Eggs (novel) Quotes

Kids, Roberts,” she said, just to be clear. “I have fertile eggs in me, and I’m talking about having babies.” She waited for the eye twitch. Or hell, even a tiny twinge. Instead, with a smile, he pulled her in for a kiss.

I recognize that luck, effort, and ability are often indistinguishable. And I know that, in the end, I’m just another human being, who’s born only to die. I know that in reality, it makes no difference whether I write novels, and it makes no difference if anyone cares. With all the countless books already out there, the world won’t notice if I fail to publish even one book with my name on it. That’s no tragedy. I know that. I get that.

The bird is fighting its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wishes to be born must destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The god is named Abraxas.” After

The minimalist life. Pleasure is an egg. Blessings that can be counted, on the fingers of one hand. But possibly this is how I am expected to react. If I have an egg, what more can I want?

They gleam, reflecting rainbow hues—insinuating questions ... What is eternity? Why are the stars? Where do cats lay their eggs? And why don’t hospitals have flushing bedpans built into the beds?

This is it, so please don't question it. I love you, I need you, and you mean everything to me. So, will you have me? Please put your all your eggs in one basket because I am doing the same. I don't want a life without you in it so please don't let me have one.

she started asking me all kinds of personal questions – how many girls had I slept with? Where I was from? Which university did I go to? What kind of music did I like? Had I ever read any novels by Osamu Dazai? Where would I like to go if I could travel abroad? Did I think her nipples were too big? I made up some answers and went to sleep, but next morning she said she wanted to have breakfast with me, and she kept up the stream of questions over the tasteless eggs and toast and coffee. What kind of work did my father do? Did I get good marks at school? What month was I born? Had I ever eaten frogs? She was giving me a headache, so as soon as we had finished eating I said I had to go to work. . .

Disappointed in his hope that I would give him the fictional equivalent of “One Hundred Ways of Cooking Eggs” or the “Carnet de la Ménagère,” he began to cross-examine me about my methods of “collecting material.” Did I keep a notebook or a daily journal? Did I jot down thoughts and phrases in a cardindex? Did I systematically frequent the drawing-rooms of the rich and fashionable? Or did I, on the contrary, inhabit the Sussex downs? or spend my evenings looking for “copy” in East End gin-palaces? Did I think it was wise to frequent the company of intellectuals? Was it a good thing for a writer of novels to try to be well educated, or should he confine his reading exclusively to other novels? And so on. I did my best to reply to these questions — as non-committally, of course, as I could. And as the young man still looked rather disappointed, I volunteered a final piece of advice, gratuitously. “My young friend,” I said, “if you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is to keep a pair of cats.” And with that I left him. I hope, for his own sake, that he took my advice.

Oh of course it pleased me, it pleased me greatly. But I also felt as if my body had the consistency of egg shell, and a slight pressure on my arm, on my forehead, on my stomach would be enough to break it and dig out all my secrets, in particular those which were secrets even to me.

The thing [Henry James'] novel is about is always there. It is like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently placed, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string.

‪Cooking is so infinitely nuanced that to write completely about how to cook any dish would require a manuscript longer than a David Foster Wallace novel and include twice as many footnotes within twice as many endnotes. And then no one would be able to follow it, let alone cook from it.

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of “Heaven” ridiculous by saying they do not want “to spend eternity playing harps.” The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs.

haunches, looking dejected. “Where’s the other monkey?” I asked him. Carl looked up. The monkey was in a tree. “What’s he doing there?” Carl shrugged. “This was a stupid idea,” I said to Diesel. “Yeah, but at least you walked off your sausage-and-egg sandwich. It would have gone straight to your ass.” “I’m going back to Gail’s house, and then

Writing makes me happy. But it goes beyond that. Writing is my life's work. I am absolutely positive that this is what I'm here to do. Even if it turns out that I don't have the ability, and no one out there wants to read a single word of it, there's nothing I can do about this feeling. I can't make it go away. I recognize that luck effort and ability are often indistinguishable. And I know that, in the end, I'm just another human being, who's born only to die. I know that in reality, it makes no difference whether I write novel, and it makes no difference if anyone cares. With all the countless books already out there, the world won't notice if I fail to publish even one book with my name on it.

The negatives he did manage were made in the hour or two when the sun seemed to rally with a yellowy light reminiscent of an egg yolk; usually, it looked pale as a pearl on the steely blue or leaden sky above the snow-scrubbed lake. That's a purple passage fit for a novel but hardly descriptive of the actuality of that winter, which was almost past enduring.

Well, the maple syrup is fantastic." Breakfast. She was glad Margo had brought the biscuits and gravy, she was definitely in the mood for that. "And the sous vide eggs that you put in the microwave for a minute and then top it with hot sauce and..." She rolled her eyes. "Bliss. Pancake mix, a hundred pounds of Dubliner cultured butter, fresh orange juice, I mean, the place is just amazing.

was once asked to give a talk to a group of science journalists who were meeting in my hometown. I decided to talk about the design of bridges, explaining how their form does not derive from a set of equations expressing the laws of physics but rather from the creative mind of the engineer. The first step in designing a bridge is for the engineer to conceive of a form in his mind’s eye. This is then translated into words and pictures so that it can be communicated to other engineers on the team and to the client who is commissioning the work. It is only when there is a form to analyze that science can be applied in a mathematical and methodical way. This is not to say that scientific principles might not inform the engineer’s conception of a bridge, but more likely they are embedded in the engineer’s experience with other, existing bridges upon which the newly conceived bridge is based. The journalists to whom I was speaking were skeptical. Surely science is essential to design, they insisted. No, it is not. And it is not a chicken-and-egg paradox. The design of engineering structures is a creative process in the same way that paintings and novels are the products of creative minds.

Through the chink in the hedge,’ said Susan, ‘I saw her kiss him. I raised my head from my flower-pot and looked through a chink in the hedge. I saw her kiss him. I saw them, Jinny and Louis, kissing. Now I will wrap my agony inside my pocket-handkerchief. It shall be screwed tight into a ball. I will go to the beech wood alone, before lessons. I will not sit at a table, doing sums. I will not sit next Jinny and next Louis. I will take my anguish and lay it upon the roots under the beech trees. I will examine it and take it between my fingers. They will not find me. I shall eat nuts and peer for eggs through the brambles and my hair will be matted and I shall sleep under hedges and drink water from ditches and die there.

