Caramel Quotes

There is nothing particularly wrong with salmon, of course, but like caramel candy, strawberry yogurt, or liquid carpet cleaner, if you eat too much of it you are not going to enjoy your meal.

Anyone who thinks they're too grown up or too sophisticated to eat caramel corn, is not invited to my house for dinner

Once, I believed in you like a poem, turned your heart into a metaphor for my heart, turned our mouths into honey and caramel lozenges. But metaphors come and metaphors go, and not even seasons have the courtesy to stay till dawn.

You can't just casually tell someone you carry caramel sauce around and walk away like thats a normal thing

The circus looks abandoned and empty. But you think perhaps you can smell caramel wafting through the evening breeze, beneath the crisp scent of the autumn leaves. A subtle sweetness at the edges of the cold.

Julie swallowed. "Flat Finn is on Facebook?" She'd love to see those status updates. 'Got strapped to the roof of the car today for a trip to Starbucks. Would have loved to taste caramel mocha, but can't move arms and so was forced to stare longingly at delicious hot beverage. Will the taunting never end?

F**k!" he exploded, chocolate and caramel flying out of his mouth. My heart seized. He looked like he was going to have a chocolate-caramel-layer-square-induced heart attack. ... "These are unbe-f**king-lievable. I think I've finally fallen in love, with a f**kin' brownie!

Conall,” “Aye, Alexia?” He looked up at her. Was that fear in his caramel eyes? “I am going to take advantage of you,” she said

He got a tan over break. I used to tell him he was so pale he looked like a marshmallow. He hated that I compared him to food. I told him that's what he got for calling me caramel. It shut him up.

…kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.

Heartache often drives us to consume things we wouldn't otherwise, such as an entire pint of Caramel Pecan Perfection high-fat ice cream, covered in ganache, the crack cocaine of frozed dairy. Twelve hundred calories per pint, six hundred and eighty of which are fat calories, but is only dulls the pain for the moment, there's that carb fog while you're standing at the sink shoving it in your face, and then it's over and you feel...used. Like a cheap pickup the Dove people seduced and abandoned in your kitchen, leaving you with sticky hands and an empty cup and a still-broken heart, except now you're mad at Dove, too.

I am plenty romantic. Just this morning while he slept, I had left Carter a box of his favorite candy next to his pillow - Globs: piles of white chocolate covered, crushed potato chips and pretzels drizzled with caramel. I figured it would soften him up to the note I placed next to the box telling him if he left the toilet seat up one more time and my ass got an involuntary bath at six in the morning, I would put super glue on the head of his penis while he slept. I had even signed the note with a couple of Xs and Os. Who says romance is dead?

Martin, at my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying caramel custard and looking at widows' necks.

Eighteen luscuios scrumpitous flavors, Chocolate,Lime and Cherry Coffee,Pumpkin, Fudge-Banana, Caramel Cream and boysenberry. Rocky Road and Toasted Almond, Butterscotch,Vanilla Dip, Butter Brinkle, Apple Ripple,Coconut,and Mocha Chip, Brandy Peach and Lemon Custard. Each scoop lovely.smooth and round. Tallest cream cone in town lying there on the ground.

Piper leaned toward [Jason], her caramel braid falling over her shoulder. Her multicolored eyes made it hard for him to think straight. “And where is this place?” she asked. “A . . . uh, a town called Split.” “Split.” She smelled really good—like blooming honeysuckle. “Um, yeah.” Jason wondered if Piper was working some sort of Aphrodite magic on him—like maybe every time he mentioned Reyna’s name, she would befuddle him so much he couldn’t think about anything but Piper. He supposed it wasn’t the worst sort of revenge.

Men often described the girl as having hair the color of wheat. Others called it the color of caramel, or occasionally the color of honey. The girl wondered why men so often used food to describe women’s features. There was a hunger to such men that was best avoided.

Her caramel skin and curly beach sand hair spreads in wavy chops like the choppy storm waves on the ocean. Her fluffy rose colored lips glisten with eyes emerald green and almond shaped set deep into her face and yet when she looks at you with those same deep set eyes, it feels like they jump out, speaking to you.

Instantly, her eyes widen into caramel marbles, and her face pales about five shades lighter. I’m ready to squirt some spray tan lotion on her if it means she doesn’t make it so damn obvious that she’s not happy to see me.

I think love is caramel. Sweet and fragant; always welcome. It is the gentle golden colour of a setting harvest sun; the warmth of a squeezed embrace; the easy melting of two souls into one and a taste that lingers even when everything else has melted away. Once tasted it is never forgotten.

I learned to find equal meaning in the repeated rituals of domestic life. Setting the table. Lighting the candles. Building the fire. Cooking. All those soufflés, all that crème caramel, all those daubes and albóndigas and gumbos. Clean sheets, stacks of clean towels, hurricane lamps for storms, enough water and food to see us through whatever geological event came our way. These fragments I have shored against my ruins, were the words that came to mind then. These fragments mattered to me. I believed in them. That I could find meaning in the intensely personal nature of life as a wife and mother did not seem inconsistent with finding meaning in the vast indifference of geology and the test shots.

Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing-gum that never loses its taste, and sugar balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds' eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little DARKRED sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.

He's so empty. They tried to stitch him back together, but too much already fell out. Stars and buttons and caramel truffles.

Hey, Red.” Josh looked me over, his eyes heating. “Nice to see you looking presentable for once.” “Nice to see you looking human for once.” I gave him an equally deliberate once-over. “How much did you pay for the skin suit to cover up your devil's horns and reptile skin?” “It was free. I'm just that charming,” he drawled. “I think the seller was just scared you'll suffocate him with your giant ego if you didn't leave soon.” His laugh rolled through me like molten caramel, rich and sweet. “I fucking missed you.

During the night he'd kicked off a sock; his toes were plump as early peas; it was all she could do not to taste his caramel skin. So much of the language of love was like that: you devoured someone with your eyes, you drank in the sight of him,you swallowed him whole. Love was sustenance, broken down and beating through your bloodstream.

Love isn’t roses. It’s those little square caramels and a root beer from the gas station because he knows that’s your favorite snack. It’s watching a musical with you without groaning. It’s handing you your glasses at night because he knows you’re too blind to find your way to the bathroom without them. Love is awkward.

