French Bistro Quotes

Any man who loves a woman as she deserves to be loved is a magician.

One might have to be a little ruthless to seize back control of one's life, don't you think?

Here is everything I know about France: Madeline and Amelie and Moulin Rouge. The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, although I have no idea what the function of either actually is. Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a lot of kings named Louis. I'm not sure what they did either, but I think it has something to do with the French Revolution, which has something to do with Bastille Day. The art museum is called the Louvre and it's shaped like a pyramid and the Mona Lisa lives there along with that statue of the women missing her arms. And there are cafes and bistros or whatever they call them on every street corner. And mimes. The food is supposed to be good, and the people drink a lot of wine and smoke a lot of cigarettes. I've heard they don't like Americans, and they don't like white sneakers.

Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It’s time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside.

I don't know why we women believe that sacrificing our desires makes us more attractive to men. What on earth are we thinking? That someone who goes without her wishes deserves to be loved more than she who follows her dreams?

Life wasn’t too short: it was too long to waste unduly on non-love, non-laughter and non-decisions. And it began when you first took a risk, failed and realized that you’d survived the failure. With that knowledge, you could risk anything.

Death is not free. Its price is life.

Loving is different from being loved. Giving and seeing how a person flourishes and feeds off your love: the amount of power you possess, and the fact that that power makes someone the best they can be.

Fashion has nothing to do with style," said Colette in her husky voice. "It all depends on whether you want to conceal or reveal who you are.

The radiance of this beautiful scene shed a cruel light on every past horror, every insult tolerated, every unspoken retort, every gesture of rejection. Marianne was grieving, and her boundless grief made her regret every moment of cowardice in her life.

...Time had seemed infinite when she still had many years and decades ahead of her. A book waiting to be written: as a girl, that was how she had seen her future life. Now she was sixty, and the pages were blank. Infinity had passed like one long continuous day.

Every second can mark a new beginning. Open your eyes and see: the world is out there and it wants you.

A wood that smells of the sea.

And yet, life as an autonomous woman is not a song. It’s a scream, a war; it’s a daily struggle against the easy option of obeying.

As long as you can walk upright, you will find a walking stick. As long as you are brave, someone will help you.

The beach was empty, no footprints in the sand, and yet they were all there: the dead, the night and the sea. The sea offered her a song of bravery and love. It came from a long way away, as if someone somewhere in the world had sung it many years ago, for those on the shore who didn't dare to take the plunge.

He remembered what his father had said when Simon complained about the wild, unruly sea: "Learn to love it, son. Learn to love what you do, whatever it is, and you won't have any problems. You'll suffer, but then you'll feel, and when you feel, you're alive. You need troubles to be alive -- otherwise you're dead!

If someone suffers and won't change, then they need to suffer.

Oh get down from your cross: we need timber.

You cannot tell love to come and stay forever. You can only welcome it when it comes, like the summer or the autumn, and when its time is up and it’s gone, then it’s gone. The

Nothing is colder than a heart that once blazed.

Piety is a sign that a person will do anything to be important in the world,

Everything was to be experienced at the highest pitch of passion and life. To expect something greater after life was to forget that life was the greatest thing of all. He had forgotten that, and now he wanted to live with all his strength and with no further dread.

Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It's time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside. The goddess hates to see abilities go to waste, and women waste their abilities far too often.

I don’t know why we women believe that sacrificing our desires makes us more attractive to men. What on earth are we thinking? That someone who goes without her wishes deserves to be loved more than she who follows her dreams? It’s exactly what I thought. The more I sacrificed, the happier I was. The longer I went without, the stronger was my hope that Lothar would give me what I needed. I believed that if I didn’t ask for anything, made no reproaches, didn’t demand my own room or my own money, didn’t cause any arguments, the miracle would come to pass. That he would say, Oh, how much you have sacrificed! How my love for you has grown, because you sacrificed yourself for me! How crazy that was. I was so proud of myself and my capacity for suffering: I wanted to be perfect at it. The more complete my uncomplaining acquiescence became, the greater his love would one day be. And my greatest abnegation - renouncing my own life - would have secured me his undying love. Does love have to be earned through suffering?