When they got to the table, it was easy to recognize some of the dishes just from their pictures in the book. Skillet Broken Lasagna, which smelled of garlic and bright tomato; Fluffy Popovers with Melted Brie and Blackberry Jam (she started eating that the minute she picked it up and could have cried at the sweet, creamy-cheesy contrast to the crisp browned dough). There were also the two versions of the coconut rice, of course, and Trista had placed them next to the platter of gorgeously browned crispy baked chicken with a glass bowl of hot honey, specked with red pepper flakes, next to it, and in front of the beautifully grilled shrimp with serrano brown sugar sauce. Every dish was worthy of an Instagram picture. Which made sense, since Trista had, as Aja had pointed out, done quite a lot of food porn postings. There was also Cool Ranch Taco Salad on the table, which Margo had been tempted to make but, as with the shrimp dish, given that she had been ready to bail on the idea of coming right up to the last second, had thought better of, lest she have taco salad for ten that needed to be eaten in two days. Not that she couldn't have finished all the Doritos that went on top that quickly. But there hadn't been a Dorito in her house since college, and she kind of thought it ought to be a cause for celebration when she finally brought them back over the threshold of Calvin's ex-house. The Deviled Eggs were there too, thank goodness, and tons of them. They were creamy and crunchy and savory, sweet and- thanks to an unexpected pocket of jalapeño- hot, all at the same time. Classic party food. Classic church potluck food too. Whoever made those knew that deviled eggs were almost as compulsively delicious as potato chips with French onion dip. And, arguably, more healthful. Depending on which poison you were okay with and which you were trying to avoid. There was a gorgeous galaxy-colored ceramic plate of balsamic-glazed brussels sprouts, with, from what Margo remembered of the recipe, crispy bacon crumbles, sour cranberries, walnuts, and blue cheese, which was- Margo tasted it with hope and was not disappointed- creamy Gorgonzola Dolce.

With a sudden strike of inspiration, she blurted, “Why don’t you write a novel? I know you have enough life experiences to fill a whole room with books, and with you as the main character.” She placed the coffee cup back into Havok’s hands before reaching down to grab the bottom of her shirt, pulling it over her head, and balling it up in her hands. Standing naked, she brought the shirt to her nose and closed her eyes. “I can be one of your characters,” she purred, her eyes still closed. “A sexually frustrated homemaker whom you rescue from a boring marriage and ravage anytime you wish.” “I couldn’t tell you the difference between a split infinitive and a sentence fragment. Besides, the protagonists in most novels are supposed to be some sort of good-looking and chivalrous knights in shining armor who, at no time, sleeps with another man’s wife, always knows how to work a toilet seat, cooks the perfect eggs, and never burns the toast.” Havok shrugged his shoulders. “I have a habit of burning toast.” With the shirt still against her nose, June opened her eyes. “Somehow, I think that you make it a habit of burning your toast.

Fresh Pasta Dough Recipe INGREDIENTS: 1 ½ cups flour ½ cup semolina flour (pasta flour) 2 whole eggs, at room temperature 3 egg yolks, at room temperature DIRECTIONS: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and the semolina. Create a well in the center and add the eggs and egg yolks. Using a fork, break up the eggs then gradually start to draw flour from the edges of the well into the mixture. If the dough gets too firm to mix with the fork switch to mixing with your hands. Continue to work in flour until the dough no longer sticks to your hands; you may not need to incorporate all of the flour. (I used a bit more than what the recipe called for.) Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes or until it is smooth and pliable. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes. If using a pasta roller: Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Starting with the machine set to the widest setting, pass the dough through the rollers. Fold the dough into thirds and pass it through again 2 more times. Continue passing the pasta through the machine, reducing the setting a few notches each time. You may need to dust a bit with flour if the dough sticks to the rollers at all. Once you reach your desired thickness, use the cutting attachment to cut the pasta sheet into fettuccine. Dust the cut pasta with more flour to prevent sticking and repeat with the remaining dough. If using a rolling pin: Divide the dough in half. Dust your surface with flour and sprinkle generously on your rolling pin. *Roll out the dough as thin and as evenly possible, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. Use a paring knife (a pizza cutter works great!) to cut your dough into even ribbons, then set aside, dusting the cut pasta with more flour. Repeat with the remaining dough. (At this point, the pasta can be transferred to a sealable plastic bag and frozen for up to 3 months; do not defrost before cooking.) Cook the pasta in a large pot of generously salted boiling water, checking for doneness after just 1 minute; fresh pasta cooks very quickly. As soon as it is al dente, no more than 3 or 4 minutes, drain, reserving some of the cooking water if desired for saucing the pasta. Toss with your sauce, loosen with some of the reserved cooking water as needed and serve immediately. *Note:  You must get the dough as thin as possible and cut them into small strips, otherwise, it will be too thick and end up having the texture of dumplings.

Dinner with Trimalchio as explained on Angelfire.com Fragment 35 The next course is not as grand as Encolpius expects but it is novel. Trimalchio has a course made that represent the 12 signs of the Zodiac, again showing his superstitious nature. Over each sign of the zodiac is food that is connected with the subject of the sign of the zodiac. Ares the ram - chickpeas (the ram is a sign of virility and chickpeas represent the penis in satire) Taurus the bull - a beefsteak . Beef is from cattle and the bull represents strength. Gemini (The heavenly twins) - Testicles and kidneys (since they come in pairs!) Cancer the Crab- a garland (which looks like pincers) but we also learn later (fragment 39 ) that the is Trimalchios sign and by putting a garland over his sign he is honouring it. Leo the Lion - an African fig since lions were from Africa. Virgo the Virgin - a young sows udder , symbol of innocence. Libra the scales - A pair of balance pans with a different dessert in each! Scorpio - a sea scorpion Sagittarius the archer - a sea bream with eyespots, you need a good eye to practise archery. Capricorn- a lobster Aquarius the water carrier - a goose i.e. water fowl. Pisces the fish - two mullets (fish!) In the middle of the dish is a piece of grass and on the grass a honey comb. We are told by Trimalchio himself that this represents mother earth (fragment 39) who is round like a grassy knoll or an egg and has good things inside her like a honey comb.

