means it makes a less watery and runny sauce when stewed! "Thanks to the San Marzano tomatoes, this dish's sauce remained thick and rich with a marvelously full-bodied taste. The blend of spices he used to season the sauce has done a splendid job of highlighting the eel's natural flavors as well." "You can't forget the wondrous polenta either. Crispy on the outside and creamy in the middle. There's no greater garnish for this dish." *Polenta is boiled cornmeal that is typically served as porridge or baked into cakes.* "Ah. I see. Every ingredient of his dish is intimately connected to the eel. Garlic to increase the fragrance, onion for condensed sweetness... ... and low-juice tomatoes. Those are the key ingredients.

Avocado Brownies   Vegetables have always been used in desserts, but this avocado brownie is truly special because the avocado gives it a lot of moisture and a smooth, creamy consistency. Just a square of this and your taste buds will be in heaven.   Yields: 10 servings   Ingredients: 2 ripe avocados, mashed 1 cup dark chocolate (72% cocoa), melted 1/4 cup coconut oil 1/2 cup agave syrup 2 brown eggs 1 cup almond flour 1/4 cup organic unsweetened cocoa powder 1 pinch salt 1 teaspoon baking soda   Directions: 1. In a bowl, mix the avocados with the melted chocolate, then stir in the eggs, agave syrup and coconut oil. 2. Fold in the almond flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. 3. Spoon the batter into a baking pan lined with parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. If it comes out with traces of batter, the cake needs a few more minutes in the oven. 4. When done, remove from the oven and let it cool completely before cutting in smaller portions.   Nutritional information per serving   Calories: 280 Fat: 20.6g Protein: 5g Carbohydrates: 24.7g

English Gingerbread Cake Serves: 12 to 16 Baking Time: 50 to 60 minutes Kyle Cathie, editor for the British version of The Cake Bible (and now a publisher), informed me in no uncertain terms that a book could not be called a cake "bible" in England if it did not contain the beloved gingerbread cake. When I went to England to retest all the cakes using British flour and ingredients, I developed this gingerbread recipe. Now that I have tasted it, I quite agree with Kyle. It is a moist spicy cake with an intriguing blend of buttery, lemony, wheaty, and treacly flavors. Cut into squares and decorated with pumpkin faces, it makes a delightful "treat" for Halloween. Batter Volume Ounce Gram unsalted butter (65° to 75°F/19° to 23°C) 8 tablespoons (1 stick) 4 113 golden syrup or light corn syrup 1¼ cups (10 fluid ounces) 15 425 dark brown sugar, preferably Muscovado ¼ cup, firmly packed 2 60 orange marmalade 1 heaping tablespoon 1.5 40 2 large eggs, at room temperature ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 fluid ounces) 3.5 100 milk 2/3 cup (5.3 fluid ounces) 5.6 160 cake flour (or bleached all-purpose flour) 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (or 1 cup), sifted into the cup and leveled off 4 115 whole wheat flour 1 cup minus 1 tablespoon (lightly spooned into the cup) 4 115 baking powder 1½ teaspoons . . cinnamon 1 teaspoon . . ground ginger 1 teaspoon . . baking soda ½ teaspoon . . salt pinch . . Special Equipment One 8 by 2-inch square cake pan or 9 by 2-inch round pan (see Note), wrapped with a cake strip, bottom coated with shortening, topped with a parchment square (or round), then coated with baking spray with flour Preheat the Oven Twenty minutes or more before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C. Mix the Liquid Ingredients In a small heavy saucepan, stir together the butter, golden syrup, sugar, and marmalade over medium-low heat until melted and uniform in color. Set aside uncovered until just barely warm, about 10 minutes. Whisk in the eggs and milk. Make the Batter In a large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter mixture, stirring with a large silicone spatula or spoon just until smooth and the consistency of thick soup. Using the silicone spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the Cake Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a wire cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. The cake should start to shrink from the sides of the pan only after removal from the oven. Cool the Cake Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. While the cake is cooling, make the syrup.

What a gentle, pleasing flavor! It's as if I've taken a bite of powdery snow! Using that special explosion oven, she baked thin sheets of piecrust at a high temperature until they were nice and crispy... layering them together to create a mille-feuille! One bite and they crumble into delicate flakes... which then meld with the elegantly smooth and sweetly rich meringue created by the blades of her chain carving knife! "Excellently done! With every bite I take... ... my mouth fills with flavorful joy. It's so good I can't help but writhe in my seat!" What?! Out of nowhere... my tongue was assaulted with an explosion of thick, full-bodied sweetness? "Ah! There are flakes of chocolate in between the mille-feuille layers?" "I call those my CLUSTER CHOCO CHIPS. I mixed almond powder and mint leaves into chocolate and then chilled it until it was good and hard." Crushing that chocolate with a sledgehammer, I deployed the fragments into the piecrust, set to explode with just enough firepower! Protected by the layers of crust, the chocolate didn't melt during baking and was instead tempered... resulting in chocolate chips that have the crunch and richness of baking chocolate! The more you eat, the more you trip, setting off a chain of explosions... ... as if triggering a cluster bomb! "These are the specs of what I have dubbed... ... my CLUSTER BOMB CAKE!

I take a cue from the list I made on my first night here alone and make soup. I chop vegetables and boil pasta, pour a carton of chicken stock into a pot. Once I’ve combined all the ingredients and it’s time to wait while they cook, I turn to the second essay in the solitude book, but my mind is too full of different versions of the last summer’s story. There’s one where I fail him. Where I stop coming home so he stops making dinner, and I’m not around to see how much he needs me. And then there’s one where he fails me. Where I feel it—that he doesn’t want me there, that I’m in the way. So I stay away, for him and for me. So that I never face his rejection. So that I get to pretend I’m the most important thing to him, the way he is to me. Because if we have any sense of self-preservation, we do the best with what we’re given. I was given cakes and cookies and rides to school. I was given songs and dinners at a table with brass candlesticks. I was given a man with a sensitive heart and a devious sense of humor and enough skill at cards to win me a year of private college—tuition and room and board—and I took all of those good things and told myself they made us special. Told myself they meant we were a family the way Mabel and Ana and Javier were, told myself that we weren’t missing anything. We were masters of collusion, Gramps and I. In that, at least, we were together.

What a wallop of rich, full-bodied flavor! Tangy spiciness is flooding in my mouth! This ain't no sweet tea cake! Ankimo?! It's filled with ankimo monkfish liver!" "Yep! You've got it in one. This here is a special little dish I made... I dub it THE ANKIMONAKA GUTS SANDWICH!" "Wait a minute. There were no rice wafer shells or batter in the ingredient trucks! How could you make a monaka sandwich?!" "Easy enough to make your own with a little cornstarch and shiratama rice flour. Squeeze some batter between two muffin molds- like these- bake them, and voilà! You have your own instant rice wafers. It's a pretty delicate operation, though, so you've gotta be patient and careful. As for the filling, I started out by trimming and deveining some monkfish liver, then I salted it to remove its fishiness. Next, I whipped up a broth of bonito stock seasoned with soy sauce, sake and sugar and then simmered the liver. I pressed it through a strainer until it was a nice, smooth paste and mixed in my handmade Shichimi red pepper blend. After that, all that was left was to stuff the rice wafer shells with it and serve!" Light, crispy wafers and thick, sticky monkfish-liver paste! Those two and the mountain yam he mixed in with them make for marvelously contrasting textures! And their flavors! The sharp spiciness spreads its addicting tingle through my entire mouth! He struck the perfect balance between the savory umami of the bonito stock and the salty soy sauce too... Which makes the tangy spiciness of his red pepper blend stand out all the more!