Thank you for my surprise. Now, I won't be able to eat a caramel without thinking about being balls deep inside your sweet, warm pussy.

I was in love with her. I could feel it, deep in the soft, chewy caramel center of my being. And

I feel like I’m sugar under a blowtorch, like he’s caramelizing my blood.

Aimery’s cheek seemed to twitch, as though he was on the verge of laughing, yet his voice remained as smooth as caramel when he spoke.

Chocolate family meets vanilla family in the artificial reality that is a mall. Caramel daughter caught helplessly between the two.

He can't be an invisible boy when she can see him. He can't steal houses or the girl inside them, but he can build a bridge of moons and caramel cakes to get back to her.

I make jewelry. I drink caramel machiattos. I wear Hello Kitty to bed. Of course I love romantic comedies,' I said with a smile as we neared my house. But I didn’t just love them. I wanted to live within them. I wanted a love like in the movies.

Ladies,” I said, using the term loosely, “I may not look like Apollo, but I assure you it’s me, trapped in this mortal body. Otherwise, how could I know so much about you?” “Like what?” demanded Tempest. “Your favorite nectar flavor is caramel crème,” I said. “Your favorite Beatle is Ringo. For centuries, all three of you had a massive crush on Ganymede, but now you like—” “He’s Apollo!” Wasp yelped. “Definitely Apollo!” Tempest wailed. “Annoying! Knows things!” “Let me in,” I said, “and I’ll shut up.

He had a nice laugh, rich and almost melodious. It made me think of warm caramel, dripping from a spoon.

He looks exotic. Maybe Hawaiian or Cuban. He has light caramel skin, jet black hair and eyes to match. And the smile he turns on me? Holy shit. What is this? The land of misfit models?

I can never decide if Tom’s hair is the color of caramel fudge or chocolate. Either way, yum. The texture is like a romance novel that’s fallen into the bath, then dried: vaguely sexual crinkle waves with the occasional curled edge and dog-ear. I want to jam my hand in it and make a gentle fist.

Jules hated it when I used "delicious" to describe anything but food, but that day he was nothing if not a sugar cone of melting sea salt and caramel gelato.

His caramel-colored hair was brushed back, and he walked with his hands in his pockets, as if he’d strolled down these halls before. His demeanor actually threw me for a second. Was he here to meet me, or was I here to meet him?

When the guy turned around, Amy began stuttering. Silently. It was a feat only Amy could manage, and only Dan could notice. And it only happened in front of boys who looked like this one. He had brown hair and caramel-colored eyes, like Dan's friend Nick Santos, who made all the sixth-grade girls turn into blithering idiots when he looked their way--in fact, would even say Watch, lean make them turn into blithering idiots, and then he'd do it. Only older. "He. Is. Hot," Nellie said under her breath. "You too?" Dan hissed.

You can’t just casually tell someone you carry caramel sauce around and walk away like that’s a normal thing,” I call at her retreating back. “What other emergency dessert condiments do you have stashed in your bag?

The powdered sugar had caramelized and blackened into a sucking tar pit in which my ladyfingers languished like so many sunk mastadons.

you think perhaps you can smell caramel wafting through the evening breeze, beneath the crisp scent of the autumn leaves. A subtle sweetness at the edges of the cold. The

Oh that voice, so sweet. Rich, like the taste of vanilla ice cream, vowels like flute music, warm caramel consonants. She could float in that voice forever and not miss a thing.

You know shit just got serious when you refuse gooey caramel cupcakes which taste like heaven.

A beige cat came down the stairs like caramel seeping out of a Caramilk bar.

I can't describe the feeling when I go down – it's down down down and there's never going to be an up again. And whatever was good isn't good any more; white becomes grey, music becomes dictionaries, honey becomes beer and the sky a curdled lemon. There's no caramel anymore.

But in the end, all wars are more or less the same. If you dig down through the layers of caramel corn and peanuts and choking, burning death, you’ll find the prize at the bottom and the prize is a question and the question is this: Which of us are people and which of us are meat?

But Celaena had stood in front of the that wooden door to the bedroom, listening to Yrene wash her clothes in the nearby kitchen. She found herself unable to turn away, unable to stop thinking about the would-be healer with the brown-gold hair and caramel eyes, of what Yrene had lost and how helpless she'd become. There were so many of them now—the children who had lost everything to Adarlan. Children who had now grown into assassins and barmaids, without a true place to call home, their native kingdoms left to ruin and ash. Magic had been gone all these years. And the gods were dead, or simply didn't care anymore. Yet there, deep in her gut, was a small but insistent tug. A tug on a strand of some invisible web. So Celaena decided to tug back, just to see how far and wide the reverberations would go.

They saw even more ungodly things—the first zipper; the first-ever all-electric kitchen, which included an automatic dishwasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima’s. They sampled a new, oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-coated popcorn called Cracker Jack. A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to succeed—“shredded doormat,” some called it—but a new beer did well, winning the exposition’s top beer award. Forever afterward, its brewer called it Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Kate picked up the carafe and poured some coffee into a cup. She added sugar and cream until it was the color of caramel. Her mom used to take her coffee like this. 'So sweet it could kiss you,' she used to say.

I opened the school's booklet, found the recipes from the examination — oeufs mollets with sauce béarnaise, côtelettes de veau en surprise and crème renversée au caramel — and whipped them all up in a cold, clean fury. Then I ate them.

He grew out his hair," June says. "He looks amazing." "He looks like a giant caramel with some carpet lint stuck to the top of it.

Noah is the crème de la crème of fuckable men. He’s the hot caramel sauce on a Sundae. The frosting on the cake. The… dammit, now I want my first dessert.

In the old pre-technology days, it would have been almost impossible to replicate Facebook or Twitter. The closest you could get would be to mail dozens of postcards a day to everybody you know, each with a brief message about yourself like: "Finally got that haircut I've been putting off." Or: "Just had a caramel frappuccino. Yum!" The people receiving these postcards would have naturally assumed you were a moron with a narcissism disorder. But today, thanks to Facebook and Twitter, you are seen as a person engaging in 'social networking'.

Sodas use “caramel coloring” to give them that dark, delicious look. Not to be confused with real caramel, caramel color is the single most used food coloring in the world. It is created by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure—a process that produces a cancerous substance called 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI).

