Piping Hot Quotes

Another old saying is that revenge is a dish best served cold. But it feels best served piping hot, straight out of the oven of outrage. My opinion? Take care of revenge right away.

The mercenary finished his coffee in a single gulp, It must have been piping hot, too. Boy, he was tough.

Now, this one might be a little stringy, but then again, it's fiddle player." That isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player." How can you tell?" It's PIPING hot!" Then blow on it first!

after an epic search, I finally found something neither green nor fuzzy. It was a hot sausage link. I named it Peter, mostly because it seemed like the right thing to do. As soon as my java was piping hot I popped him into the microwave. hopefully the radioactive environment would sterilize Peter. No need to have little Peters running around, wreaking havoc.

How can one person be more real than any other? Well, some people do hide and others seek. Maybe those who are in hiding - escaping encounters, avoiding surprises, protecting their property, ignoring their fantasies, restricting their feelings, sitting out the pan pipe hootchy-kootch of experience - maybe those people, people who won't talk to rednecks, or if they're rednecks won't talk to intellectuals, people who're afraid to get their shoes muddy or their noses wet, afraid to eat what they crave, afraid to drink Mexican water, afraid to bet a long shot to win, afraid to hitchhike, jaywalk, honky-tonk, cogitate, osculate, levitate, rock it, bop it, sock it, or bark at the moon, maybe such people are simply inauthentic, and maybe the jacklet humanist who says differently is due to have his tongue fried on the hot slabs of Liar's Hell. Some folks hide, and some folk's seek, and seeking, when it's mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren't afraid to look and won't turn tail should they find it - and if they never do, they'll have a good time anyway because nothing, neither the terrible truth nor the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of Earth's sweet gas.

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

By nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across—each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip—is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.

This is the worst of our ways of remembering--this tendency to prod the crust of anecdote in the hope of releasing a gush of piping-hot symbolism.

If biscuits were stories, I'd bake a pan of piping hot fables right this second." (Bertie)

She smiled and sipped from her glass. There was altogether too much of her sitting there, the broad expanse of thigh cradled in the insubstantial stocking and the garters with the pale flesh pursed and her full breasts and the sootblack piping of her eyelids, a gaudish rake of metaldust in prussian blue where cerulean moths fluttered her awake from some outlandish dream. Suttree gradually going awash in the sheer outrageous sentience of her. Their glasses clicked on the tabletop. Her hot spiced tongue fat in his mouth and her hands all over him like the very witch of fuck.

[The cats] scamper in front of my legs, causing me to fall and face plant into whatever furniture is closest. They especially like to play this game when I’m carrying piping hot coffee.

From where you are you can hear in Cockle Row in the spring, moonless night, Miss Price, dressmaker and sweetshop-keeper, dream of her lover, tall as the town clock tower, Samson syrup-gold-maned, whacking thighed and piping hot, thunderbolt-bass'd and barnacle-breasted, flailing up the cockles with his eyes like blowlamps and scooping low over her lonely loving hotwaterbottled body.

To “toe the line” derives from when boys on a ship were forced to stand still for inspection with their toes on a deck seam. To “pipe down” was the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals.

Another old saying is that revenge is a dish best served cold. But it feels best served piping hot, straight out of the oven of outrage. My opinion? Take care of revenge right away. Push, shove, scratch that person while they’re still within arm’s reach. Don’t let them get away! Who knows when you’ll get this opportunity again?

And not wretched sausages half full of bread and soya bean either, but real meaty, spicy ones, fat and piping hot and burst and just the tiniest bit burnt. And great mugs of frothy chocolate, and roast potatoes and roast chestnuts, and baked apples with raisins stuck in where the cores had been, and then ices just to freshen you up after all the hot things.

My doggy ate my homework. He chewed it up," I said. But when I offered my excuse My teacher shook her head. I saw this wasn't going well. I didn't want to fail. Before she had a chance to talk, I added to the tale: "Before he ate, he took my work And tossed it in a pot. He simmered it with succotash Till it was piping hot.