So to avoid the twin dangers of nostalgia and despairing bitterness, I'll just say that in Cartagena we'd spend a whole month of happiness, and sometimes even a month and a half, or even longer, going out in Uncle Rafa's motorboat, La Fiorella, to Bocachica to collect seashells and eat fried fish with plantain chips and cassava, and to the Rosary Islands, where I tried lobster, or to the beach at Bocagrande, or walking to the pool at the Caribe Hotel, until we were mildly burned on our shoulders, which after a few days started peeling and turned freckly forever, or playing football with my cousins, in the little park opposite Bocagrande Church, or tennis in the Cartagena Club or ping-pong in their house, or going for bike rides, or swimming under the little nameless waterfalls along the coast, or making the most of the rain and the drowsiness of siesta time to read the complete works of Agatha Christie or the fascinating novels of Ayn Rand (I remember confusing the antics of the architect protagonist of The Fountainhead with those of my uncle Rafael), or Pearl S. Buck's interminable sagas, in cool hammocks strung up in the shade on the terrace of the house, with a view of the sea, drinking Kola Roman, eating Chinese empanadas on Sundays, coconut rice with red snapper on Mondays, Syrian-Lebanese kibbeh on Wednesdays, sirloin steak on Fridays and, my favourite, egg arepas on Saturday mornings, piping hot and brought fresh from a nearby village, Luruaco, where they had the best recipe.

Rennie looked again and his hand attached itself to his arm, which was part of him. He wasn’t very far away. She fell in love with him because he was the first thing she saw after her life had been saved. This was the only explanation she could think of. She wished, later, when she was no longer feeling dizzy but was sitting up, trying to ignore the little sucking tubes that were coming out of her and the constant ache, that it had been a potted begonia or a stuffed rabbit, some safe bedside object. Jake sent her roses but by then it was too late. I imprinted on him, she thought; like a duckling, like a baby chick. She knew about imprinting; once, when she was hard up for cash, she’d done a profile for Owl Magazine of a man who believed geese should be used as safe and loyal substitute for watchdogs. It was best to be there yourself when the goslings came out of the eggs, he said. Then they’d follow you to the ends of the earth. Rennie had smirked because that man seemed to think that being followed to the ends of the earth by a flock of adoring geese was both desirable and romantic, but she’d written it all down in his own words. Now she was behaving like a goose, and the whole thing put her on foul temper. It was inappropriate to have fallen in love with Daniel, who had no distinguishing features that Rennie could see. She hardly even knew what he looked like, since, during the examinations before the operation, she hadn’t bothered to look at him. One did not look at doctors; they were functionaries, they were what your mother one hoped you would marry, they were fifties, they were passe. It wasn’t only inappropriate, it was ridiculous. It was expected. Falling in love with your doctor was something middle-aged married women did, women in soaps, women in nurse novels and sex-and-scalpel epics with titles like Surgery and nurse with big tits and doctors who looked like Dr. Kildare on the covers. It was the sort of thing Toronto Life did stories about, soft-core gossip masquerading as hard-nosed research expose. Rennie could not stand being guilty of such a banality.

I made no difficulty in communicating to him what had interested me most in this affair. It seemed as though he had a right to know: hadn’t he spent thirty hours on board the Patna — had he not taken the succession, so to speak, had he not done “his possible”? He listened to me, looking more priest-like than ever, and with what — probably on account of his downcast eyes — had the appearance of devout concentration. Once or twice he elevated his eyebrows (but without raising his eyelids), as one would say “The devil!” Once he calmly exclaimed, “Ah, bah!” under his breath, and when I had finished he pursed his lips in a deliberate way and emitted a sort of sorrowful whistle. ‘In any one else it might have been an evidence of boredom, a sign of indifference; but he, in his occult way, managed to make his immobility appear profoundly responsive, and as full of valuable thoughts as an egg is of meat. What he said at last was nothing more than a “Very interesting,” pronounced politely, and not much above a whisper. Before I got over my disappointment he added, but as if speaking to himself, “That’s it. That is it.” His chin seemed to sink lower on his breast, his body to weigh heavier on his seat. I was about to ask him what he meant, when a sort of preparatory tremor passed over his whole person, as a faint ripple may be seen upon stagnant water even before the wind is felt. “And so that poor young man ran away along with the others,” he said, with grave tranquillity. ‘I don’t know what made me smile: it is the only genuine smile of mine I can remember in connection with Jim’s affair. But somehow this simple statement of the matter sounded funny in French... “S’est enfui avec les autres,” had said the lieutenant. And suddenly I began to admire the discrimination of the man. He had made out the point at once: he did get hold of the only thing I cared about. I felt as though I were taking professional opinion on the case. His imperturbable and mature calmness was that of an expert in possession of the facts, and to whom one’s perplexities are mere child’s-play. “Ah! The young, the young,” he said indulgently. “And after all, one does not die of it.” “Die of what?” I asked swiftly. “Of being afraid.” He elucidated his meaning and sipped his drink.

A few hundred million years later, some of these eukaryotes developed a novel adaptation: they stayed together after cell division to form multicellular organisms in which every cell had exactly the same genes. These are the three-boat septuplets in my example. Once again, competition is suppressed (because each cell can only reproduce if the organism reproduces, via its sperm or egg cells). A group of cells becomes an individual, able to divide labor among the cells (which specialize into limbs and organs). A powerful new kind of vehicle appears, and in a short span of time the world is covered with plants, animals, and fungi.37 It’s another major transition. Major transitions are rare. The biologists John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry count just eight clear examples over the last 4 billion years (the last of which is human societies).38 But these transitions are among the most important events in biological history, and they are examples of multilevel selection at work. It’s the same story over and over again: Whenever a way is found to suppress free riding so that individual units can cooperate, work as a team, and divide labor, selection at the lower level becomes less important, selection at the higher level becomes more powerful, and that higher-level selection favors the most cohesive superorganisms.39 (A superorganism is an organism made out of smaller organisms.) As these superorganisms proliferate, they begin to compete with each other, and to evolve for greater success in that competition. This competition among superorganisms is one form of group selection.40 There is variation among the groups, and the fittest groups pass on their traits to future generations of groups. Major transitions may be rare, but when they happen, the Earth often changes.41 Just look at what happened more than 100 million years ago when some wasps developed the trick of dividing labor between a queen (who lays all the eggs) and several kinds of workers who maintain the nest and bring back food to share. This trick was discovered by the early hymenoptera (members of the order that includes wasps, which gave rise to bees and ants) and it was discovered independently several dozen other times (by the ancestors of termites, naked mole rats, and some species of shrimp, aphids, beetles, and spiders).42 In each case, the free rider problem was surmounted and selfish genes began to craft relatively selfless group members who together constituted a supremely selfish group.