Don’t forget to be specific…Details. Put in all the details. The boys appreciate all that detailed daily life sh*t they don’t get anymore. If you’ve got a teacher you’re hot for, tell ‘em what her hair looks like, what her legs look like, what she eats for lunch. If she’s teaching you geometry, tell ‘em how she draws a bloody triangle on the blackboard. If you went down the shop for a bag of sweets yesterday, did you ride your pushee? Did you go by foot? Did you see a rainbow along the way? Did you buy gobstoppers or clinkers or caramels? If you had a good meat pie last week was it steak and peas or curry or mushroom and beef? You catchin’ my drift? Details.

I was thinking about painting you. Painting your hair. That I'd have to use titanium white to get the color right, the way it catches light and almost glows. But that wouldn't work, would it? It's not all one color, you hair, it's not just gold: It's amber and tawny and caramel and wheat and honey.

if he were a pony I would offer him food, stroke his ears and scratch his neck; but he curls his lip at the idea of cake and I am seriously not going to stroke him. That would be just gross.

And sometimes, when Alexander talked, Tatiana found her lower jaw drifting down and was suddenly and awkwardly aware that she had been staring at him so long that her mouth had dropped open. She didn’t know what to look at when he talked—his caramel eyes that blinked and smiled and shined and were grim or his vibrant mouth that moved and opened and breathed and spoke. Her eyes darted from his eyes to his lips and circled from his hair to his jaw as if they were afraid she would miss something if she didn’t stare at everything all at once.

It would be easier if they named jeans for celebrities so you'd know exactly what you were getting without even having to try them on. 'Mary-Kate' for itty-bitty jeans that come with a cartoonishly oversized caramel latte cup; 'Angelina Jolie' for jeans that are sold with two tiny Cambodian orphans stitched right into the back pockets; 'Katie Holmes', jeans which spell out 'help me!' in the fabric if you look very closesly; and 'Dina Lohan', self-promoting stage mom of Lindsay, for jeans that look OK from a distance, but when you get closer, are actually transparent. For men, there could be 'David Hasselhoff' jeans, made entirely of cheese, and 'John Mayer' jeans which, when removed, become instantly bored and walk themselves to to the house of next 'it' girl in Hollywood.

From black-rimmed plates they ate turtle soup and eaten Russian rye bread, ripe Turkish olives, caviar, salted mullet-roe, smoked Frankfurt black puddings, game in gravies the colour of liquorice and boot-blacking truffled sauces, chocolate caramel creams, plum puddings, nectarines, preserved fruits, mulberries and heart-cherries; from dark coloured glasses they drank the wines of Limagne and Rousillon, of Tenedoes, Val de Peñas and Oporto, and, after the coffee and the walnut cordial they enjoyed kvass, porters and stouts.

There’s lots of sticky things here,” he said. “I see blackstrap molasses, wild clover honey, corn syrup, aged balsamic vinegar, apple butter, strawberry jam, caramel sauce, maple syrup, butterscotch topping, maraschino liqueur, virgin and extra-virgin olive oil, lemon curd, dried apricots, mango chutney, crema di noci, tamarind paste, hot mustard, marshmallows, creamed corn, peanut butter, grape preserves, salt water taffy, condensed milk, pumpkin pie filling, and glue.

I'm here, I said, but I knew, increasingly, I wasn't here, and I felt that able-to-weep-and-be-seen version of myself that I'd been with Ruth hardening again, like warm caramel left to cool.

You’re stunning,' he said, eyeing her up and down. His irises weren’t watery blue like most redheads, but a warm caramel brown. Ash’s lady areas tingled, as though they too craved a cigarette.

Dante watched Tess eat the thick, caramel-laced brownie, feeling her pleasure radiate across the small space that separated them on the river-walk bench. She’d offered him a bite, and although his kind could not consume crude human food in anything more than a mouthful, he accepted a small taste of the sticky chocolate confection if only to share in Tess’s unabashed enjoyment. He swallowed the heavy, pretty much revolting bit of pasty sweetness with a tight smile. “Good, huh?” Tess licked her chocolate-coated fingers, slipping one after the other into her mouth and sucking them clean. “Delicious,” Dante said, watching her with his own brand of hunger. “You can have some more if you want it.” “No.” He drew back, shaking his head. “No, it’s all yours. Please. Enjoy it.

I lived in a world of magic and color then—my mother’s voice a sapphire stream flecked with emeralds, my father’s a soft caramel. In summer I ran barefoot through the valleys with my cousins and kin and saw their voices rise up in vibrant wisps of yellow and gold. The wind was sometimes fierce pink, and the sound of the waterfall on rocks glistened silver.

My mom’s smile is genuine, A lilac beaming In the presence of her Sun. Indentions in the sand prove Time’s linear progression, Her hair yet unblighted, Carrying midnight’s consistency. Clear tracks fading as the Movement slips further In the past. Cheekbones High, soft, In summer’s hue, Hopeful. Each step’s unknown impact, A future looking back. My father’s strength: One whose Life is in his arms. Squinting past the camera, He rests upon a rock Like caramel corn half eaten, Just to the left Of man-made concrete convention Daylight’s eraser Removing color to his right. Dustin sits In my father’s lap, Open mouth of a drooling Big mouth bass; Muscle tone Of a well exercised Jelly fish, He looks at me Half aware; His wheelchair Perched at the edge Of parking lot gravel grafted Like a scar on nature’s beach, Opening to the ironic splendor Of a bitter tasting lake. I took the picture. Age 11. Capturing the pinnacle arc Of a son To my lilac Who Outlived him and weeps, Still. Their sky has staple holes – Maybe that’s how the Light Leaked out.

I think how heavenly it must be to nibble on tiny cakes and swirled caramels and plum ginger puffs all day. Tea with lemon petit fours in the afternoon; after-dinner mint truffles with butterscotch coffee in the evening. My mind swims with the notion of it. The easy, sugar-induced lull that would follow me into candy-tinted dreams each night. Life here, in Valentine's Town, would surely be simple and uncomplicated.