The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary … You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.

I love the way the rain melts the colors together, like a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. There is a moment, just after sunset, when the shops turn on their lights and steam starts to fog up the windows of the cafés. In French, this twilight time implies a hint of danger. It's called entre chien et loup, between the dog and the wolf. It was just beginning to get dark as we walked through the small garden of Palais Royal. We watched as carefully dressed children in toggled peacoats and striped woolen mittens finished the same game of improvised soccer we had seen in the Place Sainte Marthe. Behind the Palais Royal the wide avenues around the Louvre gave way to narrow streets, small boutiques, and bistros. It started to drizzle. Gwendal turned a corner, and tucked in between two storefronts, barely wider than a set of double doors, I found myself staring down a corridor of fairy lights. A series of arches stretched into the distance, topped with panes of glass, like a greenhouse, that echoed the plip-plop of the rain. It was as if we'd stepped through the witch's wardrobe, the phantom tollbooth, what have you, into another era. The Passage Vivienne was nineteenth-century Paris's answer to a shopping mall, a small interior street lined with boutiques and tearooms where ladies could browse at their leisure without wetting the bustles of their long dresses or the plumes of their new hats. It was certainly a far cry from the shopping malls of my youth, with their piped-in Muzak and neon food courts. Plaster reliefs of Greek goddesses in diaphanous tunics lined the walls. Three-pronged brass lamps hung from the ceiling on long chains. About halfway down, there was an antique store selling nothing but old kitchenware- ridged ceramic bowls for hot chocolate, burnished copper molds in the shape of fish, and a pewter mold for madeleines, so worn around the edges it might have belonged to Proust himself. At the end of the gallery, underneath a clock held aloft by two busty angels, was a bookstore. There were gold stencils on the glass door. Maison fondée en 1826.

The moment I put it in my mouth and bit down... ... an exquisite and entirely unexpected flavor exploded in my mouth! It burst across my tongue, rushed up through my nose... ... and rose all the way up to my brain!" "No! It can't be!" "How is that possible?! Anyone with eyes can see there's nothing special to that dish! Its fragrance was entirely inferior to Asahi's dish from the get-go!" "That there. That's what it is. I knew something wasn't right." "Asahi?" "Something felt off the instant the cloche was removed. His dish is fried rice. It uses tons of butter, soy sauce and spices. Yet it hardly had any aroma!" "Good catch. The secret is in one of the five grand cuisine dishes I melded together... A slightly atypical take on the French Oeuf Mayonnaise. ." "Ouef Mayonnaise, or eggs and mayonnaise, is an appetizer you can find in any French bistro. Hard-boiled eggs are sliced, coated with a house-blend mayo and garnished with vegetables. Though, in your dish, I can tell you chose very soft-boiled eggs instead. Hm. Very interesting, Soma Yukihira. He took those soft-boiled eggs and some homemade mayo and blended them into a sauce...... which he then poured over his steamed rice and tossed until each and every grain was coated, its flavor sealed inside! To cook them so that each individual grain is completely covered... ... takes incredibly fast and precise wok handling over extremely high heat! No average chef could manage that feat!" " Whaaa?! Ah! It's so thin I didn't notice it at first glance, but there it is, a very slight glaze! That makes each of these grains of rice a miniature, self-contained Omurice! The moment you bite into them, that eggy coating is broken... ... releasing all the flavors and aromas of the dish onto your palate in one explosive rush!" No wonder! That's what entranced the judges. That sudden, powerful explosion of flavor! "Yep! Even when it's served, my dish still hides its fangs. Only when you bite into it does it bite back with all it's got. I call it my Odorless Fried Rice.

