Fresh Juice Juice Quotes

Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have. For instance, if you wake up to the sound of twittering birds, and find yourself in an enormous canopy bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of freshly made muffins and hand-squeezed orange juice on a silver tray, you will know that your day will be a splendid one. If you wake up to the sound of church bells, and find yourself in a fairly big regular bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of hot tea and toast on a plate, you will know that your day will be O.K. And if you wake up to the sound of somebody banging two metal pots together, and find yourself in a small bunk bed, with a nasty foreman standing in the doorway holding no breakfast at all, you will know that your day will be horrid.

Coffee or orange juice?” “Water is fine.” His eyebrows went up. “Uh-oh,” Auriele said, but she was smiling. Darryl was not. “Are you implying that my coffee is not the best in four counties? Or my fresh-squeezed orange juice is less than perfect?

Her pores were like those of an orange, its skin filled with juice, which, if you applied the slightest pressure, would squirt up into your eyes. She was that fresh.

We open the halves of a miracle, and a clotting of acids brims into the starry divisions: creation's original juices, irreducible, changeless, alive: so the freshness lives on

A mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering from the griddle; dusted with fragrant pepper; enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most impeachable freshness and genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender, yellowish fat gracing an out-lying district of this ample county of beefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the tenderloin still in its place.

On writing, my advice is the same to all. If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less. --- Ignore critics. Critics are a dime a dozen. Anybody can be a critic. Writers are priceless. ---- Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. --- Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write. --- The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any. Good luck.

Toddlers were running the place like some miniature version of Lord of the Flies, complete with weapons made from blocks and tinker toys. One of them came at me, charging my knees and the pink pod that held my precious baby. I screamed and made a run for the front door, flip-flops sticking to squelchy dried puddles of juice. I let out a relieved sigh when we were outside breathing fresh air. The near-deafening roar of the highway was a lark song compared to the screeching we’d just escaped.

Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice - blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe

Breakfast! My favorite meal- and you can be so creative. I think of bowls of sparkling berries and fresh cream, baskets of Popovers and freshly squeezed orange juice, thick country bacon, hot maple syrup, panckes and French toast - even the nutty flavor of Irish oatmeal with brown sugar and cream. Breaksfast is the place I splurge with calories, then I spend the rest of the day getting them off! I love to use my prettiest table settings - crocheted placemats with lace-edged napkins and old hammered silver. And whether you are inside in front of a fire, candles burning brightly on a wintery day - or outside on a patio enjoying the morning sun - whether you are having a group of friends and family, a quiet little brunch for two, or an even quieter little brunch just for yourself, breakfast can set the mood and pace of the whole day. And Sunday is my day. Sometimes I think we get caught up in the hectic happenings of the weeks and months and we forget to take time out to relax. So one Sunday morning I decided to do things differently - now it's gotten to be a sort of ritual! This is what I do: at around 8:30 am I pull myself from my warm cocoon, fluff up the pillows and blankets and put some classical music on the stereo. Then I'm off to the kitchen, where I very calmly (so as not to wake myself up too much!) prepare my breakfast, seomthing extra nice - last week I had fresh pineapple slices wrapped in bacon and broiled, a warm croissant, hot chocolate with marshmallows and orange juice. I put it all on a tray with a cloth napkin, my book-of-the-moment and the "Travel" section of the Boston Globe and take it back to bed with me. There I spend the next two hours reading, eating and dreaming while the snowflakes swirl through the treetops outside my bedroom window. The inspiring music of Back or Vivaldi adds an exquisite elegance to the otherwise unruly scene, and I am in heaven. I found time to get in touch with myself and my life and i think this just might be a necessity! Please try it for yourself, and someone you love.

I will rip your balls off and sauté them in garlic butter with basil and ground pepper. I will then add a garnish of shaved orange peels and a side of fresh-cut sliced beets misted with lemon juice. I will beautifully plate it and enjoy a glass of white wine with it while dressed in a tuxedo. It will be a Michelin three-star meal and you will not be invited to join me!

What is it that teaching kills? The juice, the sap - the substance of revelation: by making even the insoluble questions & multiple possible answers take on the granite assured stance of dogma. It does not kill this quick of life in students who come, each year, fresh, quick, to be awakened & pass on - but it kills the quick in me by forcing to formula the great visions, the great collocations and cadences of words and meanings. The good teacher, the proper teacher, must be everliving in faith and ever-renewed in creative energy to keep the sap packed in herself, himself, as well as the work. I do not have the energy, or will to use the energy I have, and it would take all, to keep this flame alive.

Following my accident, I plumped up like a freshly roasted wiener, my skin cracking to accommodate the expanding meat. The doctors, with their hungry scalpels, hastened the process with a few quick slices. The procedure is called an escharotomy, and it gives the swelling tissue the freedom to expand. It's rather like the uprising of your secret inner being, finally given license to claw through the surface. The doctors thought they had sliced me open to commence my healing but, in fact, they only release the monster- a thing of engorged flesh, suffused with juice.

The humanoids told Don that if he went home with a whore, she would cook him a meal of petroleum and coal products at fancy prices. And then, while he ate them, she would talk dirty about how fresh and full of natural juices the food was, even though the food was fake.

When all the trees are dead, I’ll be there, drinking freshly squeezed orange juice.

I miss her so badly I have to swallow salt, imagine it running like lemon juice into the fresh cut that is my chest, feel it sting.

But Elise eclipses the woman from Jamey's future, the lady in tennis whites flashing her diamond as she drinks orange juice fresh-squeezed by a maid. A woman Jamey never quite believed in anyway.

You will know if you are too acidic if you get sick often, get urinary tract infections, suffer from headaches, and have bad breath and body odor (when you do not use antiperspirant). Acidosis is the medical term for a blood alkalinity of less than 7.35. A normal reading is called homeostasis. It is not considered a disease; although in and of itself it is recognized as an indicator of disease. Your blood feeds your organs and tissues; so if your blood is acidic, your organs will suffer and your body will have to compensate for this imbalance somehow. We need to do all we can to keep our blood alkalinity high. The way to do this is to dramatically increase our intake of alkaline-rich elements like fresh, clean air; fresh, clean water; raw vegetables (particularly their juices); and sunlight, while drastically reducing our intake of and exposure to acid-forming substances: pollution, cigarettes, hard alcohol, white flour, white sugar, red meat, and coffee. By tipping the scales in the direction of alkalinity through alkaline diet and removal of acid waste through cleansing, and acidic body can become an alkaline one. "Bear in mind that some substances that are alkaline outside the body, like milk, are acidic to the body; meaning that they leave and acid reside in the tissues, just as many substances that are acidic outside the body, like lemons and ripe tomatoes, are alkaline and healing in the body and contribute to the body's critical alkaline reserve.

Some single trees, wholly bright scarlet, seen against others of their kind still freshly green, or against evergreens, are more memorable than whole groves will be by-and-by. How beautiful, when a whole tree is like one great scarlet fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if you look toward the sun! What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape? Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity, and get into the mythology at last.

Far below, making their way through the swinging glass doors, a retinue of Buddhist monks entered the Shopping Center. They approached in single file, heads shaven, their robes flowing behind them like a flood of freshly squeezed Florida orange juice. The crowd melted, parting like a biblical sea to allow them through. The guard abashedly lowered his nightstick and stepped hastily aside. And the monks, without pause or ceremony, simply mounted the escalator and rode it to the next level.

Kate Moss famously said that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” So I thought I’d put together a little list of things she’s obviously never tried before that taste so much better than buying into an oppressive body ideal could ever feel: Pasta, pizza, mangoes, avocados, doughnuts, peanut butter, sushi, bacon, chocolate cake, lemon cake, any cake really, blueberries, garlic bread, smoked salmon, poached eggs, apples, roast dinners, cookie dough, sweet potatoes, whipped cream, freshly squeezed orange juice, watermelon, gelato, paella, oh and cheese. You’re welcome, Kate!

Laura made a great chili. She used lean meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice and a pitch of fresh dill, and, finally, measure out and add her chili powders. On more than one occasion Shadow had tried to get her to show him how she made it: he would watch everything she did, from slicing the onions and dropping them into the olive oil at the bottom of the pot. He had even written down the recipe, ingredient by ingredient, and he had once made Laura's chili for himself on a weekend when she had been out of town. It had tasted okay-it was certainly edible, but it had not been Laura's chili.

Laura made a great chili. She used lean-cut meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice, and a pinch of fresh dill, and, finally, measure out and add her chili powders.

time for your body to take in juice—or that occasional heavy snack with juice. By replacing a meal with fresh juice, you

Orange juice so fresh it’s like a straw in an apple. Change for a twenty? Five fives, if you’ve got them.


white beans, cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil, all mixed together with lime juice, olive oil, and cayenne pepper,

Only the sound of foaming milk breaks the morning quiet. There’s avocado toast with walnut oil and fresh lemon juice at my place. On

He winks at me. “Butt crack juice. Sourced fresh this mornin’.

Lindsey There is the usual hive of activity in the Brannon household this morning. Mrs Brannon is busy making breakfast for her daughter, Lindsey, making it just as she likes it: two slices of toast with home-made raspberry jam, a hard-boiled egg, shell peeled and the egg cut into slices, a cup of fresh Earl Grey tea with one brown sugar and a touch of milk, with a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice on the side – oranges bought from the greengrocer down the road. The same breakfast she has lovingly made for her daughter for over forty years.

Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full, Until the tinkling bottom had been covered With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's. We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache. The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

And one mimosa, light on the OJ.' 'Our orange juice is freshly squeezed.' 'Either way. A whisper of juice. I'm serious. You can really just wave an orange over the glass and that's probably still too much juice.

The most common error a person tends to commit in pie making is to fail to let it cool in fresh air. If you cut into it straight out of the oven, the juice runs everywhere. People have no patience when it comes to pies.