He takes a kitchen chair and sits in the yard and all the ducks come around. He holds up the cheese curls in one hand and caramel popcorn in the other and his audience looks up and he tells them a joke. He says: So one day a duck come into this bar and ordered a whiskey and a bump and the bartender was pretty surprised, he says, "You know we don't get many of you ducks in here." The duck says, "At these prices I'm not surprised.* And he tosses out the popcorn and they laugh. 'Wak wak wak wak wak. I was shot in the leg in the war.' Have a scar? 'No thanks, I don't smoke.

Boxes of fireworks - she remembered them filling her childhood, at every occasion she could think of, gods, where had the Popisho fireworks gone? Mad swirls of silver-blue lightning and crimson stars. A whole sky of melting yellow moons that trickled into their hair and faces and turned into caramel.

Under the mellowing influence of good food and good music, Adam relaxed, and I discovered that underneath that overbearing, hot-tempered Alpha disguise he usually wore was a charming, over-bearing, hot-tempered man. He seemed to enjoy finding out that I was as stubborn and disrespectful of authority as he’d always suspected. He ordered dessert without consulting me. I’d have been angrier, but it was something I could never have ordered for myself: chocolate, caramel, nuts, ice cream, real whipped cream, and cake so rich it might as well have been a brownie. “So,” he said, as I finished the last bit, “I’m forgiven?” “You are arrogant and overstep your bounds,” I told him, pointing my clean fork at him. “I try,” he said with false modesty. Then his eyes darkened and he reached across the table and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. He watched me as he licked the caramel from his skin. I thumped my hands down on the table and leaned forward. “That is not fair. I’ll eat your dessert and like it—but you can’t use sex to keep me from getting mad.” He laughed, one of those soft laughs that start in the belly and rise up through the chest: a relaxed, happy sort of laugh. To change the subject, because matters were heating up faster than I was comfortable with, I said, “So Bran tells me that he ordered you to keep an eye out for me.” He stopped laughing and raised both eyebrows. “Yes. Now ask me if I was watching you for Bran.” It was a trick question. I could see the amusement in his eyes. I hesitated, but decided I wanted to know anyway. “Okay, I’ll bite. Were you watching me for Bran?” “Honey,” he drawled, pulling on his Southern roots. “When a wolf watches a lamb, he’s not thinking of the lamb’s mommy.” I grinned. I couldn’t help it. The idea of Bran as a lamb’s mommy was too funny. “I’m not much of a lamb,” I said. He just smiled.

Idiot!" he cried, "that from you! Here I sit, young Anthony, as I'll sit for a generation or more and watch such gay souls as you and Dick and Gloria Gilbery go past me, dancing and singing and loving and hating one another and being moved, being eternally moved. And I am moved only by my lack of emotion. I shall sit and the snow will come--oh, for a Caramel to take notes--and another winter and I shall be thirty and you and Dick and Gloria will go on being eternally moved and dancing by me and singing. But after you've all gone I'll be saying things for new Dicks to write down, and listening to the disillusions and cynicisms and emotions of new Anthonys--yes, and talking to new Glorias about the tans of summers yet to come." The firelight flurried up on the hearth. Maury left the window, stirred the blaze with a poker, and dropped a log upon the andirons. Then he sat back in his chair and the remnants of his voice faded in the new fire that spit red and yellow along the bark. "After all, Anthony, it's you who are very romantic and young. It's you who are infinitely more susceptible and afraid of your calm being broken. It's me who tries again and again to be moved--let myself go a thousand times and I'm always me. Nothing--quite--stirs me. "Yet," he murmured after another long pause, "there was something about that little girl with her absurd tan that was eternally old--like me.

My point is, being that ‘magic free spirit’ you think is this mythical perfect woman? It comes with its own problems. Just because not everyone gets you doesn’t mean you’re wrong. You’re someone people can count on. Really count on. And that doesn’t make you cold or boring. It makes you the most . . .” He trails off, shakes his head. “You and your sister might have your differences, and she might not totally understand you, but you’re never going to lose her, Nora. You don’t have to worry about that.” “How can you be so sure?” I ask. Now his eyes are all liquid caramel, his hands tender, moving back and forth over my hips, a tide that draws us together, apart, together, each brush more intense than the last. “Because,” he says quietly, “Libby’s smart enough to know what she has.

It was evenings like that when beneath dim light and relaxing in a sultry bath that she missed him the most. A flicker of candlelight, wind breathing snow against the window and the soothing scent of creme caramel – all were a comfort to her as she closed her eyes, summoned memories and many a tender thought. She didn't feel deserving of the devotion bestowed upon her, but she had finally learned to accept its wondrous gift, knowing that love was the source of existence and its only end.

I ordered my favorite drink; vanilla iced blended coffee with whipped cream and caramel sauce on top. The whipped cream and caramel sauce were the best. Usually when no one was watching, I would lick the inside of the lid to get every last drop of the addictive syrup. Once, my dad caught me doing this and started laughing. I'd gotten caramel plastered over my nose. If Colt had ever seen me do this, I would never live it down. Glancing around, I indulged shamelessly and grinned." -Cheyenne

Experienced professionals? They have dragged out their life in stupor and semi-sleep, they have married hastily, out of impatience, they have made children at random. They have met other men in cafés, at weddings and funerals. Sometimes, caught in the tide, they have struggled against it without understanding what was happening to them. All that has happened around them has eluded them; long, obscure shapes, events from afar, brushed by them rapidly and when they turned to look all had vanished. And then, around forty, they christen their small obstinacies and a few proverbs with the name of experience, they begin to simulate slot machines: put a coin in the left hand slot and you get tales wrapped in silver paper, put a coin in the slot on the right and you get precious bits of advice that stick to your teeth like caramels.

Unbelievable,” Audrey’s voice squeaked as I pushed past her. “Here we are, talking to you about your freaky little-boy encounter back in Breaux Bridge and how your caramel macchiato tasted like cardboard, and boom! You just zone out like one of the kids from Children of the Corn.” “Um, Aud, babe … I don’t think those kids zone out. They’re just freaky twenty-four-seven. It’s a year-round thing.” Gabe’s response drew a half-hearted laugh from me, but it was quickly reined in when I reached the Book of the Ancients. “Whatever, Gabriel,” Audrey said to him. “My point is, it’s freaky, okay? She gets this glazed-over look in her eyes, like she’s gonna whip out a butcher knife and go all Michael Myers on us or something.” I glanced over my shoulder to cock an eyebrow at her. “Oh, now you pay attention.” She cocked an eyebrow back. “What is it with you and the cheesy horror-movie references?” Gabe muttered. “Hey, now. Halloween is a classic,” Gavin scolded him. “Don’t go hating on the classics.