The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary ... You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.

you think it will take to do all that?” She gave me a wink. “It is a lot of work. But here in this lab? Everything can be done very fast. That’s why working with Bo Ma is such a great opportunity. He has all the latest equipment, and his collaborators know all the most current techniques. Not to mention that he has lots and lots of money from grants and foundations. And he will happily spend it to understand life span. He’ll be excited when I show him these results.” She laughed. “We can do anything here!” 3 I met Karen for dinner at Bar Boulud, the French bistro at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Neither Karen nor I were normally drawn to celebrity chef restaurants, preferring local places like Carmella’s—Karen’s favorite in the North End—a place that

The sea’s voice whispered inside her: You’re finally awakening.

Instead of Coriander, I chose a French-style bistro, quiet and easy, where the server talked me into the braised rabbit, which arrived exquisitely tender in a gravy of such textured depth that I took out my notebook and scribbled a few notes on what I thought the ingredients might be. Thyme, rosemary, carrots, and parsley. Mushrooms and mustard and shallots.

There was virtually nothing more erotic for certain men than trying to cure a woman of a rival. A cat, egotistical and devoted and yet wolf-like, brazen in her ingenuous passion and as elegant as a queen. In love there was only yes or no. No I-don't-know, no maybes; those were merely nos in disguise.

As long as you can walk, you will find a walking stick. As long as you are brave, someone will help you.

Didn't they say that beauty was a state of soul? And if her soul was loved, a woman would be transformed into a wondrous creature, however ordinary her looks. Love changed a woman's soul, and she became beautiful, for a few minutes or forever.

Maybe friendship was the most patient kind of love.

Sometimes other people recognize us before we do.

Official mistresses," Pascale lectured as she fed the dogs, "were the rulers of kings. They decided more questions of state with their vaginas than historians would care to admit.

How I would have loved to wear something red. I wish I had fought. She got up. It wasn’t too late: she could still do what she wanted, and she wanted to do it in Kerdruc.

She was in Paris, in a dazzlingly lit hospital room, listening to music on the radio. Music you wanted to dance to. She saw old men dancing with young women; she saw a long, richly laid table, laughing children and apple trees, the sunlight on the sea at the horizon; she saw blue shutters on old thatched sandstone cottages. When she opened her eyes, the vision had come true. She felt the warmth of the sunshine, and a wave of infinite gratitude swept through her.

He sees stones as a counterweight to dynamics, for it is only through their immobility that man's quest becomes visible. You see, without stones we wouldn't notice that we're moving and ..." Colette paused. What on earth was she babbling about? "Stones aren't immobile," said Sidonie after a while.

Do you think death is the end of everything, Marie-Anne?” “I hope so,” whispered Marieanne. “Here on the Brittany coast we believe something different. Death is not something that is coming, but rather something that is all around us. Here.” Clara pointed at the air. “There.” She gestured toward the trees. Then she bent forward and took a little white sand in her hands. “Death is like this.” She let the sand trickle from her left hand into her right. “One life goes in and takes a break in death.” Now she let the sand run out of her right hand onto the ground. “Another life comes out. It makes a journey, oui? Like flowing water. Water in a moulin. In a mill. Death is that short break.

Every woman is a priestess,” she said abruptly. “Every single one.” She turned to Marianne, her eyes clear as water. “The major religions and their shepherds have assigned to women a position that isn’t ours making us second class citizens. The goddess became God, priestesses where whores, and any woman who put up resistance was branded a witch. And the special quality of each woman – her intelligence, her capacity for augury, healing, and sensuality – was, and still is, debased.” She brushed off the soil that was hardening on her trousers. “Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It’s time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside. The goddess hates to see abilities go to waste, and women waste their abilities far too often.

People never change!" Marianne retorted. "We forget ourselves, and when we rediscover ourselves, we merely imagine that we have changed. That's not true, though. You can't change dreams; you can only kill them-and some of us are very good murderers.