Hands-on time: 10 minutes 2 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard Total time: 10 minutes 2 teaspoons capers, minced 1½ teaspoons fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon onion powder 1 teaspoon paprika ½ teaspoon ancho chile powder

On writing, my advice is the same to all. If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less. — Ignore critics. Critics are a dime a dozen. Anybody can be a critic. Writers are priceless. — Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn’t help you. Do it your own way. — Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write. — The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won’t write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any. Good luck.

THOSE BORN UNDER Pacific Northwest skies are like daffodils: they can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Henry, our mother, and I were Pacific Northwest babies. At the first patter of raindrops on the roof, a comfortable melancholy settled over the house. The three of us spent dark, wet days wrapped in old quilts, sitting and sighing at the watery sky. Viviane, with her acute gift for smell, could close her eyes and know the season just by the smell of the rain. Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice — blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe. The first of the many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man’s hands after hours spent in a woodshop. Fall rain was not Viviane’s favorite. Rain in the winter smelled simply like ice, the cold air burning the tips of ears, cheeks, and eyelashes. Winter rain was for hiding in quilts and blankets, for tying woolen scarves around noses and mouths — the moisture of rasping breaths stinging chapped lips. The first bout of warm spring rain caused normally respectable women to pull off their stockings and run through muddy puddles alongside their children. Viviane was convinced it was due to the way the rain smelled: like the earth, tulip bulbs, and dahlia roots. It smelled like the mud along a riverbed, like if she opened her mouth wide enough, she could taste the minerals in the air. Viviane could feel the heat of the rain against her fingers when she pressed her hand to the ground after a storm. But in 1959, the year Henry and I turned fifteen, those warm spring rains never arrived. March came and went without a single drop falling from the sky. The air that month smelled dry and flat. Viviane would wake up in the morning unsure of where she was or what she should be doing. Did the wash need to be hung on the line? Was there firewood to be brought in from the woodshed and stacked on the back porch? Even nature seemed confused. When the rains didn’t appear, the daffodil bulbs dried to dust in their beds of mulch and soil. The trees remained leafless, and the squirrels, without acorns to feed on and with nests to build, ran in confused circles below the bare limbs. The only person who seemed unfazed by the disappearance of the rain was my grandmother. Emilienne was not a Pacific Northwest baby nor a daffodil. Emilienne was more like a petunia. She needed the water but could do without the puddles and wet feet. She didn’t have any desire to ponder the gray skies. She found all the rain to be a bit of an inconvenience, to be honest.

He’s lithe and tanned and taut. But to my eye he’s lost something. He has a synthetic quality, like orange soda instead of freshly squeezed juice. It’s orangey and bubbly and it quenches your thirst, but it leaves a bitter aftertaste. And it’s not good for you.

Buy the best you can afford • Extra-virgin Olive Oil, pressed in the last calendar year • Whole chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy • Chocolate and Cocoa Powder Buy whole and prepare yourself • Pick and chop fresh herbs (and always use Italian or flat-leaf parsley). • Juice lemons and limes • Peel, chop, and pound garlic • Grind spices • Soak, rinse, filet, and chop salt-packed anchovies • Make chicken stock when you can (see for a recipe). Or buy fresh or frozen stock from your butcher, rather than the boxed or canned stuff

hit of acid at the very last second often improves food, which is why garnishing acids are so important. As the volatile aromatic molecules disperse over time, the flavor of fresh citrus juice will transform, losing some of its brightness—so freshly squeezed juice is best.

What You Need to Cut from Your Diet: 1.   Vegetable oil 2.   Added sugar and honey (to tea, coffee, etc.) 3.   Soda 4.   Juice, except fresh squeezed. (Why not just eat the fruit? It’s got more fiber and more antioxidants!) 5.   Energy bars and “health” bars 6.   Boxed cereals 7.   Fried fast foods 8.   Powdered “proteins,” and powdered milk 9.   Salad dressings made with any kind of vegetable oil, including canola 10. Low-fat products, including milk, cheese, salad dressings, cookies, and other baked goods 11. Snacks and desserts—if you want to lose weight

Only a very bold country would mix vodka and clams. The cocktail, also known as the Bloody Caesar, was invented in 1969 by Canadian hero Walter Chell, who crushed fresh clams into tomato juice and added plenty of vodka. Americans can now take the easy route by buying Clamato off the shelf.

2 chicken breasts ½ cup chunky peanut butter ½ cup fish sauce ¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice 2 tablespoons palm sugar 2 tablespoons Sriracha 2 cups water 1 package pad thai noodles ½ pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined ¼ cup bean sprouts ¼ cup sliced scallions Crushed peanuts, for garnish

Even in the heyday of frozen concentrate, the popularity of orange juice rested largely on its image as the ultimate natural beverage, fresh squeezed from a primordial fruit. But the reality is that human intervention has modified the orange for millenniums, as it has almost everything people eat.

Chilled Honeydew and Toasted Almond Milk Soup • MAKES 4 SERVINGS • THIS REFRESHING SUMMER SOUP HAS a delightful sweetness and stunning pale green hue from the melon, enhanced with a little honey and balanced with lime juice. It gets a lightly nutty taste and creamy body from almond milk, which can be made easily as written here, with toasted almonds, a step I think is well worth it, but for a shortcut, you can also use store-bought. Coconut or cashew milk would work nicely too. The garnish of sweet-tart green grapes and floral, fresh basil ribbons adds a beautiful crown of flavor and texture.

I came in looking for coffee, but the smell of bacon wafts through the air and my body follows on its own. Coffee turns into two eggs, bacon and cheese on a roll, an orange juice and a chocolate pudding. Actually, two chocolate puddings. Because people who pass by fresh chocolate pudding without grabbing one just can’t be trusted.

Deciding that he was essentially useless, I made him a large glass of sangre del tigre- "blood of the tiger"- a lethal Bloody Mary that I had picked up in Mexico City. Tomato juice, clam juice, raw egg, fresh horseradish, hot sauce, ground white and black pepper, salt, the juice from pickled jalapeños, orange zest, and a large slug of mezcal.

Red Curry Almond Sauce      ½ cup almond butter      ½ cup water      ¼ cup fresh lime juice or rice vinegar      2 tablespoons miso      1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro      2 tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup      2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste, or to taste      1 teaspoon onion powder      ½ teaspoon garlic powder      ½ teaspoon ground ginger

I need the comfort. I look for a food memory to calm me and I settle on ceviche. A tart bite, a clean, fresh wave of flavor. Think of the process. Raw fish is translucent, but when you dip the lime juice onto it, it becomes something else. Cubes of white-fleshed fish begin to flake. Shrimp turn pink. Texture becomes color. Visible streaks, almost stripes, show the grain.

Stretch before bed. Go to bed earlier. Stretch at sunrise. Juice. Run. Go to yoga class. Offer help. Eat plenty of fresh, whole foods. Feel sunshine on my skin. Splash around at the beach. Picnic in the park. Keep a gratitude journal. Meditate. Write. Create. Eat dinner by candlelight. Choose quality over quantity. Phone friends and family. Listen. Practice random acts of kindness.

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.

Because the grape was proudly multipurpose, the shelf life it had to offer the ancient world was practically without rival. Grapes could be eaten fresh, straight from the vine. Dried, they were renamed raisins, and in the Bible, they were eaten plain or baked into cakes. Pressed, the grapes produced fresh juice, or far more significantly, they could be utterly transformed, possessing new properties and chemistry, into vinegars and wines.

I never leave home without my cayenne pepper. I either stash a bottle of the liquid extract in my pocket book or I stick it in the shopping cart I pull around with me all over Manhattan. When it comes to staying right side up in this world, a black woman needs at least three things. The first is a quiet spot of her own, a place away from the nonsense. The second is a stash of money, like the cash my mother kept hidden in the slit of her mattress. The last is several drops of cayenne pepper, always at the ready. Sprinkle that on your food before you eat it and it’ll kill any lurking bacteria. The powder does the trick as well, but I prefer the liquid because it hits the bloodstream quickly. Particularly when eating out, I won’t touch a morsel to my lips ‘til it’s speckled with with cayenne. That’s just one way I take care of my temple, aside from preparing my daily greens, certain other habits have carried me toward the century mark. First thing I do every morning is drink four glasses of water. People think this water business is a joke. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not. I’ve known two elderly people who died of dehydration, one of whom fell from his bed in the middle of the night and couldn’t stand up because he was so parched. Following my water, I drink 8 ounces of fresh celery blended in my Vita-mix. The juice cleanses the system and reduces inflammation. My biggest meal is my first one: oatmeal. I soak my oats overnight so that when I get up all I have to do is turn on the burner. Sometimes I enjoy them with warm almond milk, other times I add grated almonds and berries, put the mixture in my tumbler and shake it until it’s so smooth I can drink it. In any form, oats do the heart good. Throughout the day I eat sweet potatoes, which are filled with fiber, beets sprinkled with a little olive oil, and vegetables of every variety. I also still enjoy plenty of salad, though I stopped adding so many carrots – too much sugar. But I will do celery, cucumbers, seaweed grass and other greens. God’s fresh bounty doesn’t need a lot of dressing up, which is why I generally eat my salad plain. From time to time I do drizzle it with garlic oil. I love the taste. I also love lychee nuts. I put them in the freezer so that when I bite into them cold juice comes flooding out. As terrific as they are, I buy them only once in awhile. I recently bit into an especially sweet one, and then I stuck it right back in the freezer. “Not today, Suzie,” I said to myself, “full of glucose!” I try never to eat late, and certainly not after nine p.m. Our organs need a chance to rest. And before bed, of course, I have a final glass of water. I don’t mess around with my hydration.

Lemon Water A highly effective way to detoxify the body is to drink two 16-ounce glasses of water on an empty stomach after you wake up, squeezing half of a freshly cut lemon into each glass. The lemon juice activates the water, making it better able to latch onto toxins in your body and flush them out. This is especially effective for cleansing your liver, which works all night while you’re asleep to gather and purge toxins from your body. When you wake up, it’s primed to be hydrated and flushed clean with activated water. After you drink the water, give your liver half an hour to clean up. You can then eat breakfast. If you make this into a routine, your health will improve dramatically over time. For an extra boost, add a teaspoon of raw honey and a teaspoon of freshly grated ginger to the lemon water. Your liver will draw in the honey to restore its glucose reserves, purging deep toxins at the same time to make room.