All Souls’ Eve, when the spirits of the dead will come back to the living, dressed as ballerinas and Coke bottles and spacemen and Mickey Mice, and the living will give them candy to keep them from turning vicious. I can still taste that festival: the tart air, caramel in the mouth, the hope at the door, the belief in something for nothing all children take for granted. They won’t get homemade popcorn balls any more, though, or apples: rumors of razor blades abound, and the possibility of poison. Even by the time of my own children, we worried about the apples. There’s too much loose malice blowing around. In Mexico they do this festival the right way, with no disguises. Bright candy skulls, family picnics on the graves, a plate set for each individual guest, a candle for the soul. Everyone goes away happy, including the dead. We’ve rejected that easy flow between dimensions: we want the dead unmentionable, we refuse to name them, we refuse to feed them. Our dead as a result are thinner, grayer, harder to hear, and hungrier.

She said it was impossible for me not to assume that every new person I met would be kind and reasonable because of my Midwestern heritage. That might be true. I didn’t expect it, but I hoped for it. I didn’t see anything wrong with hoping for kindness in the world.

La vie n'est pas une boîte de chocolats où je peux choisir celui que je préfère ; ou alors, quelqu'un l'a remplacé pendant que j'avais le dos tourné.

Not one of them fails to ask me the same loaded question ... 'So, where are you from?' A question as mundane as it is predictable. It feels like an obligatory rite-of-passage, before the relationship can develop any further. My skin - the colour of caramel - must explain itself by offering up its pedigree. 'I'm a human being' My answer rankles with them. Not that I'm trying to be provocative. Any more than I want to appear pedantic or philosophical. But when I was just knee-high to a locust, I had already made up my mind never to define myself again.

At the fairgrounds we saw them in the parking lot inhaling the effluvium of carnival, the smells of fried dough, caramel and cinnamon, the flap-flapping of tents, a carousel plinking out music-box songs, voluptuous sounds bouncing down tent ropes and along the trampled dust of the midway. Wind-curled handbills staple-gunned to telephone poles, the hum of gas-powered generators and the gyro truck, the lemonade truck, pretzels and popcorn, baked potatoes, the American flag, the rumblings of rides and the disconnected screams of riders -- all of it shimmered before them like a mirage, something not quite real.

He was only five-foot-ten, but people frequently mistook him for being over six feet, at least in part because his gigantic Afro made him appear larger than life. His thin, angular frame, which was shaped like an inverted triangle, furthered this illusion; he had narrow hips, a small waist, but impossibly wide shoulders and arms. His fingers were abnormally long and sinuous, and like the rest of him, they were a rich caramel color. His bandmates jokingly called him “The Bat” because of his preference for covering his windows and sleeping during the day, but the nickname also fit his penchant for wearing capes, which furthered his superhero appearance.

Yubbazubbies, you are yummy, you are succulent and sweet, you are splendidly delicious, quite delectable to eat, how I smack my lips with relish when you bump against my knees, then nuzzle up beside me, chirping, "Eat us if you please!" You are juicy, Yubbazubbies, you are tender, never tough, you are appetizing morsels, I can never get enough, you have captivating flavors and a tantalizing smell, a bit like candied apple, and a bit like caramel. Yubbazubbies, you are luscious, you are soft and smooth as silk, like a dish of chicken dumplings, or a glass of chocolate milk, even when I'm hardly hungry, I am sure to taste a few, and I'm never disappointed, Yubbazubbies, I love you.

[Therapist and friend, with a voice like Raul Julia during his Gomez Adam’s days] Rudy studied my face, “I have a two o’clock open on Tuesday.” I sighed, “Yeah, ok. Tuesday at two.” He nodded, pleased. “Bring Starbucks.” “Sure, what do you want?” “My usual. Iced half-caf ristretto quad grade two-pump raspberry two percent no whip light ice with caramel drizzle three-and-a-half-pump white mocha.” “Is any of that actually coffee?” “More or less.” “And you think I’m damaged …

Klaus leaned out the window and began to pour the mixture of blackstrap molasses, wild clover honey, corn syrup, aged balsamic vinegar, apple butter, strawberry jam, caramel sauce, maple syrup, butterscotch topping, maraschino liqueur, virgin and extra-virgin olive oil, lemon curd, dried apricots, mango chutney, crema di noci, tamarind paste, hot mustard, marshmallows, creamed corn, peanut butter, grape preserves, salt water taffy, condensed milk, pumpkin pie filling, and glue onto the closest wheels, while his sister tossed the hammocks out of the door, and if you have read anything of the Baudelaire orphans' lives - which I hope you have not - then you will not be surprised to read that Violet's invention worked perfectly.

This may have looked like a cookbook, but what it really is is an annotated list of things worth living for: a manifesto of moments worth living for. Dinner parties, and Saturday afternoons in the kitchen, and lazy breakfasts, and picnics on the heath; evenings alone with a bowl of soup, a or a heavy pot of clams for one. The bright clean song of lime and salt, and the smoky hum of caramel-edged onions. Soft goat's cheese and crisp pastry. A six-hour ragù simmering on the stove, a glass of wine in your hand. Moments, hours, mornings, afternoons, days. And days worth living for add up to weeks, and weeks worth living for add up to months, and so on and so on, until you've unexpectedly built yourself a life worth having: a life worth living.

And while she read her cards and muttered to herself, I would leaf through my collection of cookery cards, incanting the names of never-tasted dishes like mantras, like the secret formulae of life. Boeuf en daube. Champignons farcis à la grèque. Escalopes à la Reine. Crème caramel. Schokoladentorte. Tiramisu. In the secret kitchen of my imagination I made them all, tested, tasted them, added to my collection of recipes wherever we went, pasted them into my scrapbook like photographs of old friends. They gave weight to my wanderings, the glossy clippings shining out from between the smeary pages like signposts along our erratic path. I bring them out now like long-lost friends. Soupe de tomates à la gasconne, served with fresh basil and a slice of tartelette méridonale, made on biscuit-thin pâte brisée and lush with the flavors of olive oil and anchovy and the rich local tomatoes, garnished with olives and roasted slowly to produce a concentration of flavors that seems almost impossible.