Whenever my family goes out to eat, it's usually fancier restaurants---an Argentine steak house, a French bistro, one of those classic return-home tacos. Mom likes to eat healthy, and so she's taught Rosalba to make recipes off the internet, dishes with quinoa and kale and coconut oil subbed in for butter. Felix was the biggest proponent of traditional Mexican dishes, taking me to restaurants and markets our parents wouldn't set foot in, begging Rosalba to bust out anything in her repertoire.

Can you move?" he says, pulling out five euros from his wallet. He holds the bill over my head. "Here, this should help." My fantasy evaporates like dry ice on a summer day in the hottest of deserts. I shoot him daggers with my eyes and swat the bill. He actually thinks I'm homeless? "I don't need money." "Could have fooled me," he says, his eyes making an unabashed loop over my outfit, and then pockets the bill. Under my breath, I mutter, "Quelle bite." What a dick. "I heard that," he says in English, his lips pressing together into a thin line. "Crazy tourist." "You speak English?" "Yes, and it's obviously more refined than your limited French." The lilt in his affected voice, the precise English accent that would normally have me drooling, echoes in my head when I snap to. How dare he? He crashes into me and then launches insults like grenades? Bye-bye, meet-cute, this prince in disguise is as ugly as a toadfish.

This is my cat, Juju," the woman says, noting my obvious confusion, maybe even my fear. "He's my good luck charm." "Uh, yeah," I say, backing away ever so slightly. That's some collar. I love the rhinestones. Trés chic." "Rhinestones? Don't be silly. I buy all his accessories from a jeweler. His collar is from Catier. As they say, diamonds are a cat's best friend." My upper lip twitches. Nobody has ever said that. And I'm pretty sure she means Cartier. She blows the cat a kiss, and I swear, if cats could smile, this one does, his giant face twisting with love or hunger. "He's huge," I say, watching his tail flick a bit menacingly. "He's a rare French breed, a Chartreux. He's just, how do you say? Big-boned?" She chortles out a laugh. "I really should put him on a regime like the vétérinaire said. He weighs nine kilos. Can you believe it? I strain my back when I try to pick him up. But he truly doesn't like les haricots verts or les courgettes. He's quite the gourmand." My head spins with confusion. I wonder, What cat would like green beans and zucchini? as I convert the math in my head. Her cat weighs around twenty pounds. And, apparently, he hates vegetables but adores his bling.

I'd been drawn to an orange Siamese fighter fish with fins that moved like a graceful flamenco dancer, and I'd wanted one for the big tank in the restaurant until Charles explained that he (or she) would kill all the other fishes we'd picked out---tropical delights in all the colors of the rainbow, some spotted like leopards, all being delivered to the restaurant tomorrow morning. I tap on the glass. "I'm going to name you Frushi. French sushi. Don't worry, nobody is going to eat you. The sea bass, on the other hand, that's another story." Frushi shows off, wiggling his featherlike tail and fins, which look like they're made of inky silk, as he swims through the tiny castle and live plants I'd purchased for his new home.

They're the finest of salicornes, green beans from the sea, from Brittany, très exotique. I thought you'd adore them." She holds out a large bag and, without even opening it, the scent envelops me and I'm no longer in the restaurant. I'm running by the ocean, powdery sand sticking in between my toes, waves crashing around me as I dive into the sea with reckless abandon. The water swells into a froth, whipped like freshly made Chantilly. My body glistens with water droplets.

It's not my fault the floors are porous. Take it up with management." He glowers. "Maybe I will. And maybe I'll have you evicted." "Good luck with that," I say with a smirk. "You know how French laws work." His threat is empty. When it comes to real estate, the laws in France protect the renters, not the owners. Even if he starts the eviction process, it could still take up to three years to get rid of me.