A depachika is like nothing else. It is the endless bounty of a hawker's bazaar, but with Japanese civility. It is Japanese food and foreign food, sweet and savory. The best depachika have more than a hundred specialized stands and cannot be understood on a single visit. I felt as though I had a handle on Life Supermarket the first time I shopped there, but I never felt entirely comfortable in a depachika. They are the food equivalent of Borges's "The Library of Babel": if it's edible, someone is probably selling it, but how do you find it? How do you resist the cakes and spices and Chinese delis and bento boxes you'll pass on the way? At the Isetan depachika, in Shinjuku, French pastry god Pierre Hermé sells his signature cakes and macarons. Not to be outdone, Franco-Japanese pastry god Sadaharu Aoki sells his own nearby. Tokyo is the best place in the world to eat French pastry. The quality and selection are as good as or better than in Paris, and the snootiness factor is zero. I wandered by a collection of things on sticks: yakitori at one stand, kushiage at another. Kushiage are panko-breaded and fried foods on sticks. At any depachika, you can buy kushiage either golden and cooked, or pale and raw to fry at home. Neither option is terribly appetizing: the fried stuff is losing crispness by the second, and who wants to deep-fry in a poorly ventilated Tokyo apartment in the summer? But the overall effect of the display is mesmerizing: look at all the different foods they've put on sticks! Pork, peppers, mushrooms, squash, taro, and two dozen other little cubes.

He took a napkin-wrapped package out of the bag and offered it to her. “Also,” he added, “I make a mean cheese sandwich. Try one.” Clary smiled reluctantly and sat down across from him. The stone floor of the greenhouse was cold against her skin, but it was pleasant after so many days of relentless heat. Out of the paper bag Jace drew some apples, a bar of fruit and nut chocolate, and a bottle of water. “Not a bad haul,” she said admiringly. The cheese sandwich was warm and a little limp, but it tasted fine. From one of the innumerable pockets inside his jacket, Jace produced a bone-handled knife that looked capable of disemboweling a grizzly. He set to work on the apples, carving them into meticulous eighths. “Well, it’s not birthday cake,” he said, handing her a section, “but hopefully it’s better than nothing.” “Nothing is what I was expecting, so thanks.” She took a bite. The apple tasted green and cool. “Nobody should get nothing on their birthday.” He was peeling the second apple, the skin coming away in long curling strips. “Birthdays should be special. My birthday was always the one day my father said I could do or have anything I wanted.” “Anything?” She laughed. “Like what kind of anything did you want?” “Well, when I was five, I wanted to take a bath in spaghetti.” “But he didn’t let you, right?” “No, that’s the thing. He did. He said it wasn’t expensive, and why not if that was what I wanted? He had the servants fill a bath with boiling water and pasta, and when it cooled down …” He shrugged. “I took a bath in it.” Servants? Clary thought. Out loud she said, “How was it?” “Slippery.

investigations and reported the completion of significant investigations without charges. Anytime a special prosecutor is named to look into the activities of a presidential administration it is big news, and, predictably, my decision was not popular at the Bush White House. A week after the announcement, I substituted for the attorney general at a cabinet meeting with the president. By tradition, the secretaries of state and defense sit flanking the president at the Cabinet Room table in the West Wing of the White House. The secretary of the treasury and the attorney general sit across the table, flanking the vice president. That meant that, as the substitute for the attorney general, I was at Vice President Dick Cheney’s left shoulder. Me, the man who had just appointed a special prosecutor to investigate his friend and most senior and trusted adviser, Scooter Libby. As we waited for the president, I figured I should be polite. I turned to Cheney and said, “Mr. Vice President, I’m Jim Comey from Justice.” Without turning to face me, he said, “I know. I’ve seen you on TV.” Cheney then locked his gaze ahead, as if I weren’t there. We waited in silence for the president. My view of the Brooklyn Bridge felt very far away. I had assured Fitzgerald at the outset that this was likely a five- or six-month assignment. There was some work to do, but it would be a piece of cake. He reminded me of that many times over the next four years, as he was savagely attacked by the Republicans and right-leaning media as some kind of maniacal Captain Ahab, pursuing a case that was a loser from the beginning. Fitzgerald had done exactly as I expected once he took over. He investigated to understand just who in government had spoken with the press about the CIA employee and what they were thinking when they did so. After careful examination, he ended in a place that didn’t surprise me on Armitage and Rove. But the Libby part—admittedly, a major loose end when I gave him the case—

The Iran/Contra cover-up The major elements of the Iran/Contra story were well known long before the 1986 exposures, apart from one fact: that the sale of arms to Iran via Israel and the illegal Contra war run out of Ollie North’s White House office were connected. The shipment of arms to Iran through Israel didn’t begin in 1985, when the congressional inquiry and the special prosecutor pick up the story. It began almost immediately after the fall of the Shah in 1979. By 1982, it was public knowledge that Israel was providing a large part of the arms for Iran—you could read it on the front page of the New York Times. In February 1982, the main Israeli figures whose names later appeared in the Iran/Contra hearings appeared on BBC television [the British Broadcasting Company, Britain’s national broadcasting service] and described how they had helped organize an arms flow to the Khomeini regime. In October 1982, the Israeli ambassador to the US stated publicly that Israel was sending arms to the Khomeini regime, “with the cooperation of the United States…at almost the highest level.” The high Israeli officials involved also gave the reasons: to establish links with elements of the military in Iran who might overthrow the regime, restoring the arrangements that prevailed under the Shah—standard operating procedure. As for the Contra war, the basic facts of the illegal North-CIA operations were known by 1985 (over a year before the story broke, when a US supply plane was shot down and a US agent, Eugene Hasenfus, was captured). The media simply chose to look the other way. So what finally generated the Iran/Contra scandal? A moment came when it was just impossible to suppress it any longer. When Hasenfus was shot down in Nicaragua while flying arms to the Contras for the CIA, and the Lebanese press reported that the US National Security Adviser was handing out Bibles and chocolate cakes in Teheran, the story just couldn’t be kept under wraps. After that, the connection between the two well-known stories emerged. We then move to the next phase: damage control. That’s what the follow-up was about. For more on all of this, see my Fateful Triangle (1983), Turning the Tide (1985), and Culture of Terrorism (1987).

In theory, toppings can include almost anything, but 95 percent of the ramen you consume in Japan will be topped with chashu, Chinese-style roasted pork. In a perfect world, that means luscious slices of marinated belly or shoulder, carefully basted over a low temperature until the fat has rendered and the meat collapses with a hard stare. Beyond the pork, the only other sure bet in a bowl of ramen is negi, thinly sliced green onion, little islands of allium sting in a sea of richness. Pickled bamboo shoots (menma), sheets of nori, bean sprouts, fish cake, raw garlic, and soy-soaked eggs are common constituents, but of course there is a whole world of outlier ingredients that make it into more esoteric bowls, which we'll get into later. While shape and size will vary depending on region and style, ramen noodles all share one thing in common: alkaline salts. Called kansui in Japanese, alkaline salts are what give the noodles a yellow tint and allow them to stand up to the blistering heat of the soup without degrading into a gummy mass. In fact, in the sprawling ecosystem of noodle soups, it may be the alkaline noodle alone that unites the ramen universe: "If it doesn't have kansui, it's not ramen," Kamimura says. Noodles and toppings are paramount in the ramen formula, but the broth is undoubtedly the soul of the bowl, there to unite the disparate tastes and textures at work in the dish. This is where a ramen chef makes his name. Broth can be made from an encyclopedia of flora and fauna: chicken, pork, fish, mushrooms, root vegetables, herbs, spices. Ramen broth isn't about nuance; it's about impact, which is why making most soup involves high heat, long cooking times, and giant heaps of chicken bones, pork bones, or both. Tare is the flavor base that anchors each bowl, that special potion- usually just an ounce or two of concentrated liquid- that bends ramen into one camp or another. In Sapporo, tare is made with miso. In Tokyo, soy sauce takes the lead. At enterprising ramen joints, you'll find tare made with up to two dozen ingredients, an apothecary's stash of dried fish and fungus and esoteric add-ons. The objective of tare is essentially the core objective of Japanese food itself: to pack as much umami as possible into every bite.