Within the fair’s buildings visitors encountered devices and concepts new to them and to the world. They heard live music played by an orchestra in New York and transmitted to the fair by long-distance telephone. They saw the first moving pictures on Edison’s Kinetoscope, and they watched, stunned, as lightning chattered from Nikola Tesla’s body. They saw even more ungodly things—the first zipper; the first-ever all-electric kitchen, which included an automatic dishwasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima’s. They sampled a new, oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-coated popcorn called Cracker Jack. A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to succeed—“shredded doormat,” some called it—but a new beer did well, winning the exposition’s top beer award. Forever afterward, its brewer called it Pabst Blue Ribbon. Visitors also encountered the latest and arguably most important organizational invention of the century, the vertical file, created by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. Sprinkled among these exhibits were novelties of all kinds. A locomotive made of spooled silk. A suspension bridge built out of Kirk’s Soap. A giant map of the United States made of pickles. Prune makers sent along a full-scale knight on horseback sculpted out of prunes, and the Avery Salt Mines of Louisiana displayed a copy of the Statue of Liberty carved from a block of salt. Visitors dubbed it “Lot’s Wife.

You ought to make something for Easter. You know. Eggs and stuff. Chocolate hens, rabbits, things like that. Like the shops in Agen." I remember them from my childhood; the Paris chocolateries with their baskets of foil-wrapped eggs, shelves of rabbits and hens, bells, marzipan fruits and marrons glacés, amourettes and filigree nests filled with petits fours and caramels, and a thousand and one epiphanies of spun-sugar magic carpet rides more suited to an Arabian harem than the solemnities of the Passion. "I remember my mother telling me about the Easter chocolates." There was never enough money to buy those exquisite things, but I always had my own cornet-surprise, a paper cone containing my Easter gifts, coins, paper flowers, hard-boiled eggs painted in bright enamel colors, a box of colored papier-mâché- painted with chickens, bunnies, smiling children among the buttercups, the same every year and stored carefully for the next time- encasing a tiny packet of chocolate raisins wrapped in cellophane, each one to be savored, long and lingeringly, in the lost hours of those strange nights between cities, with the neon glow of hotel signs blink-blinking between the shutters and my mother's breathing, slow and somehow eternal, in the umbrous silence.

We made close to forty boxes today. Fifteen truffles (still selling well), but also a batch of coconut squares, some sour cherry gobstoppers, some bitter-coated orange peel, some violet creams, and a hundred or so lunes de miel, those little discs of chocolate made to look like the waxing moon, with her profile etched in white against the dark face. It's such a delight to choose a box, to linger over the shape- will it be heart shaped, round, or square? To select the chocolates with care; to see them nestled between the folds of crunchy mulberry-colored paper; to smell the mingled perfumes of cream, caramel, vanilla, and dark rum; to choose a ribbon; to pick out a wrapping; to add flowers or paper hearts; to hear the silky whisssh of rice paper against the lid-

I closed my eyes, flared my nostrils, and let the scents flood in. The strongest of them, caramel and brown sugar, smell as yellow-orange as the sun, came first. That one was easy. The one that anyone would notice coming into the shop. And then chocolate of course, the bitter dark and the sugary milk chocolate. I don’t think a normal girl would’ve smelled anything else, and part of me wanted to stop there. But I could feel Sam’s heart pounding behind me, and for once, I gave in. Peppermint swirled into my nostrils, sharp as glass, then raspberry, almost too sweet, like too-ripe fruit. Apple, crisp and pure. Nuts, buttery, warm, earthy, like Sam. The subtle, mild scent of white chocolate. Oh, God, some sort of mocha, rich and dark and sinful. I sighed with pleasure, but there was more. The butter cookies on the shelves added a floury, comforting scent, and the lollipops, a riot of fruit scents too concentrated to be real. The salty bite of pretzels, the bright smell of lemon, the brittle edge of anise. Smells I didn’t even know names for. I groaned.

She started to turn around, but I tugged her hand just enough for me to see her profile as she closed her eyes. She felt it as just like I did. There was an undeniable connection between us. I pulled her into my arms and with one hand moved the stray strands of her caramel hair away from her soft skin. I saw her mouth was slightly agape, and I pulled her face towards mine. I was mere centimeters from her lips, the warmth of her breath sliding against my own. “You should go Mylie or you might regret staying,” I said softly. “I don’t want to go,” she said anxiously. Damn.

At first Alexander could not believe it was his Tania. He blinked and tried to refocus his eyes. She was walking around the table, gesturing, showing, leaning forward, bending over. At one point she straightened out and wiped her forehead. She was wearing a short-sleeved yellow peasant dress. She was barefoot, and her slender legs were exposed above her knee. Her bare arms were lightly tanned. Her blonde hair looked bleached by the sun and was parted into two shoulder-length braids tucked behind her ears. Even from a distance he could see the summer freckles on her nose. She was achingly beautiful. And alive. Alexander closed his eyes, then opened them again. She was still there, bending over the boy’s work. She said something, everyone laughed loudly, and Alexander watched as the boy’s arm touched Tatiana’s back. Tatiana smiled. Her white teeth sparkled like the rest of her. Alexander didn’t know what to do. She was alive, that was obvious. Then why hadn’t she written him? And where was Dasha? Alexander couldn’t very well continue to stand under a lilac tree. He went back out onto the main road, took a deep breath, stubbed out his cigarette, and walked toward the square, never taking his eyes off her braids. His heart was thundering in his chest, as if he were going into battle. Tatiana looked up, saw him, and covered her face with her hands. Alexander watched everyone get up and rush to her, the old ladies showing unexpected agility and speed. She pushed them all away, pushed the table away, pushed the bench away, and ran to him. Alexander was paralyzed by his emotion. He wanted to smile, but he thought any second he was going to fall to his knees and cry. He dropped all his gear, including his rifle. God, he thought, in a second I’m going to feel her. And that’s when he smiled. Tatiana sprang into his open arms, and Alexander, lifting her off her feet with the force of his embrace, couldn’t hug her tight enough, couldn’t breathe in enough of her. She flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his bearded cheek. Dry sobs racked her entire body. She was heavier than the last time he felt her in all her clothes as he lifted her into the Lake Ladoga truck. She, with her boots, her clothes, coats, and coverings, had not weighed what she weighed now. She smelled incredible. She smelled of soap and sunshine and caramelized sugar. She felt incredible. Holding her to him, Alexander rubbed his face into her braids, murmuring a few pointless words. “Shh, shh…come on, now, shh, Tatia. Please…” His voice broke. “Oh, Alexander,” Tatiana said softly into his neck. She was clutching the back of his head. “You’re alive. Thank God.” “Oh, Tatiana,” Alexander said, hugging her tighter, if that were possible, his arms swaddling her summer body. “You’re alive. Thank God.” His hands ran up to her neck and down to the small of her back. Her dress was made of very thin cotton. He could almost feel her skin through it. She felt very soft. Finally he let her feet touch the ground. Tatiana looked up at him. His hands remained around her little waist. He wasn’t letting go of her. Was she always this tiny, standing barefoot in front of him? “I like your beard,” Tatiana said, smiling shyly and touching his face. “I love your hair,” Alexander said, pulling on a braid and smiling back. “You’re messy…” He looked her over. “And you’re stunning.” He could not take his eyes off her glorious, eager, vivid lips. They were the color of July tomatoes— He bent to her—