We've been here three days already, and I've yet to cook a single meal. The night we arrived, my dad ordered Chinese takeout from the old Cantonese restaurant around the corner, where they still serve the best egg foo yung, light and fluffy and swimming in rich, brown gravy. Then there had been Mineo's pizza and corned beef sandwiches from the kosher deli on Murray, all my childhood favorites. But last night I'd fallen asleep reading Arthur Schwartz's Naples at Table and had dreamed of pizza rustica, so when I awoke early on Saturday morning with a powerful craving for Italian peasant food, I decided to go shopping. Besides, I don't ever really feel at home anywhere until I've cooked a meal. The Strip is down by the Allegheny River, a five- or six-block stretch filled with produce markets, old-fashioned butcher shops, fishmongers, cheese shops, flower stalls, and a shop that sells coffee that's been roasted on the premises. It used to be, and perhaps still is, where chefs pick up their produce and order cheeses, meats, and fish. The side streets and alleys are littered with moldering vegetables, fruits, and discarded lettuce leaves, and the smell in places is vaguely unpleasant. There are lots of beautiful, old warehouse buildings, brick with lovely arched windows, some of which are now, to my surprise, being converted into trendy loft apartments. If you're a restaurateur you get here early, four or five in the morning. Around seven or eight o'clock, home cooks, tourists, and various passers-through begin to clog the Strip, aggressively vying for the precious few available parking spaces, not to mention tables at Pamela's, a retro diner that serves the best hotcakes in Pittsburgh. On weekends, street vendors crowd the sidewalks, selling beaded necklaces, used CDs, bandanas in exotic colors, cheap, plastic running shoes, and Steelers paraphernalia by the ton. It's a loud, jostling, carnivalesque experience and one of the best things about Pittsburgh. There's even a bakery called Bruno's that sells only biscotti- at least fifteen different varieties daily. Bruno used to be an accountant until he retired from Mellon Bank at the age of sixty-five to bake biscotti full-time. There's a little hand-scrawled sign in the front of window that says, GET IN HERE! You can't pass it without smiling. It's a little after eight when Chloe and I finish up at the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company where, in addition to the prosciutto, soppressata, both hot and sweet sausages, fresh ricotta, mozzarella, and imported Parmigiano Reggiano, all essential ingredients for pizza rustica, I've also picked up a couple of cans of San Marzano tomatoes, which I happily note are thirty-nine cents cheaper here than in New York.

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Oh, what a pleasure that was! Mollie Katzen's handwritten and illustrated recipes that recalled some glorious time in upstate New York when a girl with an appetite could work at a funky vegetarian restaurant and jot down some tasty favorites between shifts. That one had the Pumpkin Tureen soup that Margo had made so many times when she first got the book. She loved the cheesy onion soup served from a pumpkin with a hot dash of horseradish and rye croutons. And the Cardamom Coffee Cake, full of butter, real vanilla, and rich brown sugar, said to be a favorite at the restaurant, where Margo loved to imagine the patrons picking up extras to take back to their green, grassy, shady farmhouses dotted along winding country roads. Linda's Kitchen by Linda McCartney, Paul's first wife, the vegetarian cookbook that had initially spurred her yearlong attempt at vegetarianism (with cheese and eggs, thank you very much) right after college. Margo used to have to drag Calvin into such phases and had finally lured him in by saying that surely anything Paul would eat was good enough for them. Because of Linda's Kitchen, Margo had dived into the world of textured vegetable protein instead of meat, and tons of soups, including a very good watercress, which she never would have tried without Linda's inspiration. It had also inspired her to get a gorgeous, long marble-topped island for prep work. Sometimes she only cooked for the aesthetic pleasure of the gleaming marble topped with rustic pottery containing bright fresh veggies, chopped to perfection. Then Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells caught her eye, and she took it down. Some pages were stuck together from previous cooking nights, but the one she turned to, the most splattered of all, was the one for Onion Soup au Gratin, the recipe that had taught her the importance of cheese quality. No mozzarella or broken string cheeses with- maybe- a little lacy Swiss thrown on. And definitely none of the "fat-free" cheese that she'd tried in order to give Calvin a rich dish without the cholesterol. No, for this to be great, you needed a good, aged, nutty Gruyère from what you couldn't help but imagine as the green grassy Alps of Switzerland, where the cows grazed lazily under a cheerful children's-book blue sky with puffy white clouds. Good Gruyère was blocked into rind-covered rounds and aged in caves before being shipped fresh to the USA with a whisper of fairy-tale clouds still lingering over it. There was a cheese shop downtown that sold the best she'd ever had. She'd tried it one afternoon when she was avoiding returning home. A spunky girl in a visor and an apron had perked up as she walked by the counter, saying, "Cheese can change your life!" The charm of her youthful innocence would have been enough to be cheered by, but the sample she handed out really did it. The taste was beyond delicious. It was good alone, but it cried out for ham or turkey or a rich beefy broth with deep caramelized onions for soup.

Just enough to make up for all the fucking taxes the government took out of my regular paycheck. “Free” counseling. “Free” healthcare. “Free” employment services. “Free” food. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Keep that in mind. Somewhere, somehow, somebody is paying. For everything.

They hadn't had a real meal together in years. Those late, boozy nights with sloppy cheeseburgers and too many appetizers were long gone. No longer would they get pasta and wine by the bottle, telling their Sicilian server not to judge them for how much cheese they wanted ground over their gnocchi and carbonara. They would drink beer and share those plasticky nachos and watch awful bands cover extremely good bands. Their indulgence might kill them one day, but wasn't it worth it? That had been her opinion. She'd never really considered what would happen once the indulgence was gone. Margo, luckily, was always up for whatever challenge made her days more interesting. She was constantly trying to make dupes for whatever she- or he- was really in the mood for. Egg white huevos rancheros, turkey meat loaf, chicken chili, and on one disastrous Thanksgiving, Tofurkey. Nutritional yeast weakly filled the big shoes of good Parmesan. Lettuce did the minimum to live up to the utility purpose of a tortilla while textured vegetable protein tried pitifully to be taco meat.