It’s more an affliction than the expression of any high-minded ideals. I watch Mark Bittman enjoy a perfectly and authentically prepared Spanish paella on TV, after which he demonstrates how his viewers can do it at home—in an aluminum saucepot—and I want to shove my head through the glass of my TV screen and take a giant bite out of his skull, scoop the soft, slurry-like material inside into my paw, and then throw it right back into his smug, fireplug face. The notion that anyone would believe Catherine Zeta-Jones as an obsessively perfectionist chef (particularly given the ridiculously clumsy, 1980s-looking food) in the wretched film No Reservations made me want to vomit blood, hunt down the producers, and kick them slowly to death. (Worse was the fact that the damn thing was a remake of the unusually excellent German chef flick Mostly Martha.) On Hell’s Kitchen, when Gordon Ramsay pretends that the criminally inept, desperately unhealthy gland case in front of him could ever stand a chance in hell of surviving even three minutes as “executive chef of the new Gordon Ramsay restaurant” (the putative grand prize for the finalist), I’m inexplicably actually angry on Gordon’s behalf. And he’s the one making a quarter-million dollars an episode—very contentedly, too, from all reports. The eye-searing “Kwanzaa Cake” clip on YouTube, of Sandra Lee doing things with store-bought angel food cake, canned frosting, and corn nuts, instead of being simply the unintentionally hilarious viral video it should be, makes me mad for all humanity. I. Just. Can’t. Help it. I wish, really, that I was so far up my own ass that I could somehow believe myself to be some kind of standard-bearer for good eating—or ombudsman, or even the deliverer of thoughtful critique. But that wouldn’t be true, would it? I’m just a cranky old fuck with what, I guess, could charitably be called “issues.” And I’m still angry. But eat the fucking fish on Monday already. Okay? I wrote those immortal words about not going for the Monday fish, the ones that’ll haunt me long after I’m crumbs in a can, knowing nothing other than New York City. And times, to be fair, have changed. Okay, I still would advise against the fish special at T.G.I. McSweenigan’s, “A Place for Beer,” on a Monday. Fresh fish, I’d guess, is probably not the main thrust of their business. But things are different now for chefs and cooks. The odds are better than ever that the guy slinging fish and chips back there in the kitchen actually gives a shit about what he’s doing. And even if he doesn’t, these days he has to figure that you might actually know the difference. Back when I wrote the book that changed my life, I was angriest—like a lot of chefs and cooks of my middling abilities—at my customers. They’ve changed. I’ve changed. About them, I’m not angry anymore.

It’s a cake,” he said, shoving both hands under the thing and raising it with some difficulty. “From my mother.” He managed to put it on the table without trapping his fingers. “Can you eat it?” said Nobby. “It’s taken months to get here. You’d think it would go stale.” “Oh, it’s to a special dwarfish recipe,” said Carrot. “Dwarfish cakes don’t go stale.” Sergeant Colon gave it another sharp rap. “I suppose not,” he conceded. “It’s incredibly sustaining,” said Carrot. “Practically magical. The secret has been handed down from dwarf to dwarf for centuries. One tiny piece of this and you won’t want anything to eat all day.” “Get away?” said Colon. “A dwarf can go hundreds of miles with a cake like this in his pack,” Carrot went on. “I bet he can,” said Colon gloomily, “I bet all the time he’d be thinking, ‘Bloody hell, I hope I can find something else to eat soon, otherwise it’s the bloody cake again.

A contemporary self-styled Epicurean is little more than a gastronomic fetishist: a foodie. The sage himself, by this measure, was certainly no Epicurean. An inscription placed outside the commune conveyed something of its presiding spirit: The host and keeper of this place, where you will find the pleasure of the highest good, will offer you freely cakes of barley and fresh spring water. This garden will not tease your appetite with the dainties of art but satisfy it with the bounties of nature. Will you not be a happy guest?

[Someone had left the lid off the big tin of fairies and, if they were to be used up before they went off then lovely, moist, stale-fairy cakes were the only option. Nota bene, years later all of the magic would be taken out of these little confections and they would become known in “global” “English” rather more drearily as “cupcakes”. This is why you can no longer buy tins of either fresh or dried fairies except in speciality comestible shops.]

What is an operating system, really? What did Cutler’s team wish to create? Picture a wealthy English household in the early 1900s. Think of a computer—the hardware—as a big house, the family’s residence. The house consists of plumbing and lighting, bricks and mortar, windows and doors—all manner of physical things and processes. Next, imagine computer software as the people in the house. The household staff, living downstairs, provide a whole range of services at once. The butler stands by the door, the driver washes the car, the housekeeper presses the linen, the cook provides meals and bakes cakes, the gardener rakes the leaves from the lawn. And this activity, which seemingly happens of its own accord, is coordinated by the head of the household staff. Such is the life of the downstairs dwellers, who in a certain sense exist in the background. Then consider the people upstairs. They are the whole reason for the toil of the people downstairs. The husband desires a driver not simply for peace of mind but because he wishes to travel. The wife employs a cook, so her family can eat well. The children benefit from the work of the gardener, who clears the yard of debris, enabling them to play outdoors safely. The picture of the family upstairs and their faithful downstairs servants neatly illustrates the great divide in the world of software. The people upstairs are the applications: the word-processing, electronic ledger, database, publishing and numerous other programs that satisfy human needs and wants. The people downstairs collectively perform the functions of an operating system. Theirs is a realm of services, some automatic, some requiring a special request. These services lay the basis for the good stuff of life. Cutler

FAMILY SYSTEM ROLES All families have roles. The father and mother play their roles of modeling what it is to be a man or woman, father or mother. Parents also model how to be intimate, have boundaries, cope with problems, fight fair, problem-solve, etc. The role of children is to be curious and to be learners. Members of a healthy family have flexible roles. Mom may be the heroine because she baked a special cake. Daughter may take over that role when she volunteers to do the dishes. Son becomes the hero when he notices smoke coming out the stove and prevents a fire. Dad’s the hero when he takes the family on a vacation.

Beatrice Bakery has the best Rich fruitcakes to enjoy as a family tradition or send on-line for special occasions. You will find we offer the largest assortment of fruitcakes and decadent desserts too.