There will be a cauldron of spiced hot cider, and pumpkin shortbread fingers with caramel and fudge dipping sauces as our freebies, and I've done plenty of special spooky treats. Ladies' fingers, butter cookies the shape of gnarled fingers with almond fingernails and red food coloring on the stump end. I've got meringue ghosts and cups of "graveyard pudding," a dark chocolate pudding layered with dark Oreo cookie crumbs, strewn with gummy worms, and topped with a cookie tombstone. There are chocolate tarantulas, with mini cupcake bodies and legs made out of licorice whips, sitting on spun cotton candy nests. The Pop-Tart flavors of the day are chocolate peanut butter, and pumpkin spice. The chocolate ones are in the shape of bats, and the pumpkin ones in the shape of giant candy corn with orange, yellow, and white icing. And yesterday, after finding a stash of tiny walnut-sized lady apples at the market, I made a huge batch of mini caramel apples.

It's weird not being in our subculture of two any more. There was Jen's culture, her little habits and ways of doing things; the collection of stuff she'd already learnt she loved before we met me. Chorizo and Jonathan Franken and long walks and the Eagles (her dad). Seeing the Christmas lights. Taylor Swift, frying pans in the dishwasher, the works absolutely, arsewipe, heaven. Tracy Chapman and prawn jalfrezi and Muriel Spark and HP sauce in bacon sandwiches. And then there was my culture. Steve Martin and Aston Villa and New York and E.T. Chicken bhuna, strange-looking cats and always having squash or cans of soft drinks in the house. The Cure. Pink Floyd. Kanye West, friend eggs, ten hours' sleep, ketchup in bacon sandwiches. Never missing dental check-ups. Sister Sledge (my mum). Watching TV even if the weather is nice. Cadbury's Caramel. John and Paul and George and Ringo. And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. The instinct never goes - look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I've chosen to represent who I am. It was fun to find out about each other's self-made cultures and make our own hybrid in the years of eating, watching, reading, listening, sleeping and living together. Our culture was tea drink from very large mugs. And looking forward to the Glastonbury ticket day and the new season of Game of Thrones and taking the piss out of ourselves for being just like everyone else. Our culture was over-tipping in restaurants because we both used to work in the service industry, salty popcorn at the cinema and afternoon naps. Side-by-side morning sex. Home-made Manhattans. Barmade Manhattans (much better). Otis Redding's "Cigarettes and Coffee" (our song). Discovering a new song we both loved and listening to it over and over again until we couldn't listen to it any more. Period dramas on a Sunday night. That one perfect vibrator that finished her off in seconds when we were in a rush. Gravy. David Hockney. Truffle crisps. Can you believe it? I still can't believe it. A smell indisputably reminiscent of bums. On a crisp. And yet we couldn't get enough of them together - stuffing them in our gobs, her hand on my chest, me trying not to get crumbs in her hair as we watched Sense and Sensibility (1995). But I'm not a member of that club anymore. No one is. It's been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where so I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I'm no longer a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?

But every single day after work Tatiana brushed her hair and ran outside, thinking, please be there, and every single day after work Alexander was. Though he never asked her to go to the Summer Garden anymore or to sit on the bench under the trees with him, his hat was always in his hands. Exhausted and slow, they meandered from tram to canal to tram, reluctantly parting at Grechesky Prospekt, three blocks away from her apartment building. During their walks sometimes they talked about Alexander’s America or his life in Moscow, and sometimes they talked about Tatiana’s Lake Ilmen and her summers in Luga, and sometimes they chatted about the war, though less and less because of the anxiety over Pasha, and sometimes Alexander taught Tatiana a little English. Sometimes they told jokes, and sometimes they barely spoke at all. A few times Alexander let Tatiana carry his rifle as a balancing stick while she walked a high ledge on the side of Obvodnoy Canal. “Don’t fall into the water, Tania,” he once said, “because I can’t swim.” “Is that true?” she asked incredulously, nearly toppling over. Grabbing the end of his rifle to steady her, Alexander said with a grin, “Let’s not find out, shall we? I don’t want to lose my weapon.” “That’s all right,” Tatiana said, precariously teetering on the ledge and laughing. “I can swim perfectly well. I’ll save your weapon for you. Want to see?” “No, thank you.” And sometimes, when Alexander talked, Tatiana found her lower jaw drifting down and was suddenly and awkwardly aware that she had been staring at him so long that her mouth had dropped open. She didn’t know what to look at when he talked—his caramel eyes that blinked and smiled and shined and were grim or his vibrant mouth that moved and opened and breathed and spoke. Her eyes darted from his eyes to his lips and circled from his hair to his jaw as if they were afraid she would miss something if she didn’t stare at everything all at once. There were some pieces of his fascinating life that Alexander did not wish to talk about—and didn’t. Not about the last time he saw his father, not about how he became Alexander Belov, not about how he received his medal of valor. Tatiana didn’t care and never did more than gently press him. She would take from him what he needed to give her and wait impatiently for the rest.