I first discovered this unusual combination in culinary school. The benefits of black pepper and the strawberries with their antioxidants, vitamin C, and folate make these a perfect snack. Juice of ½ lemon ½ teaspoon honey 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries Pinch of black pepper In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice and honey. Stir. Add the strawberries and toss to combine. Sprinkle with the black pepper. Allow the strawberries to macerate for 10 minutes before serving.

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have any fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later, we’re going to have an experience we can’t control: our house is going to burn down, someone we love is going to die, we’re going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head, somebody’s going to spill tomato juice all over our white suit, or we’re going to arrive at our favorite restaurant and discover that no one ordered produce and seven hundred people are coming for lunch.

To behold the day-break! The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows, The air tastes good to my palate. Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising freshly exuding, Scooting obliquely high and low. Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs, Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven. The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction, The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head, The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master! 25

The Sparrow Sisters' roses still bloomed on New Year's Day, their scent rich and warm even when snow weighted their petals closed. When customers came down the rutted road to the small eighteenth-century barn where the sisters worked, they marveled at the jasmine that twined through the split-rail fence, the perfume so intense they could feel it in their mouths. As they paid for their purchases, they wondered (vaguely, it must be said, for the people of Granite Point knew not to think too hard about the Sisters) how it was that clematis and honeysuckle climbed the barn in November and the morning glories bloomed all day. The fruit trees were so fecund that the peaches hung on the low branches, surrounded by more blossoms, apples and pears ripened in June and stayed sweet and fresh into December. Their Italian fig trees were heavy with purple teardrop fruit only weeks after they were planted. If you wanted a tomato so ripe the juice seemed to move beneath the skin, you needed only to pick up a punnet at the Nursery.

MAKES: 2 quarts COOKING METHOD: stove COOKING TIME: 20 minutes This is an all-purpose barbecue sauce, with a distinct garlic and tomato flavor. We have used this recipe to rave reviews at the James Beard Foundation and the American Institute of Wine and Food’s “Best Ribs in America” competition. Use it as a finishing glaze or serve it on the side as a dip for any type of barbecue. 2 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL ¼ CUP CHOPPED ONION 1 TEASPOON FRESH MINCED GARLIC 4 CUPS KETCHUP 1⅓ CUPS DARK BROWN SUGAR 1 CUP VINEGAR 1 CUP APPLE JUICE ¼ CUP HONEY 1½ TABLESPOONS WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE 1½ TABLESPOONS LIQUID SMOKE 1 TEASPOON SALT 1 TEASPOON BLACK PEPPER 1 TEASPOON CAYENNE PEPPER 1 TEASPOON CELERY SEED Heat the olive oil in a large nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and lightly sauté. Stir in the remaining ingredients and heat until the sauce bubbles and starts to steam. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature. Transfer to a tightly covered jar or plastic container and store refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

Marjan's heart quickened as she browned the ground meat and onions together over the low, dancing flame. The satisfied pan hissed as she introduced dried versions of her precious herbs, the only sort she had been able to buy at such late notice. Even in Iran, there had been times when Marjan had had to resort to cooking 'dolmeh' with dried herbs. By soaking them overnight, she had discovered, they worked almost as well as their fresher relatives. Using her entire torso, Marjan mixed the herbs with the cooked rice, fresh lime juice, salt and pepper.

MRS. BENTLEY’S CHORIZO BREAKFAST BURRITOS Servings: 4 INGREDIENTS FOR THE AVOCADO-TOMATO SALSA 1 large avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced ½ cup diced seeded tomatoes, from 1 to 2 tomatoes 1 small shallot, minced (about 2 tablespoons) 1 clove garlic, minced 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, from 1 lime ½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon ground cumin ¼ cup fresh chopped cilantro FOR THE BURRITOS 4 large eggs ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika ¼ teaspoon salt ½ lb spicy chorizo removed from casings 1⅓ cups (6 oz) shredded Monterey Jack cheese 4 (10-in) burrito-size flour tortillas Vegetable oil INSTRUCTIONS Make the Avocado-Tomato Salsa: Place all of the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix to combine. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs with the smoked paprika and salt. Set aside. Heat a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, stirring frequently, until browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the sausage from the pan to a plate, leaving the drippings in the pan. Reduce the heat to low. Add the eggs and scramble until just cooked

Just as Drake turned six weeks old, I decided I wanted to lose some baby weight. Chip and I were both still getting used to the idea that we had a baby of our own now, but I felt it was okay to leave him with Chip for a half hour or so in the mornings so I could take a short run up and down Third Street. I left Drake in the little swing he loved, kissed Chip good-bye, and off I went. Chip was so sweet and supportive. When I got back he was standing in the doorway saying, “Way to go, baby!” He handed me a banana and asked if I’d had any cramps or anything. I hadn’t. I actually felt great. I walked in and discovered Chip had prepared an elaborate breakfast for me, as if I’d run a marathon or something. I hadn’t done more than a half-mile walk-run, but he wanted to celebrate the idea that I was trying to get myself back together physically. He’d actually driven to the store and back and bought fresh fruit and real maple syrup and orange juice for me. I sat down to eat, and I looked over at Drake. He was sound asleep in his swing, still wearing nothing but his diaper. “Chip, did you take Drake to the grocery store without any clothes on?” Chip gave me a real funny look. He said, “What?” I gave him a funny look back. “Oh my gosh,” he said. “I totally forgot Drake was here. He was so quiet.” “Chip!” I yelled, totally freaked out. I was a first-time mom. Can you imagine? Anyone who’s met Chip knows he can get a little sidetracked, but this was our child! He was in that dang swing that just made him perfectly silent. I felt terrible. It had only been for a few minutes. The store was just down the street. But I literally got on my knees to beg for Jo’s forgiveness.

BULLETPROOF TACO SALAD When I make this, I like to prepare extra meat and save it for another meal or even eat it by itself for a quick lunch the next day. This satisfying meal can easily be eaten for dinner, too. TACO MIX 1 pound grass-fed, organic fatty ground beef 2 tablespoons grass-fed unsalted butter or ghee ½ fresh lime, squeezed 1 to 2 tablespoons cayenne powder (warning: Suspect, don’t use if you’re sensitive!) 1 teaspoon dried oregano Sea salt to taste SALAD 1 cup spring lettuce ¼ cup shredded red cabbage 2 shredded carrots 1 cucumber, cut into slices ½ avocado, sliced “Creamy” Avocado Dressing To make the taco mix: In a medium pan, sauté the beef on medium-low until cooked gently but thoroughly. Your goal is not to brown the meat but to heat it enough that it’s cooked through. Burned, caramelized meat tastes good, but it causes food cravings. Drain the excess liquid. Add the butter or ghee, lime juice, cayenne powder, oregano, and salt. Add more seasoning if you wish and play around with flavors! To make the salad: Lay a bed with all of the salad ingredients, starting with the lettuce. Add a suitable portion of beef on top and then drizzle with dressing.

Soba noodles with eggplant and mango This dish has become my mother’s ultimate cook-to-impress fare. And she is not the only one, as I have been informed by many readers. It is the refreshing nature of the cold buckwheat noodles the sweet sharpness of the dressing and the muskiness of mango that make it so pleasing. Serve this as a substantial starter or turn it into a light main course by adding some fried firm tofu. Serves 6 1/2 cup rice vinegar 3 tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1/2 fresh red chile, finely chopped 1 tsp toasted sesame oil grated zest and juice of 1 lime 1 cup sunflower oil 2 eggplants, cut into 3/4-inch dice 8 to 9 oz soba noodles 1 large ripe mango, cut into 3/8-inch dice or into 1/4-inch-thick strips 12/3 cup basil leaves, chopped (if you can get some use Thai basil, but much less of it) 21/2 cups cilantro leaves, chopped 1/2 red onion, very thinly sliced In a small saucepan gently warm the vinegar, sugar and salt for up to 1 minute, just until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and add the garlic, chile and sesame oil. Allow to cool, then add the lime zest and juice. Heat up the sunflower oil in a large pan and shallow-fry the eggplant in three or four batches. Once golden brown remove to a colander, sprinkle liberally with salt and leave there to drain. Cook the noodles in plenty of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally. They should take 5 to 8 minutes to become tender but still al dente. Drain and rinse well under running cold water. Shake off as much of the excess water as possible, then leave to dry on a dish towel. In a mixing bowl toss the noodles with the dressing, mango, eggplant, half of the herbs and the onion. You can now leave this aside for 1 to 2 hours. When ready to serve add the rest of the herbs and mix well, then pile on a plate or in a bowl.

Combine the mixture and oil or mayonnaise with a fork. TOMATO SOUP About 6 cups Fresh tomatoes can be grilled or roasted to add a smoky flavor. Heat in a soup pot, over medium-low heat: 2 tablespoons olive oil Add and cook, stirring, until tender but not browned, 5 to 10 minutes: 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped Stir in: 3 pounds tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, with their juices, or two 28-ounce cans tomatoes, chopped, with their juice Simmer until the tomatoes are covered in their own liquid, about 25 minutes. Puree the soup until smooth. Return to the pot and stir in: ¾ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper Heat through.

Day 1 Breakfast Half a Grapefruit or 8 Ounces Fresh Squeezed Grapefruit Juice Black Coffee or Unsweetened Tea Lunch Half a Grapefruit or 8 Ounces Fresh Squeezed Grapefruit Juice 1 Egg, Boiled or Poached Salad From The Super Skinny Salad List Your Choice of Approved Salad Dressings 1 Grain From The Super Skinny Grain List Black Coffee or Unsweetened Tea Dinner Half a Grapefruit or 8 Ounces Fresh Squeezed Grapefruit Juice 2 Eggs, Boiled or Poached Salad From The Super Skinny Salad List Your Choice of Approved Salad Dressings 1 Grain From The Super Skinny Grain List Black Coffee or Unsweetened Tea   Day 2 Today is Resveratrol Day! Resveratol is

Ingredients 2–3 cans dark red kidney beans (drained) 2 stalks celery, chopped 2 onions, chopped 2 green peppers, chopped 2–3 T olive oil 1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes 3–4 cloves garlic 3–4 T chili powder 1–2 T cumin 2–3 T fresh parsley 2–3 T oregano 1 can beer 1 cup cashews 1/2 cup raisins (optional) Heat oil in large pot; sauté onions until clear, then add celery, green pepper, and garlic; cook for 5 minutes or so. Add tomatoes (with juice; break the tomatoes into small chunks) and kidney beans; reduce to simmer. Add chili powder, cumin, parsley, oregano, beer, cashews, and raisins (opt.). Simmer as long as you want. Garnish with fresh parsley or grated cheddar cheese.