The experienced stayed with piping hot, sweet tea, which may sound crazy but was discovered by the British empire builders two centuries earlier to be the best rehydrator of them all. The fifteen-hundred

The next morning, when I went in to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I noticed the index card over the sink. RIGHT FAUCET DRIPS EASILY, it said. TIGHTEN WITH WRENCH AFTER USING. And then there was an arrow, pointing down to where a small wrench was tied with bright red yarn to one of the pipes. This is crazy, I thought. But that wasn't all. In the shower, HOT WATER IS VERY HOT! USE WITH CARE was posted over the soap dish. And on the toilet: HANDLE LOOSE. DON'T YANK. (As if I had some desire to do that.) The overhead fan was clearly BROKEN, the tiles by the door were LOOSE so I had to WALK CAREFULLY. And I was informed, cryptically, that the light over the medicine cabinet works, BUT ONLY SOMETIMES.

Good manners apart, though, the appearance of those monumental dishes of macaroni was worthy of the quivers of admiration they evoked. The burnished gold of the crusts, the fragrance of sugar and cinnamon they exuded, were but preludes to the delights released from the interior when the knife broke the crust; first came a mist laden with aromas, then chicken livers, hard-boiled eggs, sliced ham, chicken, and truffles in masses of piping hot, glistening macaroni, to which the meat juice gave an exquisite hue of suède.

I’ve sometimes imagined that if sin had a flavor, it might very well be bacon. It even tastes smoky, as if it emerged piping hot out of the fiery pans of hell

I dont apply rationality to everything I do , that would be boring.. I like to drink my coffee piping hot ,black with chocolate chips in it, I like to keep my pencils in the fridge so they write darker...I like to sleep with crystals and Lemurians under my illow because I believe it makes my mind receptive to parallel dimensions and magical realms and truths. I believe it opens my third eye, ajna chakra. sometimes I even go to bed with an amethyst upon my third eye, secured by a bandana

Here you go, fellas. Piping hot...right out of the oven!' 'Is--Is that what I think it is?' 'It's your favourite! Custard pie with cheese and bacon!' 'QUICHE!' 'No, comrade!! Be strong! Monsters don't eat flakey bakery products! Get a hold of yourself!' 'But comrade, I'm STARVING! Our army has no food! We haven't eaten since the ghost circles appeared!' 'Oh well! We certainly have a lot of food Here, don't we, Teach? A Lot of Food...' 'Oh yes, A lot of food!' 'OK! I GIVE UP! YES! YES!! GIVE US THE QUICHE!! WE'RE STARVING--

...she did raise me with a distinctly Korean appetite. This meant a reverence for good food and a predisposition to emotional eating. We were particular about everything: kimchi had to be perfectly sour, samgyupsal perfectly crisped; stews had to be piping hot or they might as well have been inedible. The concept of prepping meals for the week was a ludicrous affront to our lifestyle. We chased our cravings daily. If we wanted the kimchi stew for three weeks straight, we relished it until a new craving emerged. We ate in accordance with the seasons and holidays.

One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening - big or small - can affect an entire string of people. Occurrences can join us all together. You see, we're all made up of the same stuff. When something happens, it triggers something inside us that connects us to a situation, connects us to other people, lighting us up and linking us like little lights on a Christmas tree, twisted and turned but still connected to a wire. Some go out, others flicker, others burn strong and bright, yet we are all on the same line. I said at the beginning of this story that this was about people who find out who they are. About people who are unraveled and whose cores are revealed to all who count. And that all that count are revealed to them. You thought I was talking about Lou Suffern and the Turkey Boy, about Raphie, Jessica, and Ruth, didn't you? Wrong. I was talking about each of us. A lesson finds the common denominatior and links us all together, like a chain. At the end of that chain dangles a clock, and on the face of the clock registers the passing of time. We see it and we hear it, the hushed tick-tock, but often we don't feel it. Each second makes its mark on every single person's life - comes and then goes, quietly disappearing without fanfare, evaporating into air like steam from a piping hot Christmas pudding. Enough time leaves us warm; when our time is gone, it leaves us cold. Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time of which we do not have enough; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmas morning. Time can't be given. But it can be shared.

Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Let to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more - Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there.

The house smelled like fireplace kindling, and hot water in old brass pipes - like metal melting into wood and becoming something all its own. It smelled like his childhood. Like chaos and terror and oatmeal cookies and lamb stew, and nighttime in front of that drafty front window. And the smell of it brought back thoughts, long past, about escaping from inside the walls and evoked the helplessness of every board that kept the place upright.