SATURDAY AT THE STORE is a nightmare. We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton and John and Patrick—the two other part-timers—and I are besieged by customers. But there’s a lull around lunchtime, and Mrs. Clayton asks me to check on some orders while I’m sitting behind the counter at the register discreetly eating my bagel. I’m engrossed in the task, checking catalog numbers against the items we need and the items we’ve ordered, eyes flicking from the order book to the computer screen and back as I make sure the entries match. Then, for some reason, I glance up … and find myself locked in the bold gray gaze of Christian Grey, who’s standing at the counter, staring at me. Heart failure. “Miss Steele. What a pleasant surprise.” His gaze is unwavering and intense. Holy crap. What the hell is he doing here, looking all outdoorsy with his tousled hair and in his cream chunky-knit sweater, jeans, and walking boots? I think my mouth has popped open, and I can’t locate my brain or my voice. “Mr. Grey,” I whisper, because that’s all I can manage. There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips and his eyes are alight with humor, as if he’s enjoying some private joke. “I was in the area,” he says by way of explanation. “I need to stock up on a few things. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Steele.” His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel … or something.

About sexuality of English mice. A warm perfume is growing little by little in the room. An orchard scent, a caramelized sugar scent. Mrs. MOUSE roasts apples in the chimney. The apple fruits smell grass of England and the pastry oven. On a thread drawn in the flames, the apples, from the buried autumn, turn a golden color and grind in tempting bubbles. But I have the feeling that you already worry. Mrs. MOUSE in a Laura Ashley apron, pink and white stripes, with a big purple satin bow on her belt, Mrs. MOUSE is certainly not a free mouse? Certainly she cooks all day long lemon meringue tarts, puddings and cheese pies, in the kitchen of the burrow. She suffocates a bit in the sweet steams, looks with a sigh the patched socks trickling, hanging from the ceiling, between mint leaves and pomegranates. Surely Mrs. MOUSE just knows the inside, and all the evening flavours are just good for Mrs. MOUSE flabbiness. You are totally wrong - we can forgive you – we don’t know enough that the life in the burrow is totally communal. To pick the blackberries, the purplish red elderberries, the beechnuts and the sloes Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE escape in turn, and glean in the bushes the winter gatherings. After, with frozen paws, intoxicated with cold wind, they come back in the burrow, and it’s a good time when the little door, rond little oak wood door brings a yellow ray in the blue of the evening. Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE are from outside and from inside, in the most complete commonality of wealth and climate. While Mrs. MOUSE prepares the hot wine, Mr. MOUSE takes care of the children. On the top of the bunk bed Thimoty is reading a cartoon, Mr. MOUSE helps Benjamin to put a fleece-lined pyjama, one in a very sweet milky blue for snow dreams. That’s it … children are in bed …. Mrs. MOUSE blazes the hot wine near the chimney, it smells lemon, cinnamon, big dry flames, a blue tempest. Mr. and Mrs. MOUSE can wait and watch. They drink slowly, and then .... they will make love ….You didn’t know? It’s true, we need to guess it. Don’t expect me to tell you in details the mice love in patchwork duvets, the deep cherry wood bed. It’s just good enough not to speak about it. Because, to be able to speak about it, it would need all the perfumes, all the silent, all the talent and all the colors of the day. We already make love preparing the blackberries wine, the lemon meringue pie, we already make love going outside in the coldness to earn the wish of warmness and come back. We make love downstream of the day, as we take care of our patiences. It’s a love very warm, very present and yet invisible, mice’s love in the duvets. Imagine, dream a bit ….. Don’t speak too badly about English mice’s sexuality …..

Corn is what feeds the steer that becomes the steak. Corn feeds the chicken and the pig, the turkey, and the lamb, the catfish and the tilapia and, increasingly, even the salmon, a carnivore by nature that the fish farmers are reengineering to tolerate corn. The eggs are made of corn. The milk and cheese and yogurt, which once came from dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically comes from Holsteins that spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn. Head over to the processed foods and you find ever more intricate manifestations of corn. A chicken nugget, for example, piles up corn upon corn: what chicken it contains consists of corn, of course, but so do most of a nugget's other constituents, including the modified corn starch that glues the things together, the corn flour in the batter that coats it, and the corn oil in which it gets fried. Much less obviously, the leavenings and lecithin, the mono-, di-, and triglycerides, the attractive gold coloring, and even the citric acid that keeps the nugget "fresh" can all be derived from corn. To wash down your chicken nuggets with virtually any soft drink in the supermarket is to have some corn with your corn. Since the 1980s virtually all the sodas and most of the fruit drinks sold in the supermarket have been sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) -- after water, corn sweetener is their principal ingredient. Grab a beer for you beverage instead and you'd still be drinking corn, in the form of alcohol fermented from glucose refined from corn. Read the ingredients on the label of any processed food and, provided you know the chemical names it travels under, corn is what you will find. For modified or unmodified starch, for glucose syrup and maltodextrin, for crystalline fructose and ascorbic acid, for lecithin and dextrose, lactic acid and lysine, for maltose and HFCS, for MSG and polyols, for the caramel color and xanthan gum, read: corn. Corn is in the coffee whitener and Cheez Whiz, the frozen yogurt and TV dinner, the canned fruit and ketchup and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and gravy and frozen waffles, the syrups and hot sauces, the mayonnaise and mustard, the hot dogs and the bologna, the margarine and shortening, the salad dressings and the relishes and even the vitamins. (Yes, it's in the Twinkie, too.) There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn. This goes for the nonfood items as well: Everything from the toothpaste and cosmetics to the disposable diapers, trash bags, cleansers, charcoal briquettes, matches, and batteries, right down to the shine on the cover of the magazine that catches your eye by the checkout: corn. Even in Produce on a day when there's ostensibly no corn for sale, you'll nevertheless find plenty of corn: in the vegetable wax that gives the cucumbers their sheen, in the pesticide responsible for the produce's perfection, even in the coating on the cardboard it was shipped in. Indeed, the supermarket itself -- the wallboard and joint compound, the linoleum and fiberglass and adhesives out of which the building itself has been built -- is in no small measure a manifestation of corn.