I walked out onto the stage and I started telling the tale of the “Untold Story of the Origin of Zombies.” And it went like this: Where do Zombies come from? Not many people know. But after some extensive investigative Zombie journalism, we’ve discovered the truth. It all began when the human government decided that they wanted to create stronger soldiers. They had lost too many battles, and now they wanted to win every war that they fought. So they approached some soldiers in their army to join a special secret project. The only requirement was that the soldiers they chose had no living relatives. This way, no one could claim their bodies in case something went wrong. So, they exposed these soldiers to an experimental virus to enhance their abilities and make them into super soldiers. The experiment seemed to be working. But then, something terrible happened... The soldiers went crazy, and they were horribly disfigured. Ultimately, the experiment claimed their lives. But, when the soldiers were being prepared for burial, they suddenly came to life. They were not only walking, but they had enhanced strength, enhanced sense of smell and enhanced hearing. They attacked the soldiers in charge of burying them. And the recently bitten soldiers also transformed into the living dead. Before long, the entire army base was contaminated with the virus. Once everyone in the base was exposed, the virus mutated and the soldiers began having an overwhelming craving for something warm and mushy. They longed for brains! Soon, the army of the living dead found their way to the next unsuspecting town in search of brains. They attacked that town, biting anything that moved both human and animal. Soon that town was overrun. The virus spread from town to town, and city to city, until the entire world was contaminated. It was the first Zombie Apocalypse. After hundreds of years had passed, the Zombies started to evolve and began developing intelligent thoughts. They began forming villages, and then towns, and then entire cities of Zombies were created. The Zombies made great advances in health and science, and became highly advanced technologically. But, eventually the Zombies’ appetite for brains and warm flesh gave way to an even greater craving... The craving for CAKE! Their overwhelming desire for cake resulted in an explosive rise in the baking industry. Cake shops began springing up on every corner of every Zombie city street. They just couldn’t get enough! The human race began growing again, too. Human villages of farmers and miners began springing up. And because the Zombies were a peaceful race, they coexisted with the humans by staying away from them. But soon, the Zombie’s resources began to become scarce, especially the cake. So Zombies began scaring villagers in order to get the supplies they needed, especially the highly valued resource of cake. Now Zombies send their kids to Scare School to train their children from a very young age. They train them on how to effectively scare humans in order to get their needed supplies, especially cake. And so it has been until today. Thank you.

My aunt's life was now practically confined to two adjoining rooms, in one of which she would rest in the afternoon while they, aired the other. They were rooms of that country order which (just as in certain climes whole tracts of air or ocean are illuminated or scented by myriads of protozoa which we cannot see) fascinate our sense of smell with the countless odours springing from their own special virtues, wisdom, habits, a whole secret system of life, invisible, superabundant and profoundly moral, which their atmosphere holds in solution; smells natural enough indeed, and coloured by circumstances as are those of the neighbouring countryside, but already humanised, domesticated, confined, an exquisite, skilful, limpid jelly, blending all the fruits of the season which have left the orchard for the store-room, smells changing with the year, but plenishing, domestic smells, which compensate for the sharpness of hoar frost with the sweet savour of warm bread, smells lazy and punctual as a village clock, roving smells, pious smells; rejoicing in a peace which brings only an increase of anxiety, and in a prosiness which serves as a deep source of poetry to the stranger who passes through their midst without having lived amongst them. The air of those rooms was saturated with the fine bouquet of a silence so nourishing, so succulent that I could not enter them without a sort of greedy enjoyment, particularly on those first mornings, chilly still, of the Easter holidays, when I could taste it more fully, because I had just arrived then at Combray: before I went in to wish my aunt good day I would be kept waiting a little time in the outer room, where the sun, a wintry sun still, had crept in to warm itself before the fire, lighted already between its two brick sides and plastering all the room and everything in it with a smell of soot, making the room like one of those great open hearths which one finds in the country, or one of the canopied mantelpieces in old castles under which one sits hoping that in the world outside it is raining or snowing, hoping almost for a catastrophic deluge to add the romance of shelter and security to the comfort of a snug retreat; I would turn to and fro between the prayer-desk and the stamped velvet armchairs, each one always draped in its crocheted antimacassar, while the fire, baking like a pie the appetising smells with which the air of the room, was thickly clotted, which the dewy and sunny freshness of the morning had already 'raised' and started to 'set,' puffed them and glazed them and fluted them and swelled them into an invisible though not impalpable country cake, an immense puff-pastry, in which, barely waiting to savour the crustier, more delicate, more respectable, but also drier smells of the cupboard, the chest-of-drawers, and the patterned wall-paper I always returned with an unconfessed gluttony to bury myself in the nondescript, resinous, dull, indigestible, and fruity smell of the flowered quilt.

He feels like a delicious secret that is just for me. Like the little treat chefs hide in the kitchen for themselves for after the party is over... the oysters of the chicken, the ends of the brisket, the last piece of bacon, the corner brownie. Kissing Shawn feels like licking the bowl of frosting once the cake is finished, or eating the last spoonfuls of still-warm risotto in the pan while you are cleaning up. Extra special, private, the littlest bit naughty.

As Ross entered the kitchen, he saw Ernest sitting at the scrubbed wooden table. The boy wolfed down a plate of breakfast as if it were the first decent meal he'd had in months. Sophia stood at the range with the scrawny cook-maid, apparently showing her how to prepare the morning's fare. "Turn them like this," Sophia was saying, expertly flipping a row of little cakes on a griddle pan. The kitchen atmosphere was especially fragrant today, spiced with frying bacon, coffee, and sizzling batter. Sophia looked fresh and wholesome, the trim curves of her figure outlined by a white apron that covered her charcoal-gray dress. Her gleaming hair was pinned in a coil at the top of her head and tied with a blue ribbon. As she saw him standing in the doorway, a smile lit her sapphire eyes, and she was so dazzlingly pretty that Ross felt a painful jab low in his stomach. "Good morning, Sir Ross," she said. "Will you have some breakfast?" "No, thank you," he replied automatically. "Only a jug of coffee. I never..." He paused as the cook set a platter on the table. It was piled with steaming batter cakes sitting in a pool of blackberry sauce. He had a special fondness for blackberries. "Just one or two?" Sophia coaxed. Abruptly it became less important that he adhere to his usual habits. Perhaps he could make time for a little breakfast, Ross reasoned. A five-minute delay would make no difference in his schedule. He found himself seated at the table facing a plate heaped with cakes, crisp bacon, and coddled eggs. Sophia filled a mug with steaming black coffee, and smiled at him once more before resuming her place at the range with Eliza. Ross picked up his fork and stared at it as if he didn't quite know what to do with it. "They're good, sir," Ernest ventured, stuffing his mouth so greedily that it seemed likely he would choke. Ross took a bite of the fruit-soaked cake and washed it down with a swallow of hot coffee. As he continued to eat, he felt an unfamiliar sense of well-being. Good God, it had been a long time since he'd had anything other than Eliza's wretched concoctions. For the next few minutes Ross ate until the platter of cakes was demolished. Sophia came now and then to refill his cup or offer more bacon. The cozy warmth of the kitchen and the sight of Sophia as she moved about the room caused a tide of unwilling pleasure inside him.

Cannelés," Rosie said. Little cakes with a dark, caramelized exterior. They had the shininess of a perfectly glazed donut, and even though Rosie had never had one- you had to have a special pan to make them, a cannelé mold- she knew the inside was supposed to be like custard. "Exactement!" Chef Petit said proudly. "You have had before?" "No," Rosie said, at exactly the same time Bodie said, "Yeah, of course. With Dominique Ansel." Good gravy. Of course Bodie was running around eating cannelés with the man who invented the Cronut. His real life was her Instagram feed. "Please, try." He shook the basket at them. Rosie grabbed one eagerly- it was warm, but not hot. "Cannelés are from Bordeaux, not Paris, but I thought, why not try?" Rosie bit into hers and felt the slight crispness from the caramelized sugar on the exterior give way to a soft interior that was, yes, almost exactly like custard. She could taste vanilla- real vanilla, she had no doubt she'd seen flecks of vanilla beans- and the richness of eggs and milk, and oh, it was just so much better than she'd expected it to be. The contrast between inside and outside was unreal, like a magic trick- a pastry with a secret.