Chickpea Stew Canned chickpeas, potatoes, tomatoes, and onion flavored with rosemary cook into a chunky vegetarian main-dish stew. This also makes a great side dish for pork or lamb. SERVES 6 3 16-ounce cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained 5 medium carrots, sliced 2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped 1 cup peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh or canned tomatoes with their juice 1 medium onion, chopped 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary ½ cup Chicken Broth ([>]), canned chicken or vegetable broth, or water 2 tablespoons olive oil Salt and freshly ground pepper Combine all the ingredients in a large slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours, or until the vegetables are tender. Serve hot or at room temperature.

And then she set to work, washing fresh blueberries that sat on the counter, before grabbing a big colander. Sam headed into the backyard, whose lawn backed acres of woods. Blackberries and raspberries grew wild and thick in the brambles that sat at the edge of the woods. Sam carefully navigated her way through the thorny vines, her thin running shirt catching and snagging on a thorn. "Darn it," she mumbled. Blackberries are red when they're green, she could hear her grandfather telling her when they used to pick the fruit. But today, a brilliant summer day, the blackberries were deep purple, almost black, and each one resembled a mini beehive. Sam plucked and popped a fresh blackberry, already warm from the sun, into her mouth, savoring the natural sweetness, and picked until her colander was half full before easing her way through the woods to find a raspberry bush thick with fruit. She navigated her way out of the brambles and headed back to the kitchen, where she preheated the oven and began to wash the blackberries and raspberries. Sam pulled cold, unsalted butter from the fridge and began to cube it, some flour and sugar from the cupboard, a large bowl, and then she located her grandmother's old pastry blender. Sam made the crust and then rolled it into a ball, lightly flouring it and wrapping it in plastic before placing it in the refrigerator. Then she started in on the filling, mixing the berries, sugar, flour, and fresh orange juice.

SERVES 3 1 mango, peeled, pitted, and cubed 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro 4 green onions, thinly sliced 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and chopped ½ cup frozen corn, thawed, or fresh corn off the cob 3 cups cooked black beans or 2 (15-ounce) cans no- or low-salt black beans, drained and rinsed 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice 1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon ground cumin dash chili powder 9 cups chopped romaine lettuce If using fresh corn, water sauté for 5 minutes or until tender. Mix all the ingredients except the lettuce in a bowl. Let stand for at least 15 minutes. Serve on top of the lettuce. Note: The vegetable mixture without the mango can be made a day ahead and refrigerated. Add the mango and a splash of lime juice just before serving.

Fine,” I answered. “Now what about a drink?” I followed him up the corridor once more, across the entrance hall, and on through a swing door at the far end. I heard the light clack-clack of ping-pong balls, and braced myself for frivolity. The room we entered was empty. The sportsmen, whoever they were, were playing in the room beyond. Here there were easy chairs, a table or two, an electric fire and a bar in the far corner, behind which my youthful companion installed himself. I noticed, with misgiving, two enormous urns. “Coffee or cocoa?” he asked. “Or do you prefer something cool? I can recommend the orange juice with a splash of soda.” “I’d like a Scotch,” I said. He looked distressed. His expression became that of an anxious host whose guest demands fresh strawberries in midwinter.

Miss Rose sitting on a porch. Beside her, a bushel basket of ripe peaches or tomatoes. The drunkards buzzing, but easily smashed with a swat. Early mornings, she starts singing, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and that's your cue to rise. To eat the heavy breakfast that will keep you full all day. Once you've helped her with peeling those tomatoes or peaches, there are weeds to be plucked from the garden, from around the vegetables that will show up fresh on the supper table. Fish need cleaning if Uncle Norman comes through with a prize. After dinner, the piecing together of quilt tops from remnants until the light completely fades. The next morning, it starts again. A woman singing off-key praises to the Lord. The sweet fruit dripping with juice. The sound of bugs. I thought of what Mama liked to say: to find this kind of love, you have to enter deep country.

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

BACKYARD GARDEN SALAD In wartime, patriotic families cultivated “Victory Gardens” to promote self-sufficiency and help the war effort. 4 cups mixed greens 1/4 cup fresh sprigs of dill 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves 4 large basil leaves, rolled up and thinly sliced crosswise 1 large lemon, halved 1/4 cup fruity olive oil pinch of salt fresh ground black pepper to taste 1 cup toasted walnuts 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese 1 cup fresh edible flowers; choose from bachelor’s buttons, borage, calendulas, carnations, herb flowers (basil, chives, rosemary, thyme), nasturtiums, violas, including pansies and Johnny-jump-ups, stock Toss salad greens and herbs in a large bowl. Squeeze lemon juice (without the seeds) over the greens and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss again. Add walnuts and feta and toss well. Divide salad and pansies among four serving plates and serve. (Source: Adapted from California Bountiful)

All about them the golden girls, shopping for dainties in Lairville. Even in the midst of the wild-maned winter's chill, skipping about in sneakers and sweatsocks, cream-colored raincoats. A generation in the mold, the Great White Pattern Maker lying in his prosperous bed, grinning while the liquid cools. But he does not know my bellows. Someone there is who will huff and will puff. The sophmores in their new junior blazers, like Saturday's magazines out on Thursday. Freshly covered textbooks from the campus store, slide rules dangling in leather, sheathed broadswords, chinos scrubbed to the virgin fiber, starch pressed into straight-razor creases, Oxford shirts buttoned down under crewneck sweaters, blue eyes bobbing everywhere, stunned by the android synthesis of one-a-day vitamins, Tropicana orange juice, fresh country eggs, Kraft homogenized cheese, tetra-packs of fortified milk, Cheerios with sun-ripened bananas, corn-flake-breaded chicken, hot fudge sundaes, Dairy Queen root beer floats, cheeseburgers, hybrid creamed corn, riboflavin extract, brewer's yeast, crunchy peanut butter, tuna fish casseroles, pancakes and imitation maple syrup, chuck steaks, occasional Maine lobster, Social Tea biscuits, defatted wheat germ, Kellogg's Concentrate, chopped string beans, Wonderbread, Birds Eye frozen peas, shredded spinach, French-fried onion rings, escarole salads, lentil stews, sundry fowl innards, Pecan Sandies, Almond Joys, aureomycin, penicillin, antitetanus toxoid, smallpox vaccine, Alka-Seltzer, Empirin, Vicks VapoRub, Arrid with chlorophyll, Super Anahist nose spray, Dristan decongestant, billions of cubic feet of wholesome, reconditioned breathing air, and the more wholesome breeds of fraternal exercise available to Western man. Ah, the regimented good will and force-fed confidence of those who are not meek but will inherit the earth all the same.

Bert . . . had grown up with frozen concentrate mixed into pitchers of water which, although he hadn't known it at the time, had nothing to do with orange juice. Now his children drank fresh-squeezed juice as thoughtlessly as he had drunk milk as a boy. They squeezed it from the fruit they had picked off the trees in their own backyard. He could see a new set of muscles in the right forearm of his wife, Teresa, from the constant twisting of oranges on the juicer while their children held up their cups and waited for more. Orange juice was all they wanted, Bert told him. They had it every morning with their cereal, and Teresa froze it into popsicles to the children for their afternoon snacks, and in the evening he and Teresa drank it over ice with vodka or bourbon or gin. This was what no one seemed to understand—it didn't matter what you put into it, what mattered was the juice itself. "People from California forget that, because they've been spoiled," Bert said.

As I took off the rumpled sheets, the smell of the people who had slept in them would lift up into the air. There was the round, almost sweet sweat smell of a child who had spent a day happily exploring, or the sharper-edged odor of one who'd gone to bed unhappy. With the bigger beds, I came to understand the way the scents of two people could mingle as effortlessly as rainwater, and to recognize the times they stayed apart, the smells resolutely separate. Sometimes there were those unreal perfumes, jumbling and talking too loudly- but underneath them I could always find the person. Sadness, like the dark purple juice of a blackberry. Fear, like the metallic taste of an oncoming storm. Love, which smelled like nothing so much as fresh bread. In an odd way, the game wasn't that different from reading the smells of our island. Scents were always about what was growing and what was dying. What would last through the next season. This was just with people instead of trees or flowers or dirt.

Ode To A Lemon" Out of lemon flowers loosed on the moonlight, love's lashed and insatiable essences, sodden with fragrance, the lemon tree's yellow emerges, the lemons move down from the tree's planetarium Delicate merchandise! The harbors are big with it- bazaars for the light and the barbarous gold. We open the halves of a miracle, and a clotting of acids brims into the starry divisions: creation's original juices, irreducible, changeless, alive: so the freshness lives on in a lemon, in the sweet-smelling house of the rind, the proportions, arcane and acerb. Cutting the lemon the knife leaves a little cathedral: alcoves unguessed by the eye that open acidulous glass to the light; topazes riding the droplets, altars, aromatic facades. So, while the hand holds the cut of the lemon, half a world on a trencher, the gold of the universe wells to your touch: a cup yellow with miracles, a breast and a nipple perfuming the earth; a flashing made fruitage, the diminutive fire of a planet.