Egg and dart?

egg tart, I watched a waiter count up all our dishes

James turned the kitchen radio to a classic rock station as he started making the burger. Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer played throughout the restaurant. “It’s our song, Vanessa!” Elijah exclaimed as he and Vanessa sang along to the chorus. When the song came to an end, a few of the customers clapped, zapping them out of the Bon Jovi daze. Vanessa took a bow, embracing the attention. Elijah shyly got back to work and brought a customer their meal.

The smell of bacon sizzling and the sound of eggs hitting hot pans were drowned out by the sonorous diner conversations happening all over the restaurant. Some were laughing at their own jokes in one of the center tables. A couple wordlessly broke up, using the diner napkins to dry their tears, sitting in one of the red with white upside down triangle detailed booths. There were also some teenagers arguing about the pronunciation of gif on the counter table, sitting on the red high chairs.

They reminisced about the war. Cecile told of farmers she knew, neighbors who kept to themselves and sold produce to the Germans, even as they sheltered a family of seven Jews in a root cellar below their barn. At war's end, the family was accused of being collaborators but the testimony of the Jews made them heroes instead. The family said they had lived in the cellar for two-and-a-half years and had never missed a meal. They were fed richly, given wine, eggs and fresh vegetables. They also claimed to have heard the farmer's voice only three times in all those years. When the village mayor sought to decorate him, the farmer refused to be either honored or thanked. He did not change his silent ways and quietly returned to growing artichokes and spinach.

For the cake: 2¾ cup flour 2½ tsp baking powder 2 cups granulated sugar 1 three-ounce package of strawberry Jell-O 1 cup butter, softened 4 eggs 1 cup milk 2 tsp vanilla ½ cup strawberries, pureed Preheat oven to 350º. In a medium bowl, mix flour and baking powder together. In a large bowl, mix sugar, Jell-O, and butter with a handheld mixer. Add eggs one at a time, mixing as you do. Add the flour and baking powder into the sugar mixture and beat as you add in the milk. Finally, stir in vanilla and pureed strawberries. Pour into 9x13 greased pan and bake for 40–50 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. For the frosting: ½ cup butter, softened 1 eight-ounce pack of cream cheese 4 cups powdered sugar 2 tsp vanilla Mix all the ingredients together with handheld mixer. For the cake pops: Follow the instructions for making basic Pops from a Box, but use your crumbled strawberry cake and 1½ cups of your cream cheese frosting instead. Chill your cake balls. Choose a fun color or flavor for your candy melt coating (white chocolate candy melts are yummy with this!). Prepare your coating using about ¼ pound of candy melts at a time. Then dip cake pops and decorate.

If I’d had you before me at Richmond, I’d have put the ball in yer eye, God help you, I killed twenty like you when I was younger,” his voice piped over the flats. “Let the sun drop you in the badlands and let you not die before the shit of prairie dogs is in yer mouth and the buzzard’s claw is on yer belly. May yer pizzle fry in Hell and your eggs wither to peas, may the marrow boil in yer bones and yer eyes melt in their holes for what you done here, God damn you, God damn you …

Even so, most of the stories people told about Amos [Tversky] had less to do with what came out of his mouth than with the unusual way he moved through the world. He kept the hours of a vampire. He went to bed when the sun came up and woke up at happy hour. He ate pickles for breakfast and eggs for dinner. He minimized quotidian tasks he thought a waste of time—he could be found in the middle of the day, having just woken up, driving himself to work while shaving and brushing his teeth in the rearview mirror. “He never knew what time of the day it was,” said his daughter, Dona. “It didn’t matter. He’s living in his own sphere and you just happened to encounter him there.” He didn’t pretend to be interested in whatever others expected him to be interested in—God help anyone who tried to drag him to a museum or a board meeting. “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like,” Amos liked to say, plucking a line from the Muriel Spark novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. “He just skipped family vacations,” says his daughter. “He’d come if he liked the place. Otherwise he didn’t.” The children didn’t take it personally: They loved their father and knew that he loved them. “He loved people,” said his son Oren. “He just didn’t like social norms. A lot of things that most human beings would never think to do, to Amos simply made sense. For instance, when he wanted to go for a run he . . . went for a run. No stretching, no jogging outfit or, for that matter, jogging: He’d simply strip off his slacks and sprint out his front door in his underpants and run as fast as he could until he couldn’t run anymore. “Amos thought people paid an enormous price to avoid mild embarrassment,” said his friend Avishai Margalit, “and he himself decided very early on it was not worth it.” What all those who came to know Amos eventually realized was that the man had a preternatural gift for doing only precisely what he wanted to do. Varda Liberman recalled visiting him one day and seeing a table with a week’s worth of mail on it. There were tidy little stacks, one for each day, each filled with requests and entreaties and demands upon Amos’s time: job offers, offers of honorary degrees, requests for interviews and lectures, requests for help with some abstruse problem, bills. When the new mail came in Amos opened anything that interested him and left the rest in its daily pile. Each day the new mail arrived and shoved the old mail down the table. When a pile reached the end of the table Amos pushed it, unopened, off the edge into a waiting garbage can. “The nice thing about things that are urgent,” he liked to say, “is that if you wait long enough they aren’t urgent anymore.” “I would say to Amos I have to do this or I have to do that,” recalled his old friend Yeshu Kolodny. “And he would say, ‘No. You don’t.’ And I thought: lucky man!

Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes Yield: 12 cupcakes From the cozy mystery novel Peppermint Peril by Molly Maple “I love the look of the crushed candy canes sprinkled on the top of the peppermint frosting. The hot cocoa cupcakes add a dash of happiness to the kitchen as every surface is taken over by baked goods.” -Peppermint Peril Ingredients for the Cupcake: ¾ cups all-purpose flour ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt 1/3 cup vegetable oil ½ cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs, room temperature 2 tsp pure vanilla extract ½ cup plain yogurt or vanilla yogurt, room temperature Instructions for the Cupcake: Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, sift together ¾ cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, and ½ tsp salt. Set flour mix aside. In a large bowl, use a mixer to beat the vegetable oil and sugar on medium speed for three minutes. Beat until shiny, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add eggs one at a time while the mixer runs on low speed. Add 2 tsp pure vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the yogurt. Mix to incorporate with each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat until just combined. Batter should look a bit thin. Divide the batter into your 12-count lined cupcake pan, filling each one 2/3 the way full. Bake for 20-24 minutes at 350°F, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let them cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. Cool to room temperature before frosting. Ingredients for the Frosting: 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 4 cups powdered sugar 2 tsp peppermint extract ¾ cup crushed candy cane pieces Instructions for the Frosting: Place 2 sticks unsalted butter into a stand mixer and beat until well combined. Slowly add powdered sugar one cup at a time, alternating with peppermint extract until combined but not overmixed. Mix in ¼ cup candy cane pieces. Beat until fluffy. After frosting the cooled cupcakes, top with the remaining crushed candy cane pieces.