I get to prepping, slicing up fresh tarragon, the grassy floral fragrance enveloping me. I take two pieces of foil and set filets of cod on each one, followed by the salicornes. Drizzle a bit of lemon. A few razor-thin slices of garlic and lemon. A bit of salt and pepper. Paprika. Some herbes de Provence, my special blend. And, finally, the tarragon. While the fish is baking, I make the rice, deciding to add a dash of cardamom and cumin. Soon, the kitchen smells like heaven, and I feel like I'm floating on my feet. It could be the aromas emanating from the oven, or it could be my wrists, the base notes from the perfume she gave me. Finally, once the meal is ready, I plate it, adding edible violet flowers as a last-minute garnish. Before bringing Garrance her dish, I taste it. And, oh my, now I'm swept away into a fantasy of the sea---the same one I'd had before when she'd first given me the salicornes, but stronger, more intense. I'm running along the rugged beaches, and then I'm falling on the sand. I can hear the waves crashes, the calls of seagulls, the---

Here is everything I know about France: Madeline and Amelie and Moulin Rouge. The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, although I have no idea what the function of either actually is. Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a lot of kings named Louis. I'm not sure what they did either, but I think it has something to do with the French Revolution, which has something to do with Bastille Day. The art museum is called the Louvre and it's shaped like a pyramid and the Mona Lisa lives there along with that statue of the woman missing her arms. And there are cafes or bistros or whatever they call them on every street corner. And mimes. The food is supposed to be good, and the people drink a lot of wine and smoke a lot of cigarettes.

It was easier to hate than to love when your love wasn’t wanted.

After all, it's life that carries the greatest risk of death, so wouldn't it be better to do some living first?

All day I loafed in the streets, east as far as Wapping, west as far as Whitechapel. It was queer after Paris; everything was so much cleaner and quieter and drearier. One missed the scream of the trams, and the noisy, festering life of the back streets, the armed men clattering through the squares. The crowds were better dressed and the faces comelier and milder and more alike, without that fierce individuality and malice of the French. There was less drunkenness, and less dirt, and less quarrelling, and more idling. Knots of men stood at corners, slightly underfed, but kept going by the tea-and-two-slices which the Londoner swallows every two hours. One seemed to breathe a less feverish air than in Pairs. It was the land of the tea urn and the Labour Exchange, as Paris is the land of the bistro and the sweatshop.

There's no messing with perfection. (Okay, a little messing, just for fun.) A few crystals of coarse sea salt, a drizzle of local olive oil, and a sprig or two of purple basil. Sliced and layered in a white ceramic dish, the tomatoes often match the hues of the local sunsets--- reds and golds, yellows and pinks. If there were such a thing in our house as "too pretty to eat," this would be it. Thankfully, there's not. If I'm not exactly cooking, I have done some impromptu matchmaking: baby tomatoes with smoked mozzarella, red onions, fennel, and balsamic vinegar. A giant yellow tomato with a local sheep's milk cheese and green basil. Last night I got a little fancy and layered slices of beefsteak tomato with pale green artichoke puree and slivers of Parmesan. I constructed the whole thing to look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I love to think of the utterly pretentious name this would be given in a trendy Parisian bistro: Millefeuille de tomate provençale, tapenade d'artichaut et coppa de parmesan d'Italie (AOC) sur son lit de salade, sauce aigre douce aux abricots. And of course, since this is a snooty Parisian bistro and half their clientele are Russian businessmen, the English translation would be printed just below: Tomato napoleon of artichoke tapenade and aged Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on a bed of mixed greens with sweet-and-sour apricot vinaigrette. The sauce abricot was a happy accident. While making the dressing for the green salad, I mistook a bottle of peach/apricot syrup for the olive oil. Since I didn't realize my mistake until it was at the bottom of the bowl, I decided to try my luck. Mixed with Dijon mustard and some olive oil, it was very nice--- much sweeter than a French vinaigrette, more like an American-style honey Dijon. I decided to add it to my pretentious Parisian bistro dish because, believe it or not, Parisian bistros love imitating American food. Anyone who has been in Paris in the past five years will note the rise of le Tchizzberger. (That's bistro for "cheeseburger.") I'm moderate in my use of social media, but I can't stop taking pictures of the tomatoes. Close up, I've taken to snapping endless photos of the voluptuously rounded globes. I rejoice in the mingling of olive oil and purply-red flesh. Basil leaves rest like the strategically placed tassels of high-end strippers. Crystals of sea salt catch the afternoon sun like rhinestones under the glaring lights of the Folies Bergère. I may have invented a whole new type of food photography: tomato porn.