When the crab arrives, I realize I've barely given any thought to Ann and her ministrations. To my surprise she has added a few finishing touches of her own. The crab sits snugly in its pink shell, beside a neat mound of delicately green mayonnaise. How has she colored it green? "This could be made into a curry," pronounces Mr. Arnott. "In Madras, curried sea oysters are considered the pinnacle of fine food. Anything can be curried... fish, fowl, even eggs." "Eggs?" Again, he has intrigued me. "Indeed eggs," he says. "Hard-boiled and placed in a hot curried gravy, they are quite delicious." I taste the mayonnaise, trying to fathom how Ann has greened it. Simultaneously I try to commit Mr. Arnott's recipe for curried eggs to memory, while also checking the seasoning in the crab. "Do you think the crab would benefit from a little more lemon juice?" I ask. "Or perhaps chili vinegar should have been used." "It is certainly fresh." He slowly savors the crab upon his tongue. "It tastes of the sea.

I’m hot-gluing white bric-a-brac around a heart as I wonder aloud, “Should we do a special breakfast for Daddy? We could buy one of those juicers at the mall and make fresh-squeezed pink grapefruit juice. And I think I saw heart waffle makers online for not very expensive.” “Daddy doesn’t like grapefruit,” Kitty says. “And we barely use our regular waffle maker as it is. How about we just cut the waffle into the shape of a heart instead?” “That would look so cheap,” I scoff. But she’s right. There’s no sense in buying something we’d only ever use once a year, even if it only costs $19.99. As Kitty gets older, I see that she is far more like Margot than me. But then she says, “What if we use our cookie cutter to make heart-shaped pancakes instead? And put in red food coloring?” I beam at her. “Attagirl!” So maybe she’s got a little bit of me in her after all. Kitty continues. “We could put red food coloring in the syrup, too, to make it look like blood. A bloody heart!” No, never mind. Kitty is all her own.

Our senses were assaulted with colours, smells and noise. We saw a million saris, and never once did I see the same pattern repeated twice. We saw poverty that both humbled and disturbed us. We bartered with street traders for Indian prices, not tourist prices. We stopped by the side of the road and watched an old man crushing sugar canes so that we could drink the juice. It was the most delectable and flavourful drink we have ever tasted. We walked barefoot around the Swaminarayan Akshardham, the largest Hindu house of worship in the world, and were absolutely awed. The whole temple echoes with spirituality and we could have spent an entire day there. I saw a village of dirty black bricks, no rendering, just filth and grime, and right in the middle an exquisite and elegant white temple, freshly painted and unblemished. We drove from Jaipur to Delhi. The previous day the road had been closed due to the Jat caste protests. Thirty people died, ten women reported being raped and buildings and cars were set on fire

He pulled a battered red photo album from his truck’s glove compartment and showed me pictures of green Azorean fields divided by hedges of lilac-colored hydrangeas. He showed me waves crashing against black volcanic rock and his ancient stone house next to the sea, the home where he returned every summer. “Over there the air is so clean, so nice. The ocean is right there. The fish are fresh, you catch and eat them, and the potatoes are so good, you won’t believe it. “We make wine. Put on shorts and get in there and smash grapes, and when you drink right away is sweet like juice. Every year when we get back from there, we’re fat,” Morais said. He loved his island house in the Azores so much that at the end of each summer, when he left, he had to have someone else close the door for him. “I’m a guy that came from the old country. I never go to school five minutes in this country, and still I work and I do good. I love my money. God bless this country,” he said. “But when I leave to close my door over there, I cry like a baby. I try so hard not to, but I cry.

Ironically, in spite of all the care and attention my grandparents devoted to their land, all the food they grew each year ultimately became anonymous, and it ended up eaten by complete strangers. Young calves were sent to feed lots in the Midwest to be fattened on grain. Apples, their skins never perfect enough to be sold as fresh fruit, were transformed into juice, or sauce, or apple pies. The corn, like most grain raised in America, was destined for animal feed. It was, perhaps, fed to the very calves that they had sold, now 1000 miles away. Once the food left the farm, the entire system was turned on its head. The freshness they had worked so hard to attain, picking the fruit at the peak of harvest was replaced with shelf life… their harvest was trucked all across America. It was processed, boxed, frozen, and then shipped again. Their food was trucked down the interstate in 18 wheelers, and hauled away by trains while they slept. Their apples might end up in the filling of a donut in Chicago, or their beef in a taco in Alabama. They had no way of ever really knowing.

Cheddar Cheese Grits Ingredients: 2 cups whole milk 2 cups water 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 cup coarse ground cornmeal 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 4 ounces sharp Cheddar, shredded Directions: Place the milk, water, and salt into a large, heavy-gauge pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Once the milk mixture comes to a boil, gradually add the cornmeal while continually stirring. Once all of the cornmeal has been incorporated, decrease the heat to low and cover. Remove lid and stir frequently, every few minutes, to prevent grits from sticking or forming lumps; make sure to get into corners of the pan when stirring. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes or until mixture is creamy. Remove from the heat, add the pepper and butter, and whisk to combine. Once the butter is melted, gradually whisk in the cheese a little at a time. Serve immediately. Sweet Potato Casserole Ingredients: For the sweet potatoes 3 cups (1 29-ounce can) sweet potatoes, drained ½ cup melted butter ⅓ cup milk ¾ cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 beaten eggs salt to taste For the topping: 5 tablespoons melted butter ⅔ cup brown sugar ⅔ cup flour 1 cup pecan pieces Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mash the sweet potatoes and add the melted butter, milk, sugar, vanilla, beaten eggs, and a pinch of salt. Stir until incorporated. Pour into a shallow baking dish or a cast iron skillet. Combine the butter, brown sugar, flour, and pecan pieces in a small bowl, using your fingers to create moist crumbs. Sprinkle generously over the casserole. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until the edges pull away from the sides of the pan and the top is golden brown. Let stand for the mixture to cool and solidify a little bit before serving. Southern Fried Chicken Ingredients: 4 pounds chicken pieces 1 1/2 cups milk 2 large eggs 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons salt 2 teaspoons pepper 3 cups vegetable oil salt to taste Preparation: Rinse chicken; pat dry and then set aside. Combine milk and eggs in a bowl; whisk to blend well. In a large heavy-duty plastic food storage bag, combine the flour, salt, and pepper. Dip a chicken piece in the milk mixture; let excess drip off into bowl. Put a few chicken pieces in the food storage bag and shake lightly to coat thoroughly. Remove to a plate and repeat with remaining chicken pieces. Heat oil to 350°. Fry chicken, a few pieces at a time, for about 10 minutes on each side, or until golden brown and cooked through. Chicken breasts will take a little less time than other pieces. Pierce with a fork to see if juices run clear to check for doneness. With a slotted spoon, move to paper towels to drain; sprinkle with salt.

It was George the Mailman’s last day on the job after 35 years of carrying the mail through all kinds of weather to the same neighborhood. When he arrived at the first house on his route, he was greeted by the whole family who congratulated him and sent him on his way with a tidy gift envelope. At the second house, they presented him with a box of fine cigars. The folks at the third house handed him a selection of terrific fishing lures. At the fourth house, he was met at the door by a strikingly beautiful blonde woman in a revealing negligee. She took him by the hand, gently led him through the door, which she closed behind him, and took him up the stairs to the bedroom where she blew his mind with the most passionate love he had ever experienced. When he had enough, they went downstairs and she fixed him a giant breakfast: eggs, potatoes, ham, sausage, blueberry waffles, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. When he was truly satisfied, she poured him a cup of steaming coffee. As she was pouring, he noticed a dollar bill sticking out from under the cup’s bottom edge. "All this was just too wonderful for words," he said, "But what’s the dollar for?" "Well," she said, "Last night, I told my husband that today would be your last day, and that we should do something special for you. I asked him what to give you. He said, “Screw him. Give him a dollar.” The breakfast was my idea.

Foolproof Get Outta Bed Plan First, figure out the thing you would love to do first each morning. Is it pet your dog, eat a piece of dark chocolate, have your neck massaged, have your back scratched? Whatever will keep those eyes popped open is what you are going to do for yourself the instant you wake up. Next, you are going to keep a journal and pen beside your bed. Write down your intention and reward for the instant your eyes open. “I am going to wake up at [6:00 am]. As soon as I wake up, I am going to [drink an ice-cold glass of water] and then get in my shower.” Modify the parts in brackets with your time and your eye-opener. Finally, this third part only applies if you are a “tough case.” If you know yourself to be truly resistant to waking up, then you need a specialty app. Download an app like Alarmy. It is going to force you to wake up and take a picture of something specific (like your shower) before the alarm will shut off. I know, extreme alarms for extreme snoozers. This three-part process—note something to look forward to, set intention in writing, and use an app/alarm if needed—will work if you have identified a truly rewarding experience for yourself. This is all about your knowledge of yourself and your ability to design a three-part process that will feel like a luxurious reward to you. Maybe I should change mine to fresh-squeezed orange juice. That sounds amazing!

Soon, things were heating up in the kitchen. The first course was a variation on a French recipe that had been around since Escoffier, Baccala Brandade. Angelina created a silky forcemeat with milk, codfish, olive oil, pepper, and slow-roasted garlic, a drizzle of lemon juice, and a shower of fresh parsley, then served it as a dip with sliced sourdough and warmed pita-bread wedges, paired with glasses of bubbly Prosecco. The second course had been a favorite of her mother's called Angels on Horseback- freshly shucked oysters, wrapped in thin slices of prosciutto, then broiled on slices of herb-buttered bread. When the oysters cooked, they curled up to resemble tiny angels' wings. Angelina accented the freshness of the oyster with a dab of anchovy paste and wasabi on each hors d'oeuvre. She'd loved the Angels since she was a little girl; they were a heavenly mouthful. This was followed by a Caesar salad topped with hot, batter-dipped, deep-fried smelts. Angelina's father used to crunch his way through the small, silvery fish like French fries. Tonight, Angelina arranged them artfully around mounds of Caesar salad on each plate and ushered them out the door. For the fifth course, Angelina had prepared a big pot of her Mediterranean Clam Soup the night before, a lighter version of Manhattan clam chowder. The last two courses were Parmesan-Stuffed Poached Calamari over Linguine in Red Sauce, and the piece de resistance, Broiled Flounder with a Coriander Reduction.