Sometimes people’s diets take on a religiosity of their own. I remember a man once telling me that he could never “go plant based” because he could never give up his grandma’s chicken soup. Huh? Then don’t! After I asked him to say hello to his bubby for me, I told him that enjoying her soup shouldn’t keep him from making healthier choices the rest of the time. The problem with all-or-nothing thinking is that it keeps people from even taking the first steps. The thought of never having pepperoni pizza again somehow turns into an excuse to keep ordering it every week. Why not scale down to once a month or reserve it for special occasions? We cannot let the “perfect” be the enemy of the good. It’s really the day-to-day stuff that matters most. What you eat on special occasions is insignificant compared to what you eat day in and day out. So don’t beat yourself up if you really want to put edible bacon-flavored candles on your birthday cake. (I’m not making those up!40) Your body has a remarkable ability to recover from sporadic insults as long as you’re not habitually poking it with a fork.

My father invited all the neighbors over for coffee and cake and a special viewing of “Buck’s slides.” Dutifully, I stood at the slide projector, savoring the darkness, listlessly clicking the advance button and describing the pyramids, the Temple of Nike, but I wasn’t there. I was at the pyramids, I was at the Temple of Nike. I was wondering about my shoes. Four months after the big meeting at Onitsuka, after I’d connected with those executives, and won them over, or so I thought—and still the shoes hadn’t arrived. I fired off a letter. Dear Sirs, Re our meeting of last fall, have you had a chance to ship the samples . . . ? Then I took a few days off, to sleep, wash my clothes, catch up with friends. I got a speedy reply from Onitsuka. “Shoes coming,” the letter said. “In just a little more days.” I showed the letter to my father. He winced. A little more days? “Buck,” he said, chuckling,

That is good. And what do you do with the rental?’ “I do have a great feast with honey and fine wine and spiced cake. Also I have bought me a scarlet tunic. And some day I shall buy me a young ass upon which to ride.

Speaking of cupcakes, Will wants two dozen off your special menu to take on the road after the wedding.” “The, erm, peach kind?” “The peach kind,” Lindsey said. “I like the peach kind,” Josh said. Mikey had named them Sex on a Peach. And they were Kimmie’s second biggest seller, after the Hairy Dicks, which were coconut cake balls strategically placed with Dahlia’s chocolate-covered, ice cream-filled bananas. And Josh’s frown had disappeared, and now he was grinning as if he knew it. All of it.

You just happen to be our ten thousandth customer," I lied, "and this is our special thank-you." I slid the bakery box across the counter to him. "Hmmmmm. Usually, I prefer to be number one, but I guess I can make an exception this time." He grinned. "What's in here?" He snapped the red-and-white -striped string on the white bakery box and opened the lid. A little greedy, too, I thought. Wanted to enjoy life now. He downed the cupcake in two bites- all moist devil's food with a dark truffle center, spread with a white-chocolate-and-coffee frosting I made with confectioner's sugar, the easy kind of buttercream. He grabbed a napkin to wipe the crumbs from his lips. "That was some cupcake, Cupcake." And I knew I had gotten him right. Strong, dark, and handsome chocolate truffle- that masculine "shoulder to lean on" fix that women loved. Risk-taking devil's food. Gregarious white chocolate, because it's boring alone, but good with almost any other ingredient. And take-charge coffee.

I tracked down a vegan baker and had this cake special ordered for tonight. It’s a vanilla cake made with almond milk and maple syrup, glazed with cocoa icing. The damn thing smells delicious, yet my mouth is as dry as the Sahara Desert. That’s probably because of the message. Or, I should say, question iced on top of the cake. Walking up to the kitchen, I see her shaking her booty as she sings to the loud music blasting through the apartment. In her hand, she has a knife and is cutting up a banana. On the stove, I can see a small pot of melted dark chocolate and what looks like toasted and chopped walnuts on a plate. “Hey, babe! You’re home too early.” She gives me a fake pout. “I wanted to surprise you.” Setting my chin on her shoulder, I place my hands on her hips and watch as she starts cutting up another banana. “Surprise me with what, Pixie?” “Something sweet for us to eat while we watch the movie tonight.” Kissing the side of her neck, I murmur into her skin, “I’ve got your sweet covered.” She looks at the box with curious eyes. “Oh? And what do you have there, Trevor Blake?” Lifting the lid, I push the now visible cake with its question closer to her, and she gasps. Her hands start to tremble, and I watch the hand holding the knife with a wary eye. Perhaps I should have asked her to put that down first. I watch her face as her eyes tear up at the question in red icing. Will You Marry Me? The ring is the dot at the bottom of the question mark, shiny and blinking at her. Standing here, I wait for an answer. And I wait more. Thing is, it’s too quiet. There are silent tears running down her face, but she’s not said a single word. Fuck. What if she isn’t ready for this? I open my mouth to try to fix this, but suddenly my little sprite is squealing loudly, jumping up and down. I should be fucking thrilled that she’s happy, but all I can see is that knife bouncing up and down with her little body. She’s talking so fast I can barely understand what she’s saying. “Oh-my-gosh-Trevor-are-you-serious-right-now!” “Babe, happy as hell that you’re excited, but can you do me a favor really quick?” Paisley stops jumping up and down and nods her head repeatedly like a bobble head doll. I have to stop myself from laughing at her. She smiles brightly at me. “If you wanna know my answer, it’s yes!” “Well, that, too. But, Pixie, can you please put down the knife? Would really fucking hate it if one of us got accidentally stabbed on the night that I’m asking you to become my wife.

Aren’t we waiting for Lori?” Jonah asked. Toby didn’t turn around as he answered. “Nah, she isn’t coming. We’ll meet up with her later today.” Great. Lori was too pissed to see him and Toby was like Antarctica. Jonah still wasn’t completely sure why they were so angry, given the fact that Zev hadn’t told anyone back home about their relationship. Well, there was one option; his old friends weren’t comfortable with him being gay. Tough shit. Jonah figured the best way to deal with the situation was to face it head-on. But as soon as they got into Jonah’s car, Toby started fiddling with the radio. Jonah decided to bide his time and wait for Toby to finish what he was doing so they could talk. He almost lost his composure when the other man landed on a Barry Manilow song and kept it there. Toby had to be the only Fanilow under the age of fifty. “So I’m guessing Lori told you about that guy in my apartment last night.” Toby’s posture immediately stiffened. Several long moments passed before he answered. “Yeah, she did.” “Anything you want to ask me about it, Toby? Might as well get it out there. No reason to walk on eggshells around each other.” “Ooookay,” Toby responded, drawing out the word. He took a deep breath and turned to face Jonah. “Did you stumble across a clearance sale on jackass cream or something? Maybe they were running a special on lobotomies?” Well, that was an unexpected response. “Huh? Whatta you mean?” “What I mean, Jonah…,” Toby said in a louder voice, “is that I know we’re all just a couple of bad decisions away from being one of those weirdos who buys fake nuts and hangs them on the back of his pickup truck, but you really managed to win the stupid cake last night.” Okay, this conversation wasn’t going exactly how Jonah had planned, but he still felt the need to defend himself. “Stupid? Why? Because I’m gay? That’s not a bad decision, Toby. It’s not a decision at all.” Jonah pulled into a parking lot of a decent diner, turned off the car, and turned to face Toby. The conversation was tense and awkward, but at least Toby’s atrocious music was no longer making Jonah’s ears bleed. Jonah would have preferred hearing his car engine drop out and drag across the asphalt than another cheesy ballad. “No shit, Sherlock. But cheating on Zev is a decision. A really bad decision.” Jonah’s mouth dropped open, and he snapped his eyes toward Toby in shock. Holy crap. Toby knew about his relationship with Zev. That meant Lori knew. As much as he hated being hidden from Zev’s family and life back in Etzgadol, Jonah didn’t want the man to be forced out against his will. “You know?” “Know what?” “About, um, me and Zev?” Toby rolled his eyes. “Of course I know. Just because I was blessed in the looks department doesn’t mean I was shorted anything upstairs. I’m not an idiot, Jonah.