I obviously love Jack the Horse Tavern in Brooklyn Heights. The smoked trout salad is what lures me back again and again; it's indicative of the offbeat menu that also includes baked eggs, buckwheat pancakes, and a shrimp club sandwich. Everything at the Farm on Adderly is fresh and tasty. This Ditmas Park pioneer keeps it simple and refined: a smoked pollock cake with harissa mayonnaise, french toast with apple compote, and a kale salad with dried cherries and hazelnuts. Yes, please! Tucked away in the north of ever-popular DUMBO, Vinegar Hill House feels like you've actually trekked to Vermont. In the rustic ambiance, you can indulge in fancy cocktails along with the oversized sourdough pancake, tarragon-accented omelet, or eggs Benedict topped with pickled onion. Buttermilk Channel is the ultimate indulgence- pecan pie french toast, Provençal bean stew, a house-cured lox platter. Because of the over-the-top menu and portions, this Carroll Gardens bistro hops all day, every Sunday.

music. Music was like a film that she watched on the back of her closed eyelids, and Satie’s music conjured up images of the sea, even though she had never been to the seaside.

Paul knew that refusing to dance with a woman was tantamount to ignoring an important aspect of her personality, a slight that she would never fully forget. That was because she had something to offer—her devotion—and she would never truly reveal her soul to a man who didn’t dance with her.

What none of the death-bound could forgive themselves for was what they had left undone. On their deathbeds all had confessed this to Marianne: the things they hadn’t done, the things they hadn’t dared to do.

And it began when you first took a risk, failed and realized that you’d survived the failure. With that knowledge, you could risk anything. Marianne

Court bouillon, made with carrot, shallot, leek, garlic, celeriac, herbs, water and Muscadet, was the heart and soul of Breton cuisine. Langoustines blossomed in it, and crabs drowned in bliss; skinned duck or vegetables simmered in it to perfection. The stock grew stronger with each use and would keep for three days. It formed the base for sauces, and a shot glass of sieved court bouillon could turn a mediocre fish stew into a regular feast.

That evening there would be buckwheat pancakes and cider, steak frites and lamb cutlets, scampi and quiche, fish soup and lobster, cheese, lavender ice cream, mutton for the locals, and oysters, oysters and more oysters for the tourists.

I loved your grandfather, and after him, no one else. It is a rare form of happiness when a man makes your life so rich that you need no one else after him.

Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It’s time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside. The goddess hates to see abilities go to waste, and women waste their abilities far too often.

We'd had two blizzards and it was only December and my mother said if it snowed one more time she would skewer herself on a butterfly knife. That's when it occurred to me that we could move to California, and for about ten seconds, I felt like a genius. We could have avocado trees and Honeybell orange juice every morning. We could drive up the coast on weekends and be treated like royalty at the French Laundry. She could open a new kind of bistro that married haute French cuisine with New American. Alice Waters would make us brunch at her place and would be blown away by the dessert that my mother baked with four varieties of heirloom plum.

E-keit ma vi en da sav, e kavi bazh d’en em harpañ,” Emile whispered, as if reading her mind. As long as you can walk upright, you will find a walking stick. As long as you are brave, someone will help you.

You have to listen when the land speaks to you. The stones tell of souls that wept as they passed, the grass whispers of the people who have walked on it, the wind brings you the voices of those you have loved. And the sea knows the name of every person who has ever died.

To expect something greater after life was to forget that life was the greatest thing of all.