I'm making a galette instead of a tart," Sam said. "Fancy," Deana said. "Actually, it's not," Sam said. "It's more rustic. More fitting of Michigan, I thought." Willo pulled three mugs- all mismatched- from her cupboard and poured three cups of coffee. "In school, I learned that a galette is sort of the offspring of a pie and a tart- halfway between homespun and fancy- but easier to make than its parents. The biggest difference is that a galette is a free-form pastry, baked without a pie pan or tart ring. It's rustic. And it's forgiving. You just roll it out flat and then fold it in roughly around the filling." Sam stopped and sipped her coffee. "The wonderful thing is that you can't mess it up; the crust will tear and be a little more done in places, the juices will leak, but as long as you use really fresh ingredients, like the fruit we have here, and real butter for the dough, it bakes into something magical. Making a galette really gave me confidence to try trickier desserts. But it's still one of my favorites. And you can make sweet or savory galettes. I made two crusts today. I thought I'd turn one into a savory galette for dinner. I have a recipe for an asparagus, mushroom, goat cheese, and bacon galette I think I'll make." Sam looked at her mom and grandma, who were staring at her openmouthed. "I never realized how accomplished you were," Deana said. "But I knew you had- what did we call it, Mom?" "The gift," Willo said. "You've always had the desire and talent to bake.

SERVANT. Have mercy upon your servant, my queen! QUEEN. The assembly is over and my servants are all gone. Why do you come at this late hour? SERVANT. When you have finished with others, that is my time. I come to ask what remains for your last servant to do. QUEEN. What can you expect when it is too late? SERVANT. Make me the gardener of your flower garden. QUEEN. What folly is this? SERVANT. I will give up my other work. I will throw my swords and lances down in the dust. Do not send me to distant courts; do not bid me undertake new conquests. But make me the gardener of your flower garden. QUEEN. What will your duties be? SERVANT. The service of your idle days. I will keep fresh the grassy path where you walk in the morning, where your feet will be greeted with praise at every step by the flowers eager for death. I will swing you in a swing among the branches of the saptaparna, where the early evening moon will struggle to kiss your skirt through the leaves. I will replenish with scented oil the lamp that burns by your bedside, and decorate your footstool with sandal and saffron paste in wondrous designs. QUEEN. What will you have for your reward? SERVANT. To be allowed to hold your little fists like tender lotus-buds and slip flower chains over your wrists; to tinge the soles of your feet with the red juice of ashoka petals and kiss away the speck of dust that may chance to linger there. QUEEN. Your prayers are granted, my servant, you will be the gardener of my flower garden.

I’ve been so mean to my body, outright hateful. I disparage her and call her names, I loathe parts of her and withhold care. I insist on physical standards she can never reach, for that is not how she is even made, but I detest her weakness for not pulling it off. I deny her things she loves depending on the current fad: bread, cheddar cheese, orange juice, baked potatoes. I push her too hard and refuse her enough rest. No matter what she accomplishes, I’m never happy with her. I’ve barely acknowledged her role in every precious experience of my life. I look at her with contempt. And yet every morning, no matter how terrible I have been to her, she gets us out of bed, nurtures the family, meets the needs of the day. She tells me when I am hungry or tired and sends special red-alert signals when I am overwhelmed or scared. She has safely gotten me to and from a thousand cities with fresh energy. She flushes with red wine, which she loves, which is pretty cute. She walked the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, the red dirt of Uganda, the steep opulence of Santorini, the ruins of Pompeii. She senses danger, trouble, land mines; she is never wrong. Every single time, she tells me when not to say something. She has cooked ten thousand meals. She prays without being told to; sometimes I realize she is whispering to God for us. She walks and cooks and lifts and hugs and types and drives and cleans and holds babies and rests and laughs and does everything in her power to live another meaningful, connected day on this earth. She sure does love me and my life and family. Maybe it is time to stop hating her and just love her back.

This could get a little hairy,” I tell them in interruption. Seriously, I don’t want to know this secret. I’ve got too much other shit going on. I grimace at the very questionable intestines that belong to some fabled creature that surely can’t exist under the radar if all that fit inside it. “If you’re a respawner instead of an unkillable being, get out of the kitchen and at least a mile from the house.” Mom assured me there’s a five mile seclusion radius. Damien starts speaking to me, almost as though he’s too tired to deal with my tinkering right now. “Violet, that potion has to be fresh. There’s no need-" ... There’s a loud, bubbling, sizzling noise that cracks through the air, and I drop to the floor, as a pulse shoots from the pot. Damien yelps, as he and Emit are thrown into one wall, and Mom curses seconds before she and Arion are launched almost into each other, hitting opposing walls instead, when they manage to twist in the air to avoid touching. Everyone crashes to the ground at almost the same time. Groans and grunts and coughs of pain all ring out in annoyed unison. “I warned you,” I call out, even as most of them narrow their eyes in my direction. Damien shoots me a look of exasperation, and I shrug a shoulder. “She did warn us,” Mom grumbles as she remains lying on the floor, while everyone else pushes to their feet. “No one fucks up a potion better than I do. If I fuck it up enough, less power will be needed to raise them,” I go on, smiling over at Emit…who is just staring at me like he’s confused. “But it’s the exact right ingredients,” he says warily, as he stands. “She’s apples and oranges. You can’t compare her to anyone else using those ingredients for that reason,” Mom says dismissively, as I gesture to Vance. “Take him with you; I’m going to be a while. That was just the first volatile ingredient. I don’t think you want to be here for the yacktite—” “Ylacklatite,” they all correct in unison. “You don’t want to be here for those gross, possibly toxic, hard-to-say, fabled-creature intestines. It’s going to probably get crazy up in here,” I say as I twirl my finger around, staying on the floor for a minute longer. Sometimes there’s an echo. “Raise your heartbeat. You’re not taking this seriously enough,” Mom scolds. “What are you doing letting your heartbeat drop so much?” “You really should go. It gets unpredictable when—” The echo pulse I worried would come knocks Arion, Emit, and Damien to the ceiling this time, and I cringe when I hear things crack. When they drop, Arion and Emit land in a crouch, and Damien lands hard on his back, cursing the pot on the stove like it’s singled him out and has it in for sexual deviants. Arion’s lips twitch as he stares over at me, likely thinking what sort of punch a pencil could pack with this concoction. But I’ll be damned if Shera steals any of this juice for his freaky pencils. “Do you rip up those dolls to use them as a timer?” the vampire asks, as he stays on the floor, causing Mom to sneer in his direction. Another pulse cracks some glass, but everyone is under the reach of it now. Damien just shakes his head. “You have drawers full of toxic pencils I don’t even want to know the purpose of,” I tell him dryly. “You don’t get to judge.” His grin grows like he’s pleased with something. I think Mom is seconds away from a brain aneurism

The cuisine of Northern Iran, overlooked and underrated, is unlike most Persian food in that it's unfussy and lighthearted as the people from that region. The fertile seaside villages of Mazandaran and Rasht, where Soli grew up before moving to the congested capital, were lush with orchards and rice fields. His father had cultivated citrus trees and the family was raised on the fruits and grains they harvested. Alone in the kitchen, without Zod's supervision, he found himself turning to the wholesome food of his childhood, not only for the comfort the simple compositions offered, but because it was what he knew so well as he set about preparing a homecoming feast for Zod's only son. He pulled two kilos of fava beans from the freezer. Gathered last May, shucked and peeled on a quiet afternoon, they defrosted in a colander for a layered frittata his mother used to make with fistfuls of dill and sprinkled with sea salt. One flat of pale green figs and a bushel of new harvest walnuts were tied to the back of his scooter, along with two crates of pomegranates- half to squeeze for fresh morning juice and the other to split and seed for rice-and-meatball soup. Three fat chickens pecked in the yard, unaware of their destiny as he sharpened his cleaver. Tomorrow they would braise in a rich, tangy stew with sour red plums, their hearts and livers skewered and grilled, then wrapped in sheets of lavash with bouquets of tarragon and mint. Basmati rice soaked in salted water to be steamed with green garlic and mounds of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, then served with a whole roasted, eight kilo white fish stuffed with barberries, pistachios, and lime. On the farthest burner, whole bitter oranges bobbed in blossom syrup, to accompany rice pudding, next to a simmering pot of figs studded with cardamom pods for preserves.

Fuel your body. Think about your environment as an ecosystem. If there’s pollution, you’ll feel the toxic side effects; if you’re in the fresh air of the mountains, you’ll feel alive. You’d be surprised at how many of the foods that we eat actually sap our body of fuel. Just look at three quick examples: soda, potato chips, and hamburgers. I’m not a hard-liner who says that you should never consume these things, but this kind of steady diet will make it harder for your body to help you. Instead, look at the foods that are going to give you energy. Choose food that’s water soluble and easier for your body to break down, which gives you maximum nutrition with minimal effort. Look at a cucumber: it’s practically water and it takes no energy to consume, but it’s packed with nutrients. Green for me is the key. We overeat and undernourish ourselves way too much. When you eat bad food, your body will feel bad and then you will feel bad. It’s all connected. I drink green juice every day and eat huge salads. I am also a big believer in lean protein to feed and fuel the muscles--I might even have a chicken breast for breakfast. Growing up, because I danced every single day, I would basically eat anything I wanted and I wouldn’t gain any weight. I would eat anything and everything trying to put on a few pounds, but it never worked--and my skin was terrible as a result of it. We’d blame it on the sweat from the dancing, but I never connected it to what I ate. As I got older, I started to educate myself more about food. I learned that I need to alkalize my body. It’s never about how I look. Instead, I go by how I feel. I notice immediately how good, clean food boosts my energy while junk makes me feel lethargic. I’m also a huge believer in hydrating. Forget about eight glasses of water a day; I drink eight glasses before noon!