But, Emmie”—Bothwell’s cultured tones drifted through the back doors of the hall—“you know I’ve missed you.” Emmie’s reply was murmured in low, unintelligible tones, causing St. Just to pause. The damned Kissing Vicar was about to strike again, but as a gentleman… As a gentleman, hell… St. Just did not pull the door shut loudly behind him, which would have afforded Bothwell a moment to protect the lady’s privacy. He charged into the hall, boots thumping on the wooden floor, jar of icing at the ready. “Now, Emmie…” Bothwell was kissing her, one of those teasing little kisses to the cheek that somehow wandered down to the corner of her mouth in anticipation of landing next on her lips. “Excuse me, Bothwell, didn’t realize you were about.” “Rosecroft.” Bothwell grinned at him, looking almost pleased to be caught at his flagrant flirting. “I’d heard you were back. My thanks for the use of your stables.” “And my thanks for keeping those juvenile hellions in shape. You need a horse, man, congregational politics be damned.” “Maybe someday.” Bothwell’s smile dimmed a little as his gaze turned to Emmie. “But for today, I’ve a wedding to perform.” And Bothwell had known, probably from experience, Emmie would be bringing her cake over. Absent a special license, the wedding would have to start in the next couple of hours, and St. Just suspected the vicar had been all but lying in wait for Emmie. “Em?” He brought her the icing. “Shall I go offer up a few for my immortal soul, or will we be going shortly?” “I won’t be long,” she said, brows knit as she positioned the second layer atop the little pedestals set on the first. “I just need to put the candied violets around the base when I’ve got the thing assembled, and maybe a few finishing touches.” “She’ll be hours.” The vicar smiled at her so indulgently that St. Just’s fist ached to put a different expression on the man’s face. “Come along, St. Just, and we can at least spend a few minutes in the sunshine.

CRUMB CAKE During my tenure as pastry chef at four-star Restaurant Daniel, I had a group of very special interns every Saturday, who were lovingly referred to as “Johnny’s Angels.” One of the angels was Martha Magliula, who is an avid home baker extraordinaire. Every Saturday she would bring two coffee cakes—one for the team and one just for me. I had to ration it to get me through until the next Saturday. When I decided to do a cookbook focused on home bakers, I knew I just had to feature her incredible coffee cake, which doesn’t skimp on the crumble topping. MAKES ONE 9 × 13-INCH CAKE; SERVES 12 TO 16

She considers a tray of flaky 'jesuites,' their centers redolent of frangipani cream, decorated with violet buds preserved in clouds of black crystal sugar. Or 'dulce de leche' tarts- caramelized swirls on a 'pate sucree' crust, glowing with chocolate, tiny muted peaks, ruffles of white pastry like Edwardian collars. But nothing seems special enough and nothing seems right. Nothing seems like Stanley. Avis brings out the meticulous botanical illustrations she did in school, pins them all around the kitchen like a room from Audubon's house. She thinks of slim layers of chocolate interspersed with a vanilla caramel. On top she might paint a frosted forest with hints of white chocolate, dashes of rosemary subtle as deja vu. A glissando of light spilling in butter-drops from one sweet lime leaf to the next. On a drawing pad she uses for designing wedding cakes, she begins sketching ruby-throated hummingbirds in flecks of raspberry fondant, a sub-equatorial sun depicted in neoclassical butter cream. At the center of the cake top, she draws figures regal and languid as Gauguin's island dwellers, meant to be Stanley, Nieves, and child. Their skin would be cocoa and coffee and motes of cherry melded with a few drops of cream. Then an icing border of tiny mermaids, nixies, selkies, and seahorses below, Pegasus, Icarus, and phoenix above.

As she piped rosettes, docked a sheet of dough, or doused a tart with sanding sugar, another world occurred on the doorstep. Now Avis answers the door herself and leads surprised delivery people into the front entrance, across the living room, and through the heavy swinging door to her kitchen. She almost enjoys the contact with the outside world. On Monday, there is a Colombian man who delivers free-range eggs and unpasteurized milk that glows like satin. Tuesdays, a woman from Lima bring special concoctions of candied lilacs and fruit peels and 'gelees,' and later a young boy comes with a box filled with dried starfruit and bananas and fresh tea, mint and sage from his father's botanical garden in the Redlands. She asks and forgets everyone's names, but next week, she thinks, she'll ask again. Some deliveries- like those from her son's market- come every week, others- like the fig balsamic vinegar- were special-ordered to accompany a single chocolate strawberry ice cream cake.

He could mentally picture, in great detail, some of the grand, intricately detailed pastries and cakes Lani had constructed at Gateau. Her inspired creations had drawn raves. She hadn't been a Beard nominee during her first year of eligibility for nothing. She'd worked tirelessly to perfect even the tiniest detail, not because the client- or an awards committee- would have noticed, but because it mattered to her that each effort be her best. In fact, it was her work ethic and dedication that had first caught his attention. She wasn't a grandstander, like most with her natural ability, behaving in whatever manner it took to stick out and be noticed. She let her work speak for her. And speak it did. It fairly shouted, in fact. Once he'd noticed, he couldn't help being further captivated by how different her demeanor was from most budding chefs. Bravado, with a healthy dose of self-confidence bordering on arrogance, was a trademark of the profession. Some would say it was a requirement. Leilani's quiet charm, and what he'd come to describe as her relentless calm and ruthless optimism had made an indelible mark on him. She wasn't like any baker he'd ever met, much less any top-notch chef. She cared, she labored- hard- and she lived, breathed, ate, and slept food, as any great chef did. But she was never frantic, never obsessed, never... overwrought, as most great chefs were. That teetering-off-the-cliff verve was the atmosphere he'd lived in, thrived on, almost his entire life. Leilani had that same core passion in spades, but it resided in a special place inside her. She simply allowed it to flow outward, like a quietly rippling stream, steady and true. As even the gentlest flowing stream could wear away the sturdiest stone, so had Leilani worn down any resistance he'd tried to build up against her steady charm... and she'd done it without even trying.

We've been making solidarity cakes this morning in support of you, ma chere," Franco said. "We're featuring your to-die-for black walnut spice cakes with cream cheese and cardamom frosting as today's special." "Thanks, you guys," Lani said sincerely. "Every detail! Call me!" Charlotte ordered before clicking off. Lani stood there, pastry bag still at the ready, and looked at the racks in front of her. And thought about her friends in New York. Solidarity cakes. Salvation cakes. "Healing the disgruntled, displaced, and just plain dissed," she said, smiling briefly. "One cake at a time.

But despite the chaos, Kitty B. is the best durn baker the town has ever known. She bakes all of the cakes and sweets for the town's social events, and she headed up the church cookbook publication, 'Lowcountry Manna', a few years back. That book made so much money for the parish that the vestry was able to put a new tin roof on the sanctuary and the rectory. Kitty B. has won numerous pie and cake contests across the southeast, and her lemon squares and hummingbird cakes were featured in 'Southern Living's' special baking issue two years ago.

Cosima lines up all her little jars of dried herbs and flowers, then carefully picks the ones she needs. "Acacia, for secret love. Celandine, for joys to come. Bluebell," she whispers, "for constancy. Bougainvillea, for passion. And chrysanthemum, for truth." She finds her special ceramic baking bowl and begins to add the usual ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. "And the only flavor strong enough to mask the flowers." Cosima opens the cupboard above her head and takes down two bars of the finest dark chocolate she's ever tasted. "Ninety-nine percent. Perfect." After she's grated a beetroot, for moisture, and added vanilla pods, for extra flavor, Cosima pours the dark, thick mixture into a small baking tin and slips it into the oven. An hour later, she cools the cake, then glazes its black (with a tint of purple) surface with a chocolate icing seasoned with a little dust of daffodil, passionflower, and cosmos: new beginnings, faith, joy in love and life.