While the tales were most like only tales, none could doubt the truth of the riddle.

Words like that can cost a man his head.

Some words are wind. Some words are treason.

The cat who wants his cream must know when to purr and when to show his claws.

Gallant gestures come easy when your purse is filled with gold.

He orders an expensive bottle of Rioja and we begin our tapas extravaganza with plates of dates wrapped in bacon, langoustines in garlic and butter, chorizo in a tomatoey sauce, and a miniature Spanish tortilla (potato, egg, and onion). Our medium-rare steaks are set before us along with a basket of thinly sliced, golden crisped fries. I'm happy to see that Frank enjoys food- with no mention of any weird hang-ups or allergies. "I was hoping they'd have sweetbreads on the menu," Frank says. "You like sweetbreads?" I ask, my heart expanding at the mention of calf thymus. "I'm an organ man," Frank says, taking a sip of wine. "I know a place where they make great sautéed sweetbreads," I say. "You?" he asks, a look of pleased astonishment spreading across his face. "Love 'em," I say. This mutual infatuation with organs bodes well. Cutting into the steaks with sharp knives, we put morsels in our mouths, close our eyes as if we've died and gone to heaven, chew, and groan, the salty, bloody juices trickling down the backs of our throats.

Mrs. O’Brien’s Shepherd’s Pie Recipe Ingredients: 5 cups mashed, boiled potatoes (could be reduced to 4 cups)* 1/2 cup sour cream 2 ounces cream cheese 2 tablespoons butter, softened, divided 1 egg yolk 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1-1/2 teaspoon olive oil 1 pound ground lamb (We substituted ground chicken. You could also use ground beef or turkey.) 1 pinch salt and ground black pepper to taste 1 (16 ounce) can stewed tomatoes with juice, chopped 1 small yellow onion, chopped 1 small carrot, peeled and chopped 1/2 cup peas (frozen or fresh) 1 cup Irish stout beer (such as Guinness(R)) 1 cube beef bouillon (we used chicken bouillon) 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese 2 teaspoons smoked paprika (optional) * 1 tsp. liquid smoke (optional) * Directions: -Stir cooked potatoes, sour cream, cream cheese, 1 tablespoon butter, egg yolk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper together in a bowl until smooth. -Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet or nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Add ground lamb (or meat). Reduce heat to medium, and cook, stirring frequently, until browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Pour off excess grease and season meat with salt and black pepper to taste. -Add stewed tomatoes with juice, onion, and carrot into meat mixture; Stir and simmer until vegetables are tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Add peas; reduce heat to low and continue cooking, stirring frequently, 2 to 3 minutes. -Add one teaspoon of liquid smoke to meat mixture. Mix thoroughly. -Heat beer in a saucepan over medium heat; add (beef) bouillon cube. Cook and stir beer mixture until bouillon dissolves, about 5 minutes. - Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a separate pan over medium-low heat. Whisk flour into butter until it thickens, about 1 minute. -Stir beer mixture and Worcestershire sauce into flour mixture until gravy is smooth and thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir gravy into meat mixture and simmer until mixture thickens, at least 5 minutes. -Set top oven rack roughly 6 inches from the oven broiler and preheat the broiler. Grease a 9x12-inch baking dish. - Pour (meat) mixture into the prepared baking dish. -Spoon mashed potatoes over (meat) mixture, covering like a crust. Sprinkle cheddar cheese and paprika evenly over mashed potatoes. -Broil in the preheated oven until the crust browns and the cheese is melted, 4 to 5 minutes. -Cool for about 5 minutes before serving. NOTES: We thought the smoked paprika added little flavor to the original recipe.  We added liquid smoke to the meat and it gave it a nice smoky flavor. Next time, we’ll reduce the amount of mashed potatoes to four cups.  We thought the layer of potatoes was a little too thick. (But if you love mashed potatoes, five cups would work ☺  )

No one ever sees my underwear,” Rae told Ellen now. “So what does it matter what it looks like?” “No one ever sees your underwear because you don’t expect them to see it,” Ellen retorted. “It’s like the chicken-and-the-egg phenomenon. Which came first, the sex or the thong?” “Clever,” Rae scowled. “Dress for the boyfriend you want, not the boyfriend you have,” Ellen went on.

Cookbook) This foolproof sugar cookie recipe makes a sturdy, sweet treat that’s a perfect gift or a great addition to a holiday cookie platter. 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature 2 cups brown sugar 2 large eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or grated lemon peel 6 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt

A know-it-all. He is a know-it-all. Eggs and peculiar. Animated and audacious. Astute, abnormally knowledgeable. An optimist. Pet-whisperer and the definition of a people’s person. A hopeless—emphasis on hopeless—romantic. But that is Caspian Marks. Oh, my. He is my Caspian Marks.

All she was thinking about were the orphans and how to make it so that anyone could have access to eggs. Was this girl really fifteen? If she told me she was a merchant’s daughter, I probably would have believed her. She was a kindhearted girl and an important friend to my daughter. I would work as hard as I could to repay even a sliver of my debt to her.

Here’s one of Claire’s favorite recipes, which never fails to make smiles bloom around the breakfast table. The ingredients and spices are varied, and Claire claims there’s no reason to worry if you don’t have everything on hand. Just improvise. The muffins never come out the same way twice but are always delicious . . . and could be called Vanishing Muffins, since they disappear so quickly. Morning Glory Muffins MAKES 16 MUFFINS Ingredients 2¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking soda ¾ cup brown sugar, lightly packed (light or dark) ¾ cup white sugar 2 tablespoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground ginger ½ teaspoon allspice 2 cups grated carrots 1 cup (8 ounces) crushed pineapple, packed in juice and drained ¾ cup raisins (golden preferred) ½ cup shredded coconut ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans 3 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup canola oil Directions Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with a rack in the lower third. Line muffin tins with paper cups. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. Add the carrots, pineapple, raisins, coconut, and nuts, and mix thoroughly. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the vanilla and then the oil. Pour egg mixture into the dry ingredients in thirds and blend well. (Do not overmix or muffins will turn out tough.) Fill muffin cups to the brim. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick or sharp, thin knife inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes and remove from tins.