...but my favorite already-discovered aspect of critical thinking in cooking is the demand for thought experimentation when trying to innovate with food. For instance, today, I made you that crab salad (although the crab was actually just imitation crab), but anyways, I observed that there was this sweetness to the imitation crab, so I conducted a thought experiment with myself. I thought that the sweetness of the crab made the crab delicate, so I deduced that it would be best to use iceberg lettuce in the salad to enhance the delicacy of the crab, because iceberg lettuce is light and crisp, as opposed to cabbage, which is thicker and has a stronger and most likely overpowering flavor that may be incompatible with the delicacy of the crab. In that same thought experiment, I also thought that bell peppers would go well with the salad, because they also have a sweetness similar to the imitation crab, and they have a fresh flavor to them, so I thought it would compliment the crab. I also added that lite ranch dressing, because I knew that the lightness of the dressing would still be cohesively connected to the overall delicacy of the salad, and plus, a lot of the components in the salad were sweet, so the ranch balanced the ratio of sweetness to savoriness. Then, in the thought experiment, I reasoned that if I sprinkle sunflower seeds on it, the dish would be more elevated because of the nuttiness of the seeds. Overall, because of my experiment, the dish had most of the flavors that you and I wanted, but you did say that you wanted more vegetables to balance out the crab, so while we were eating, I conducted another thought experiment, where I thought, of course, about adding more vegetables, and I also thought about the possibilities of adding lemon juice or some citrus fruit like tangerines into my revised version of the salad.

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

GUAC AD HOC   Hannah’s 1st Note: This is Howie Levine’s guacamole recipe. He’s Lake Eden’s most popular lawyer. 2 ounces cream cheese 4 ripe avocados (I used Haas avocados) 2 Tablespoons lemon juice (freshly squeezed is best) 1 clove garlic, finely minced (you can squeeze it in a garlic press if you have one) cup finely chopped fresh oregano leaves 1 Italian (or plum) tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped 4 green onions, peeled and thinly sliced (you can use up to 2 inches of the green stem) ½ teaspoon salt 10 grinds of freshly ground pepper (or tea spoon) ½ cup sour cream to spread on top Bacon bits to sprinkle on top of the sour cream Tortilla chips as dippers Howie’s Note: I use chopped oregano because Florence doesn’t always carry cilantro at the Lake Eden Red Owl. This guacamole is equally good with either one. Heat the cream cheese in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl for 15 seconds on HIGH, or until it’s spreadable. Peel and seed the avocados. Put them in the bowl with the cream cheese and mix everything up with a fork. Mix just slightly short of smooth. You want the mixture to have a few lumps of avocado. Add the lemon juice and mix it in. It’ll keep your Guac Ad Hoc from browning. Add the minced garlic, chopped oregano leaves, tomato, sliced green onion, salt, and pepper. Mix everything together. Put your Guac Ad Hoc in a pretty bowl, and cover it with the sour cream. Sprinkle on the bacon bits. If you’re NOT going to serve it immediately, spread on the sour cream, but don’t use the bacon bits. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate it until time to serve. Then sprinkle on the bacon bits. (My bacon bits got a little tough when I added them to the bowl and refrigerated it. They were best when I sprinkled them on at the last moment.) Hannah’s 2nd Note: Mike and Norman like this best if I serve it with sliced, pickled Jalapenos on top. Mother won’t touch it that way. Yield: This amount of Guac Ad Hoc serves 4 unless you’re making it for a Super Bowl game. Then you’d better double the recipe.

pine nuts and toss gently again. Green Bean, Tuna, and Mushroom “Casserole” One of my favorite things from my Midwestern upbringing is the green bean and mushroom casserole at Thanksgiving—probably the same one that was on your holiday table, thanks to the canned-mushroom-soup marketing campaign. This is my grown-up version of that casserole, which has all the comfort appeal of the childhood dish, but way better flavor and nutritional value. Make it with a one-to-one ratio of mushrooms to green beans, and have some fun with the beans, if you like—you can grill them, slice them thin and use raw, use pickled green beans, or use a mix of all of the above. » Serves 4 Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Extra-virgin olive oil 2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled 1 pound wild mushrooms, wiped off and cut into bite-size pieces (about 6 cups) One 5-ounce can oil-packed tuna, drained 1 pound green beans, trimmed 1 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice ⅓ cup Dried Breadcrumbs Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt until it tastes like the sea. Meanwhile, add ¼ cup olive oil to a skillet that’s large enough to hold all the mushrooms and beans and still have some room to stir the ingredients. Add the garlic and cook slowly over medium heat to toast the garlic so it’s very soft, fragrant, and nicely golden brown—but not burnt—about 5 minutes. Scoop out the garlic and set it aside so it doesn’t burn. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the mushrooms. Season generously with pepper and salt and sauté, tossing frequently, until the mushrooms are nicely browned around the edges, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the tuna and toss to incorporate. Keep this warm until the green beans are ready. Add the beans to the boiling water and boil until they are just a bit beyond crisp-tender, 4 to 7 minutes. Drain them thoroughly in a colander and then add them to the mushrooms and tuna. Add the cream, toss all the ingredients to coat, and simmer until the cream has reduced to a nice cloaking consistency and all the flavors are nicely blended, 6 to 9 minutes. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice and toss. Taste and adjust with more salt, pepper, or lemon juice. When the flavors are delicious, pile into a serving bowl and top with the breadcrumbs.

The crispy crunch of the savory parmesan wings. The thick and smooth Ankake sauce. And under those lies the tender and springy chicken meat that floods the mouth with its umami-laden juices with each bite! Even the delicate aftertaste unique to the Satsuma Jidori has been vividly enhanced! You would think by adding powerfully flavored ingredients like cheese and pork jowl that the overall taste would become heavy and cloying, but that isn't the case at all! The answer to that is in the Ankake sauce. I seasoned that Jidori stock with one special secret ingredient. "Yukihira, quit stalling! What the heck is that ingredient? Tell me! Now!" "It's ketchup. I used good ol' tomato ketchup to make that Ankake sauce... ... into a special house-blend sweet n' sour sauce!" "Ketchup?!" Sweet n' sour sauce is used in a lot of dishes, from obvious ones like sweet n' sour pork, to regional varieties ofTenshinhan crab omelet over rice, and even seafood dishes like deep-fried cod! It's especially handy for Chinese cooking, which commonly makes use of a variety of oils. It's perfect for alleviating the thick oiliness of some dishes, giving them a fresh and tangy flavor. So by adding the tart acidity of tomato-based ketchup to make my Ankake sauce... ... it wipes out the cloying greasiness of both the Parmesan cheese and the pork jowl, leaving only their rich flavors behind. Not only that, it also brings out the Satsuma Jidori's renowned delicate aftertaste!" "The base broth of the sauce is from a stock I made from the Jidori's carcass, so of course it will pair well with the wing meat. And to top it all off, Parmesan cheese and tomatoes are a great match for each other!" "Oh... oh, now I see! That's how you managed to keep from smothering the Jidori's unique flavor! Tomatoes are one big lump of the umami component glutamic acid! Add the inosinic acid from the Jidori and the Guanylic acid from the shiitake mushrooms, and you have three umami compounds all magnifying each other! The techniques for emphasizing the unique and delicious flavors of a Jidori... the three-way umami-component magnification effect... the synergy between ketchup and cheese... the texture contrast between the crispy cheese wings and the smooth Ankake sauce... all of those rest squarely on the foundation of the tomato's tart acidity!

There is no fault that can’t be corrected [in natural wine] with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pigskins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood nuggets toasted for flavor), “tank planks” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (““Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality. . . . You’re dressing it up,” a sales rep explained.) Wine too thin? Build fullness in the mouth with gum arabic (an ingredient also found in frosting and watercolor paint). Too frothy? Add a few drops of antifoaming agent (food-grade silicone oil). Cut acidity with potassium carbonate (a white salt) or calcium carbonate (chalk). Crank it up again with a bag of tartaric acid (aka cream of tartar). Increase alcohol by mixing the pressed grape must with sugary grape concentrate, or just add sugar. Decrease alcohol with ConeTech’s spinning cone, or Vinovation’s reverse-osmosis machine, or water. Fake an aged Bordeaux with Lesaffre’s yeast and yeast derivative. Boost “fresh butter” and “honey” aromas by ordering the CY3079 designer yeast from a catalog, or go for “cherry-cola” with the Rhône 2226. Or just ask the “Yeast Whisperer,” a man with thick sideburns at the Lallemand stand, for the best yeast to meet your “stylistic goals.” (For a Sauvignon Blanc with citrus aromas, use the Uvaferm SVG. For pear and melon, do Lalvin Ba11. For passion fruit, add Vitilevure Elixir.) Kill off microbes with Velcorin (just be careful, because it’s toxic). And preserve the whole thing with sulfur dioxide. When it’s all over, if you still don’t like the wine, just add a few drops of Mega Purple—thick grape-juice concentrate that’s been called a “magical potion.” It can plump up a wine, make it sweeter on the finish, add richer color, cover up greenness, mask the horsey stink of Brett, and make fruit flavors pop. No one will admit to using it, but it ends up in an estimated 25 million bottles of red each year. “Virtually everyone is using it,” the president of a Monterey County winery confided to Wines and Vines magazine. “In just about every wine up to $20 a bottle anyway, but maybe not as much over that.