From the Saturday afternoon Piper and her mother had gone to the animal shelter and spotted the little white dog with the floppy ears and a big brown patch around his left eye, they were goners. Piper had still been working on A Little Rain Must Fall, and it was the week before she attended her first---and last---Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony. She'd named the terrier Emmett in honor of the occasion, only later realizing how appropriate the moniker would be. The dog could just as easily have been named for world-famous clown Emmett Kelly. Happy-go-lucky and friendly, Emmett was very smart and responded exceptionally well to the obedience training Piper's father had insisted upon. But it was Piper's mother who cultivated the terrier's special talents, teaching him a series of tricks using food as a reward. The dog had already provided the Donovan family and their neighbors with hours and hours of delight and laughter when Terri came up with the idea of having Emmett featured in commercials for the bakery, which ran on the local-access cable channel. As a result, Emmett had become something of a celebrity in Hillwood.

H Mart is a supermarket chain that specializes in Asian food. The H stands for han ah reum, a Korean phrase that roughly translates to "one arm full of groceries." H Mart is where parachute kids flock to find the brand of instant noodles that reminds them of home. It's where Korean families buy rice cakes to make tteokguk, the beef and rice cake soup that brings in the New Year. It's the only place where you can find a giant vat of peeled garlic, because it's the only place that truly understands how much garlic you'll need for the kind of food your people eat. H Mart is freedom from the single-aisle "ethnic" section in regular grocery stores.

HEJ HEJ! CAFÉ MENU RULLEKEBAB Original (Rullekebab)----shaved seasoned beef, fresh flatbread, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, kebab sauce Blue Kebab (Rullekebab med blåmögelost)----Original Rullekebab with blue cheese Shroom Kebab (Rullekebab med champinjoner)----Original Rullekebab with mushrooms Hej Hej! Special Rullekebab----Original Rullekebab with pineapple, blue cheese, jalapeños HAMBURGARE Hand-patted, local grass-fed beef, homemade buns The Classic----beef, choice of cheese, bun The Gettysburg----caramelized shallots, mushrooms, blue cheese, bacon, balsamic glaze The Farfar----two patties, four slices of American cheese, four pieces of bacon The Gruff Burger----goat cheese, fries (on top!), caramelized shallots, poutine gravy to dip The Valedictorian----pepper-jack cheese, bacon, guacamole (from Rosa's) POMMES FRITES Fresh-cut fries Plain----with cheese or gravy to dip Loaded Kebab Fries----fresh-cut fries, chopped kebab meat, red and white kebab sauces, crumbled feta, diced jalapeños and tomatoes Goat Cheese Poutine----fresh-cut fries, house-made gravy, goat cheese crumbles MUNKAR Äpple Munk----fresh donut, cinnamon sugar, filled w/ apple and sweet cream Bär Munk----fresh donut, sugar, seasonal berry jam, sweet cream Munkhål----baby donuts (holes), cinnamon sugar Special Munk----daily and seasonal specials CUPCAKES Vanilla Wedding Cake, Devil's Food, Lemon, Strawberry Cheesecake, Weekly Specials SEASONAL TREATS Homemade Apple Crisp à la Mode Apple Fritters Pumpamunk Saffron Buns

SOME PASTRY TERMS Chef de pâtissier: pastry chef Gâteau: rich, elaborate sponge cake that can be molded into shapes, typically containing layers of crème, fruit, or nuts Pâtisserie(s): pastry/pastries Brioche(s): a soft, rich bread with a high egg and butter content Pain aux raisins: a flaky pastry filled with raisins and custard Chaussons aux pommes: French apple turnovers Pâte à choux: a light, buttery puff pastry dough Éclair: oblong desserts made of choux pastry filled with cream and topped with icing (often chocolate) Tarte au citron: lemon tart Macaron: a meringue-based confectionary sandwich filled with various flavored ganache, creams, or jams Croquembouche: a cone-shaped tower of confection created out of caramel-dipped, cream-filled pastry puffs and swathed in spun sugar threads, often served at French weddings or on special occasions Saint-Honoré: a dessert named for the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs Pâte feuilletée: a light, flaky puff pastry Vanilla crème pâtissière: vanilla pastry cream Hazelnut crème chiboust: a pastry cream lightened with Italian meringue Paris-brest: a wheel-shaped dessert made of pâte à choux and filled with praline cream. Created in 1910 by chef Louis Durand to commemorate the Paris-Brest, a bicycle race.

Another component it has, see, is the chocolate. The chocolate is this unbelievable deliciousness that everyone wants and is lucky to come into contact with. It's sweet, it's light, it's of the highest quality and best flavor. Just so much sugary goodness there." Benny turns over the piece of the Reese's Cup he's holding between his thumb and forefinger. I've given up trying not to cry. "But here it's complemented by peanut butter. Peanut butter, it's got protein, right? So it has a lot of strength. A little saltiness, a little punch---this peanut butter won't take your shit sitting down, y'know? Because peanut butter has been through a lot to get here in its current form. A long process, a whole lot of grinding and pressure and struggle, to come out as smooth and complex and amazing as it is." I see that Raj, Nia, and Lily have wandered into PK 2 and are standing with Seb and the others, watching with expressions ranging from confusion to astonishment to pure enjoyment as Benny gets more and more spirited. About cake. About clearly much more than cake. "Now, even with all it took, even with all that these ingredients had to go through, all the heat it's taken to make the cake what it is, people might not be fans of this cake. While it's objectively incredible, perhaps the greatest cake that has ever existed, it's still gonna have haters. There are those who might watch this video and feel the need to comment on this cake, and tell it that it's not as special as it is, or point out what they think are flaws. People will disagree with chocolate and peanut butter being delicious, a stance that is plainly wrong. Others might suggest that Friends of Flavor would somehow be better off without this cake, or that my limited experience making decent Italian food somehow make my presence here more valuable than this cake's. "Well, I'd like to make it clear that those people don't know a single fucking thing." Gasps echo through the room, including my own. Did he just say that? Live? "They don't know about this cake, they don't know how wonderful it is. They've never seen something so purely good, so unobjectionably awesome. They feel intimidated and inferior, because they are inferior and always will be. They don't have anything on this cake and they know it, so they sit behind their computer screens or stand behind their oversize egos and tear it down to try to prop themselves up. But they'll be lucky if they ever cross paths with a cake like this and it dares to spit in their direction.

you truly don’t have to wait until a special occasion to do anything, so go on & put the holiday tree up in august. stay up till dawn making that instagram-worthy cake. wear those glistening green heels. sprinkle cinnamon on absolutely everything. & before you can make excuses—who cares what other people may think or say? —it’s time you embraced what gives you joy

I've lived my whole life across the street from the Molinas, but this is the first time I set foot in Sugar. The theme inside is very gaudy. Twinkling lights shaped like icicles hanging from the ceiling. Red walls, just like the facade, the shade of Santa Claus's clothes. Glass shelves and counters polished until they sparkle, not one sign of fingerprints or kids' fogged breaths. There's a translucent wall in the back with display slots. Most are empty by now, but an assortment of bolos de rolo, Seu Romário's famous cakes, takes the main spot at the center. The special lighting shows off the traditionally super thin spiral layers--- twenty layers in this roll cake, he claims--- filled with guava and sprinkled with sugar granules that glisten like a dusting of crystals. The shelves to the right and left are packed with jujubas, bright candies, condensed milk puddings, cookies, broas, and sweet buns, filling the air with a strong, sweet perfume, the type you can actually taste. It's like being inside a candy factory.