When Ellen announced that supper was ready Douglas Starr told Emily to go out to it. “I don’t want anything tonight. I’ll just lie here and rest. And when you come in again we’ll have a real talk, Elfkin.” He smiled up at her his old, beautiful smile, with the love behind it, that Emily always found so sweet. She ate her supper quite happily—though it wasn’t a good supper. The bread was soggy and her egg was underdone, but for a wonder she was allowed to have both Saucy Sal and Mike sitting, one on each side of her, and Ellen only grunted when Emily fed them wee bits of bread and butter. Mike had such a cute way of sitting up on his haunches and catching the bits in his paws, and Saucy Sal had her trick of touching Emily’s ankle with an almost human touch when her turn was too long in coming. Emily loved them both, but Mike was her favourite. He was a handsome, dark-grey cat with huge owl-like eyes, and he was so soft and fat and fluffy. Sal was always thin; no amount of feeding put any flesh on her bones. Emily liked her, but never cared to cuddle or stroke her because of her thinness. Yet there was a sort of weird beauty about her that appealed to Emily. She was grey-and-white—very white and very sleek, with a long, pointed face, very long ears and very green eyes. She was a redoubtable fighter, and strange cats were vanquished in one round. The fearless little spitfire would even attack dogs and rout them utterly. Emily loved her pussies. She had brought them up herself, as she proudly said. They had been given to her when they were kittens by her Sunday School teacher. “A living present is so nice,” she told Ellen, “because it keeps on getting nicer all the time.

She will leave me. It’s six AM. Breakfast for one. Eggs, sunny-side-up, like the morning outside; two-cheese English muffin, melting in the toaster oven; already humid outside; coffee will be a little bitter today, no matter how much sweetener gets put in it. The OJ will stay in the fridge – my stomach can do without the citric acid bombardment this morning. She will pack her things and leave me. Coffee brews. Radio station plays then breaks from classical music, telling me what's already evident about the weather. She will complain that she cannot get along with me. Eggs pop and sizzle as the news comes on.

I had sequenced Pickwick at home using nothing more complex than average kitchen utensils and cultivated her in a denucleated goose egg.

An egg is an egg. Sometimes its shell is just a different colour from the rest in the basket but it's sure still an egg.

The idea of long-term planning is a relatively new concept from a human evolution standpoint. We weren’t evolved to live this long and have to make plans for the very distant future. Storing food for the next month or two, sure. But, to think about stocking away a retirement nest egg in case I’m retired for 30 years? This is relatively foreign. You couple that novel aspect of planning with the idea that we’re very swayed by everything that is happening in the present. It’s very easy to ignore the long, long run, and really hard to ignore all the pulls on our attention right now. Spending more money right now and eating something delicious right now—it’s appealing to do those things because we know we get the rewards right now. But to not do those things—to not spend, to not eat unhealthily—so that our long-run selves can be better off, well, that’s a hard proposition for a lot of people because the present is so powerful.” —Dr. Hal Hershfield38

when Flash started to speak about love the word floated in the same sort of way, only closer in and brighter and with far more mystery, but also with the smell of eggs, and other men, and beer.

What is it that frightens us about a "novel of causes", and conversely, does fiction have to exist in some suspended, apolitical landscape in order to be literary? Can it not politically and temporally specific and still be in good literary taste? We are leery of literature that smacks of the polemic, instructional, or prescriptive, and I guess rightly so--it's a drag to be lectured to--but what does that imply about our attitudes towards intellectual inquiry? While I enjoy reading kitchen-table novels in which characters are distilled to their emotional essence and their lives stripped of politics and commerce, it simply is not reflective of my experience. I see our lives as being a part of an enormous web of interconnected spheres, where the workings of the larger social, political, and corporate machinery impact something as private and intimate as the descent of an egg through a woman's fallopian tube. This is the resonance I want to conjure in my books. I want to write novels that engage the emotions and the intellect, and that means going head to head with the chaos of evils and issues that threaten to overpower us all. And if they threaten to overpower the characters, then I have to make the characters stronger.

John Steinbeck wrote of monsters in his novel East of Eden: I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies... And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

I make a list of my assets- caviar of aubergine, pepper salad, spiced fish, cheese pasties, potato salad with chilies, taramasalata, artichokes with oranges, broad beans with cumin, filou parcels of tuna and capers, triangular patties of meat, egg and coriander... I arrange intersections, detours, associations, improbable meetings. The exoticism will stretch from the Far East to Asia Minor. My battalions are lining up, an infantry of vegetables and a cavalry of crunchiness. I inspect my munitions between the flanks of my spice rack, curcuma and ras-el hanout standing to attention in their glass phials. Oregano, sage, poppy seeds, nigella, red berries, black peppercorns. I need mountains of garlic, pine kernels, olives, preserved lemons...

I make myself an espresso and bring it over to the pastry station where I begin the pasta. I can hear Tony whistling in the large walk-in refrigerator as he unloads the day's shipment of meat and eggs. I measure out the semolina and deposit it into several piles of approximately equal size on the marble station. Tony has set out a large bowl of fresh eggs and several containers of pasta flavorings, two kinds of pepper (red and coarsely ground black), lemon zest and anchovy paste.

I grew up in Pittsburgh." "In Pittsburgh?" Arthur says, a small snort escaping him. "An unlikely place for a classically trained chef." "People have been known to eat in Pittsburgh, you know," I tell him, with a backwards glance as he pulls out my chair. The man is a snob. "Well, of course they do. I just meant that, well, even today, it's not exactly the bastion of haute cuisine. Twenty, thirty years ago, forget it. In fact, can you remember the last time a Pittsburgh restaurant was featured in Bon Appétit?" Touché. In fact, the only time that I can remember a Pittsburgh restaurant being mentioned in a national magazine was several years ago when Gourmet mentioned Primanti Brothers in an interview with Mario Batali (who'd eaten there on a recent trip and enjoyed it). For the uninitiated, the Primanti sandwich is a cheesesteak sub, served on thick slabs of crusty Italian bread and topped with very well-done grease-still-glistening French fries, coleslaw, and, if you're really a traditionalist, a fried egg. Apparently, it has become the signature food of Pittsburgh.