newer marshals,” Newman added. “I was glad when they invited them to teach you new guys. That much field experience shouldn’t go to waste.” “A lot of them are stake-and-hammer guys though,” Newman said. “Old-fashioned doesn’t begin to cover their methods.” “The hunter that taught me the ropes was like that.” “I thought Forrester was your mentor. He’s known for his gun knowledge,” Livingston said. “You get that off his Wikipedia page?” I asked. “No, he worked a case that a buddy of mine was on. My friend is a gun nut, and he loved Forrester’s arsenal. He said that Forrester even used a flamethrower.” “Yep, that’s Ted,” I said, shaking my head. “So, he wasn’t your first mentor?” “No, Manny Rodriguez was. He taught me how to raise zombies and how to kill vampires.” “What happened to him?” Newman asked. “His wife thought he was getting too old and forced him to retire from the hunting side of things.” “It is not a job for old men,” Olaf said. “I guess it isn’t, but I wasn’t ready to fly solo when Manny retired. I was lucky I didn’t get killed doing jobs on my own at first.” “When did Forrester start training you?” Livingston asked. “Soon enough to help me stay alive.” “Ted spoke highly of you from the beginning,” Olaf said. “He does not give unearned praise. Are you being humble?” “No, I don’t . . . I really did have some close calls when Manny first retired, or maybe I just missed having backup.” Hazel brought our coffee and my Coke. “I’ll be back to fill those waters up, and with the juice,” she said before she left again. I so wanted to start questioning her, but this was Newman’s warrant and everyone else besides Olaf was local. They knew Hazel. I didn’t. I’d let them play it for now. The coffee was fresh and hot and surprisingly good for a mass-produced cup. I did add sugar and cream, so it wasn’t great coffee, but I didn’t add much, so it wasn’t bad either. Olaf put in way more sugar than I did, so his cup would have been too sweet for me. He didn’t take cream. I guessed we could be snobby about each other’s coffee habits later. “But it was Forrester who taught you how to fight empty hand?” Livingston asked. “I had some martial arts when we met, but he started me on more real-world training that worked outside of a judo mat or a martial arts tournament.” “I thought he was out of New Mexico,” Livingston said. “He is.” “And you’re in St. Louis, Missouri.” “I am.” “Hard to train long-distance.” “I have people I train with at home.” “How often do you train?” Kaitlin asked. “At least three times a week in hand-to-hand and blade.” “Really that often?” Newman asked. “Yeah. How often do you train?” “I go to the range two, three times a month.” “Any martial arts?” I asked. “I go to the gym three times a week.

Birch bark lends a mild wintergreen flavor to brewed sodas. Birch beer, flavored with sassafras and birch, is a classic American brew. Birch bark is usually sold in homebrew stores. Bitter Orange (Bergamot) s highly aromatic, and its dried peel is an essential part of cola flavor. The dried peel and its extract are usually available in spice shops, or any store with a good spice selection. They can be pricey. Burdock root s a traditional ingredient in American root beers. It has a mild sweet flavor similar to that of artichoke. Dried burdock root is available in most Asian groceries and homebrew stores. Cinnamon has several species, but they all fall into two types. Ceylon cinnamon is thin and mild, with a faint fragrance of allspice. Southeast Asian cinnamon, also called cassia, is both stronger and more common. The best grade comes from Vietnam and is sold as Saigon cinnamon. Use it in sticks, rather than ground. The sticks can be found in most grocery stores. Ginger, a common soda ingredient, is very aromatic, at once spicy and cooling. It is widely available fresh in the produce section of grocery stores, and it can be found whole and dried in most spice shops. Lemongrass, a perennial herb from central Asia, contains high levels of citral, the pungent aromatic component of lemon oil. It yields a rich lemon flavor without the acid of lemon juice, which can disrupt the fermentation of yeasted sodas. Lemon zest is similar in flavor and can be substituted. Lemongrass is available in most Asian markets and in the produce section of well-stocked grocery stores. Licorice root provides the well-known strong and sweet flavor of black licorice candy. Dried licorice root is sold in natural food stores and homebrew stores. Anise seed and dried star anise are suitable substitutes. Sarsaparilla s similar in flavor to sassafras, but a little milder. Many plants go by the name sarsaparilla. Southern-clime sarsaparilla (Smilax spp.) is the traditional root-beer flavoring. Most of the supply we get in North America comes from Mexico; it’s commonly sold in homebrew stores. Wild sarsaparilla (Aralia spp.) is more common in North America and is sometimes used as a substitute for true sarsaparilla. Small young sarsaparilla roots, known as “root bark” are less pungent and are usually preferred for soda making, although fully mature roots give fine results. Sassafras s the most common flavoring for root beers of all types. Its root bark is very strong and should be used with caution, especially if combined with other flavors. It is easily overpowering. Dried sassafras is available in homebrew stores. Star anise, the dried fruit of an Asian evergreen, tastes like licorice, with hints of clove and cinnamon. The flavor is strong, so use star anise with caution. It is available dried in the spice section of most grocery stores but can be found much more cheaply at Asian markets.

You want me to fuck you?” I leaned down, bringing her face to mine so our noses crushed together. I grabbed the front of her dress, twisting, tightening it against her skin until the fabric began pulling apart and tearing. “You want me to knock you up?” “Yes,” she breathed out. “Yes.” I dropped to the marble, resting my back against the vanity. “Ask nicely.” “Please.” “Nicer.” She crawled toward me on all fours, straddled my lap, and grabbed my hand, bringing it between her legs. Her fingers guided mine into her slick pussy, two of hers joining mine inside her warmth. My lips found her nipple, biting down through her dress. Together, we fucked her cunt down to our knuckles, curling until her walls pulsed. I watched our fingers disappear inside her. She arched her back, trying to accommodate as much of us as she could. Her lips drifted to the shell of my ear. “Please, please, please.” I tore my fingers out of her, ripped her dress down the middle, and captured both sides of her waist, sinking her onto my cock, down to the hilt. Her head fell forward. She bit my shoulder, drawing blood, her hips bucking. She was so tight it felt like I was fucking her ass. Her walls squeezed around me, milking my dick for cum. I let her ride my length until my impatience won over, and I pulled her off me, flipped her over, and lowered her on all fours. The marble was cold and hard against her knees. I love seeing that spoiled little brat take all of my cock, feeling the discomfort of it. My silver-spooned nymph. I entered her from behind. She drove back, meeting each of my thrusts. My fingers curled around her neck and steered her upward until her back plastered against my front. She craned her head around and captured my lips, slipping her tongue past my teeth. Her back arched, fingers dipping between her legs, searching for her clit. I smacked them away, then landed a palm on her ass. “Rom,” she whined. “I need to come.” “What you need is to be fucking grateful.” My blood brought my point home, covering every inch of her back, arms, and tits, matting her hair in clumps. I released her throat and pet the crown of her head, whispering praises into her ear. “Such a good girl.” Words I never thought I’d say. Especially to this particular girl, who was anything but good two hundred percent of the time. “If only you took directions so well when you’re not filled with my cock.” I reached around her and found her clit, rewarding her with a single flick. She cried out and fell forward, on her hands and knees again, pushing onto my cock. More crimson drops splattered onto her back. I’d reopened my wound, and fresh red painted her spine. I dipped a finger into it, then spelled my name across her back dimples. “Who owns your ass?” I growled. “You.” “Louder.” “You.” “Now crawl forward and show me your cunt from behind. I want to see if it’s worth my cum.” With a reluctant moan, she inched away from my cock, writhing about two feet away. She started to turn when I hissed, “I don’t want to see your face, Mrs. Costa. Just the cunt I stole from my enemy.” She spread her thighs apart, exposing her pussy. It dripped on my floor, her juices mixing with my blood, creating a pink puddle at her feet. I stroked my cock, coated with her wetness, scented by the wife I couldn’t get enough of. I grinned, the release tickling my shaft. “Embarrassed?” “No. Empty.” Fuck me sideways. How this woman would ever end up with a wuss like Madison, I had no idea. She would make meatballs out of him before the reception. (Chapter 55)

It was like a page out of the telephone book. Alphabetically, numerically, statistically, it made sense. But when you looked at it up close, when you examined the pages separately, or the parts separately, when you examined one lone individual and what constituted him, examined the air he breathed, the life he led, the chances he risked, you saw something so foul and degrading, so low, so miserable, so utterly hopeless and senseless, that it was worse than looking into a volcano. Outwardly it seems to be a beautiful honeycomb, with all the drones crawling over each other in a frenzy of work; inwardly it’s a slaughterhouse, each man killing off his neighbor and sucking the juice from his bones. Superficially it looks like a bold, masculine world; actually it’s a whorehouse run by women, with the native sons acting as pimps and the bloody foreigners selling their flesh... The whole continent is sound asleep and in that sleep a grand nightmare is taking place… At night the streets of New York reflect the crucifixion and death of Christ. When the snow is on the ground and there is the utmost silence there comes out of the hideous buildings of New York a music of such sullen despair and bankruptcy as to make the flesh shrivel. No stone was laid upon another with love or reverence; no street was laid for dance or joy. One thing has been added to another in a mad scramble to fill the belly, and the streets smell of empty bellies and full bellies and bellies half full. The streets smell of a hunger which has nothing to do with love; they smell of the belly which is insatiable and of the creations of the empty belly which are null and void. Just as the city itself had become a huge tomb in which men struggled to earn a decent death so my own life came to resemble a tomb which I was constructing out of my own death. I was walking around in a stone forest the center of which was chaos; sometimes in the dead center, in the very heart of chaos, I danced or drank myself silly, or I made love, or I befriended some one, or I planned a new life, but it was all chaos, all stone, and all hopeless and bewildering. Until the time when I would encounter a force strong enough to whirl me out of this mad stone forest no life would be possible for me nor could one page be written which would have meaning… Everybody and everything is a part of life... As an individual, as flesh and blood, I am leveled down each day to make the fleshless, bloodless city whose perfection is the sum of all logic and death to the dream. I am struggling against an oceanic death in which my own death is but a drop of water evaporating. To raise my own individual life but a fraction of an inch above this sinking sea of death I must have a faith greater than Christ’s, a wisdom deeper than that of the greatest seer. I must have the ability and the patience to formulate what is not contained in the language of our time, for what is now intelligible is meaningless. My eyes are useless, for they render back only the image of the known. My whole body must become a constant beam of light, moving with an ever greater rapidity, never arrested, never looking back, never dwindling. The city grows like a cancer; I must grow like a sun. The city eats deeper and deeper into the red; it is an insatiable white louse which must die eventually of inanition. I am going to starve the white louse which is eating me up. I am going to die as a city in order to become again a man. Therefore I close my ears, my eyes, my mouth. Infinitely better, as life moves toward a deathly perfection, to be just a bit of breathing space, a stretch of green, a little fresh air, a pool of water. Better also to receive men silently and to enfold them, for there is no answer to make while they are still frantically rushing to turn the corner.