Happy birthday, dear Maria,” sang Lizzie, along with everyone else. “Happy birthday to you!” Lizzie gave Maria a special smile as she sang. There were a lot of kids at the party — almost everybody in their class was there — but everyone knew that Lizzie Peterson and Maria Santiago were best friends. They sat next to each other in class, played on the same kickball team at recess, and always ate lunch together. They had the same favorite color (purple) and the same lucky number (eight). They both loved fudge ripple ice cream, cool socks, snowstorms, and reading. Most of all, Lizzie and Maria loved animals. That was why Maria had decided to have her birthday party at Caring Paws, the animal shelter where she and Lizzie both volunteered. It was Lizzie’s idea: she had gotten all excited when she had read about a boy who had his party at a shelter. “Instead of presents,” she’d told Maria, “everybody brought donations for the animals.” Maria wasn’t so sure at first. “Why don’t you do it for your birthday?” she’d asked Lizzie. “I will, but mine’s not for months and yours is coming right up. I know your real birthday isn’t until Monday, but we can have the party on Saturday. Come on, it’ll be fun! We can play animal-themed games, and decorate the meeting room with colorful paw prints, and have a dog bone–shaped cake, and everything.” Lizzie was full of ideas, and she could be very convincing. “It’s a great Caring Club activity, too. Think of all the donations you’ll get for the shelter. Ms. Dobbins will be very happy.” Ms. Dobbins was the shelter’s director. When Lizzie had started the Caring Club, Maria had been one of the first to join. Caring Club was for kids who loved animals and wanted to help them. Maria’s favorite animals were horses. She loved to ride, and she spent a lot of time at the stable. Lizzie had gone with her a few times, and had even taken riding lessons for a while, but she had never learned to love horses as much as she loved dogs. Lizzie really, really loved dogs. In fact, Lizzie was dog-crazy.

As if. No, that food needs to be eaten as quickly as possible so my health bar can regenerate in combat! Sword in one hand, half-eaten cookie in the other—that’s a real warrior! So today, during our break, when I jammed a whole slice of cake in my mouth, I wasn’t being a pig—no, no, no. I was just … training. Yeah. Training. That’s it. "Oh, I almost forgot," I said. "I bought you some robes just like mine. They’ve been in my inventory the whole time." I handed him the robes, the special boots, and the mask. He slipped into them immediately, then looked down at himself. "Hurrmmm. These robes are really cool and all, but … we look kind of similar now, don’t we?" He was right. Our robes were the same dark gray color.

In our early days together we often gave each other gifts. CDs we liked, books, photographs, travel souvenirs, or cakes and other small delicacies. When people are in the process of becoming intimate they give each other things, all kinds of small, miscellaneous offerings. Every exchange leaves a mark of one's existence in the others world and gradually widens the scope of it. Thus by degrees we become special to each other. That's how we were supposed to be.

This time it was a strawberry shortcake with homemade whipped cream. If Angela closed her eyes, she could still remember the fluffy perfection of the shortcake, the ripe flavor of the strawberries, the sweet thickness of the cream. But more than that, she remembered a summer day from her childhood that the cake made her recall. She'd been only seven years old, and on the hottest day of the summer, she and Daddy had gone down to Sweet Creek, which ran right through town, meandering behind houses and through the park, until it emptied into Dove Pond itself. Daddy had loved creeks, and there was nothing he liked better than to roll up his pants and walk barefoot over rocks worn smooth by cool, shimmering water. She'd learned to love that same experience herself. That summer day, the heat of the late afternoon had dissipated as the coolness of the water washed over their feet. They'd held hands as they walked, and had laughed and talked as they splashed and scared off more fish than she could count. Oh, how she relished that memory. And Ella's cake had made it so immediate, so real, that when Angela had finished swallowing the final bite, she'd had to wipe away happy tears. That had been one of the best days of her life. But then that was the beauty of an Ella Dove cake. It wasn't just the flawlessness of the bake, or the richness of the flavors, although they were something to behold themselves. It was the unexpected memories of those perfect combinations of flavor and texture stirred. The glimpses of special, exquisite moments from one's past were astoundingly real and, oh, so precious.

She would help Pappa and Annie and Angela make Miss Bennet welcome. They must give her plenty of biscuits and special cake. Then Miss Bennet might come again and one day she might turn into Annie’s new mamma.

Food allergies are no joking matter. We have a friend who left a Paris restaurant on a gurney because a waiter took it upon himself to interpret her stated Capsicum annuum (bell peppers) allergy as merely an intolerance. Another friend is fatally allergic to Arachis hypogaea (peanuts). Serious allergy sufferers carry epinephrine pens that can inhibit some allergic reactions. They never take risks, because the appearance of EMTs—emergency medical technicians—and a stretcher kills the vibe of any celebration. And any veteran chef who’s seen a severe allergy attack unfold at a party will work in good faith to make damn sure it never happens again. But more and more Americans dress up mild intolerances and preferences for food in allergy drag, perhaps to absolve themselves of the rudeness of expecting to be served a customized plate. Chefs and waiters share stories of such behavior constantly: guests who are “allergic” to dairy until the chocolate pudding comes out for dessert. The “celiac” who needs his first course and second course gluten-free and then asks for a second slice of cake. “It’s every party now,” Robb Garceau, now executive chef at Neuman’s Kitchen, told us. “Guest says: ‘I need a vegan first course!’ So we build a special salad just for her. And then we send her a vegan main. But she’s seen somebody else’s salmon. Captain tells me: ‘She wants the fish course.’ And I’m like: ‘What?! You were vegan half an hour ago!

To me, nothing showed how much times had changed more than the disappearance of the charlotte au chocolat. (It still appeared at weddings and special events, but was no longer available on the regular menu.) This came about when my mother stopped baking the desserts herself and hired a procession of young pastry chefs. These pastry chefs had gone to culinary school, and apparently they didn't understand charlotte au chocolat. It was an old-fashioned dessert, whose beauty spoke for itself; it didn't need any frills. But the pastry chefs liked embellishing desserts with frills now: star-shaped cookies and chocolate cigarettes and spun sugar that looked like golden spiderwebs. Now, whenever I ordered dessert, I chose from clementine granita with red-wine-poached pears, almond cake trimmed with candied orange rind, or triple-crème cheesecakes, soft and dripping with huckleberry sauce. Charlotte au chocolat was gone.

Dewey was wrong when he said that being noble enough is all we can ask for in this world, because we can ask for much more than that. We can ask for a second helping of pound cake even though someone has made it quite clear that we will not get any. We can ask for a new watercolor set, even though it will be pointed out that we never used the old one, and that all of the paints dried into a crumbly mess. We can ask for Japanese fighting fish, to keep us company in our bedroom, and we can ask for a special camera that will allow us to take photographs even in the dark, for obvious reasons, and we can ask for an extra sugar cube in our coffees in the morning and an extra pillow in our beds at night. We can ask for justice, and we can ask for a handkerchief and we can ask for cupcakes, and we can ask for all the soldiers in the world to lay down their weapons and join us in a rousing chorus of ‘Cry Me a River,’ if that happens to be our favorite song. But we can also ask for something we are much more likely to get, and that is to find a person or two, somewhere in our travels, who will tell us that we are noble enough, whether it is true or not. We can ask for someone who will say, ‘You are noble enough,’ and remind us of our good qualities when we have forgotten them, or cast them into doubt.