Why then," he says, suddenly turning to me and folding his arms across his chest, "did your mother study in France? Why did you study in Italy? Which I presume you did because you know as well as I do that no culinary education is considered complete without an international apprenticeship." His voice is smug, his mouth curled in a half smile. "Wait a minute," I say, feeling suddenly compelled to defend American culinary tradition (not to mention my own expensive and, in my opinion, extremely comprehensive education at the Culinary Institute of America). "I studied in Italy because I cook Italian food. My mother studied in France because in the late 1960s there was no other option. But that certainly doesn't mean that there isn't a rich and varied culinary tradition in America today. Stop at a roadside barbeque in Texas, eat a lobster roll in Bangor, Maine, order a fried egg on your Primanti sandwich in Pittsburgh, for heaven's sake!

Eggs Benedict, served in perfectly steamed artichoke hearts, with slices of thick-cut, grilled pancetta and a hollandaise sauce the color of a Cézanne sunrise; lush, tender strawberries with clotted cream and muscovado sugar; warm croissants; hand-cured smoked salmon; and coffee heated in mugs.

This is Carlos's Three-Cheese Casserole." In between my appointment with Dr. D-P and my trip to the loft to supervise the installation of the range, I'd run home and gathered some ingredients from my father's pantry, intending to break in my new stove and play around with my kids' cooking assignment. I'd used tricolor bows, mixed with a combination of cottage cheese, Gruyère, the end of a piece of hard cheese I'd found in the back of the fridge, and a couple of eggs. I baked it all in a hot oven and served it topped with a fresh tomato basil sauce.

Today's offerings include grilled tuna in a soy wasabi marinade, and a pan-roasted squab with curried apricot chutney, neither typical bistro fare. It makes me think wistfully of compound butters and pestos of fresh herbs and toasted nuts, of mushrooms and lardons, eggs and roast chicken, none of which appear anywhere on the menu. I order myself an appetizer portion of mussels and a side of frites to start and a green salad. After an extended cross examination of the waiter, Enid orders a beet and goat cheese salad and the veal chop with Roquefort butter.

For you, Manya, scrambled eggs with cream cheese and lox, our number-one seller. For the young lady a waffle with hot syrup and whipped butter and for Abe a steak sandwich with sautéed onions. Sounds good?" He left us for a moment before seating himself on the fourth chair at our table. He brought a basket with assorted breads, rolls, bagels and bialys that he lathered with butter and shoveled into his mouth. "Taste, taste." True to the sign that read In and Out in 20 Minutes, the food appeared not only quickly but on hot plates. "I learned from you, Manya. Always hot plates." The waffle was a novel experience: crisp, sweet, the butter served in a fluted paper cup, the syrup in a miniature pitcher.

We carried life out here and set it down the way those ants carry eggs. And I was the leader. The westering was as big as God, and the slow steps that made the movement piled up and piled up until the continent was crossed. “Then we came down to the sea, and it was done.” He stopped and wiped his eyes until the rims were red. “That’s what I should be telling instead of stories.” When Jody spoke, Grandfather started and looked down at him.

We carried life out here and set it down the way those ants carry eggs. And I was the leader. The westering was as big as God, and the slow steps that made the movement piled up and piled up until the continent was crossed. “Then we came down to the sea, and it was done.” He stopped and wiped his eyes until the rims were red. “That’s what I should be telling instead of stories.” When Jody spoke, Grandfather started and looked down at him. “Maybe I could lead the people some day,” Jody said.

I’ve read a lot of romance novels. Like a lot. When a man likes you, he stands shirtless in the kitchen and makes you scrambled eggs. It’s a proven fact. He does not, however, stare at you like you’ve grown two heads overnight while he has milk dripping from his chin into his punch bowl of cereal.

Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!’ Major instruments of social stability. Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg. ‘Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!’ The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. ‘You really know where you are. For the first time in history.’ He quoted the planetary motto. ‘Community, Identity, Stability.’ Grand words. ‘If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved.’ Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.

Father opened the bigger of the white boxes. “It’s easy. Everything needed is in here.” Eggs hung in the door, bottles with colored fluids stood on a shelf. There were beans, spinach and oranges in one drawer, slabs of meat in another. Peeking inside, Shirley got goose bumps from the cold. But she couldn’t find the window. She tugged at Father’s coat. “I don’t see the window to the outside,” she said. Father laughed. “This, Shirley Temple Wong, is an ice box. A machine that cools food and keeps it from spoiling. In America you only have to market once a week, not every day.” “And I suppose,” Mother said, “in America the wife does that, too.” “That’s right.

Fish roe and butter makes for a truly exquisite pairing! By adding butter to pollock roe, with its clusters of firm little orbs just like miniature egg yolks, you take away any unpleasant fishiness from the roe, instead producing a sauce with an inexplicable fullness of taste that forms a perfect coating for the carbohydrates, setting off their plumpness and texture like a dream. Perhaps best of all is the pretty pink hue of the roe, like a gorgeous spring evening (you may know by now that pink is my favorite color!). The butter and rosy-colored roe combination coats each and every spaghetti strand, bringing out that delicious semolina scent and generating a flavor that feels like a wave of kindness rising up uncontrollably from inside your chest.

The dusky-pink pollock roe she removed from its polystyrene packaging gleamed wetly and, for an instant, the image of Kaiji's puckered lips passed through her mind. Leaving its outer skin on, she broke up the roe with a fork and mixed it unfussily into the spaghetti. She sliced off a knob of the Calpis with a knife and perched it on top, then watched as the pale-yellow solid gently began to change color, spreading out to the sides and turning golden, mingling with the fish eggs. The full, milky aroma of the butter married with the salty marine tang of the roe as the scent of the dish went rising up to her face, and she breathed it deeply into her lungs. She garnished the pasta with a scattering of shiso leaves she'd torn up with her fingers, then moved the bowl of pasta over to her cardboard box. There was a rosy-cheeked frankness about the pink of the roe, and in combination with the oozing butter, it looked positively carefree. Rika tool up her fork and wound up the spaghetti, before lifting it to her mouth. Cloaked in a coating of minuscule fish eggs and butter, the spaghetti strands sprang around Rika's tongue as if in excitement. The dish was adequately salted, but there was a relaxed, mellow quality to its taste. What a wonderful combination pollock roe and butter made!