Ask for it hot enough to burn your pipes, or it won’t be drinkable.

piping hot” was his call for meals.

Where his thigh not quite touches mine, it feels like a piping hot knife held against butter.

That night's dream: a narrow column of dark liquid in a tall glass; a blue-black waterspout plunging from the sky; a swirl of black-fruit icing piped over a pastry hot from the oven; a long, feminine finger laid over lips; a torrent of whispers that that finger cannot hush.

The muscle above his lip began to tremble uncontrollably as he tried to hold back all the furor piping up inside him like a furnace full of hot coals but it was searing at his innards.

I wondered if we were doing him a favor. The Galton household had hot and cold running money piped in from an inexhaustible reservoir. But money was never free. Like any other commodity, it had to be paid for.

Asians of their generation were not tactile. Affection was expressed, if at all, through food. To make an effort over dinner, to have a few extra dishes, to remember what someone liked best and serve it piping hot - that was the way to show family feeling.

toe the line” derives from when boys on a ship were forced to stand still for inspection with their toes on a deck seam. To “pipe down” was the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals. A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations.

nautical language was so pervasive that it was adopted by those on terra firma. To “toe the line” derives from when boys on a ship were forced to stand still for inspection with their toes on a deck seam. To “pipe down” was the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals. A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations. A ship was “three sheets to the wind” when the lines to the sails broke and the vessel pitched drunkenly out of control. To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat.

Salmon Meunière, piping hot and steaming with the rich aroma of butter! Sautéed squid liver, boldly fragrant with the scents of garlic and soy sauce! And a gleaming mound of glittery salmon roe marinated in soy sauce! "It's a parade of the ultimate in gourmet ingredients! Somei Saito senpai has created a brand-new culinary gem with his Buttered Seafood Rice Bowl!

He also loved the city itself. Coming to and leaving Cousin Joe’s, he would gorge himself on hot dogs and cafeteria pie, price cigarette lighters and snap-brim hats in store windows, follow the pushboys with their rustling racks of furs and trousers. There were sailors and prizefighters; there were bums, sad and menacing, and ladies in piped jackets with dogs in their handbags. Tommy would feel the sidewalks hum and shudder as the trains rolled past beneath him. He heard men swearing and singing opera. On a sunny day, his peripheral vision would be spangled with light winking off the chrome headlights of taxicabs, the buckles on ladies’ shoes, the badges of policemen, the handles of pushcart lunch-wagons, the bulldog ornaments on the hoods of irate moving vans. This was Gotham City, Empire City, Metropolis. Its skies and rooftops were alive with men in capes and costumes, on the lookout for wrongdoers, saboteurs, and Communists. Tommy

She looked away and mumbled something. “I’m sorry I don’t speak mumble,” he said while eying the piping hot apple muffin with streusel topping that she just took out of the bag. Hell, how had he missed that delicious little morsel? His hand seemed to have a life of its own as it crept towards that tasty little treat. With a gasp, Haley’s hands came down to protect her muffin. “Control yourself!” she hissed as she broke off a small chunk and ate it. His eyes went back to the muffin. He knew he was pouting when Haley rolled her eyes and continued to eat. Damn it, where was the love? He was a hungry man. With a sigh, he opened his bag and pulled out one of the three coffee rolls he’d ordered and began eating them all while keeping his eyes on that muffin.

Waiting for a hot pocket to cook we’d fuck and be satisfied, barefoot on new york city apartment linoleum. A satisfying hot pocket and a big ass smile and a tight ass grip and a wall beside a random pipe beside the stove where we left palm and dick prints. We fucked like this. Three condoms in an hour and a half and where are you now? Holding the hand of some local dude you wish was a little more international, wishing you had known I was enough and asked me to stay. You are standing in the kitchen waiting for popcorn to pop while he washes dishes, not knowing I’m wishing back for you.

Kvothe?” Auri said softly. I clenched my teeth against the sobbing and lay still as I could, hoping she would think I was asleep and leave. “Kvothe?” she called again. “I brought you—” There was a moment of silence, then she said, “Oh.” I heard a soft sound behind me. The moonlight showed her tiny shadow on the wall as she climbed through the window. I felt the bed move as she settled onto it. A small, cool hand brushed the side of my face. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “Come here.” I began to cry quietly, and she gently uncurled the tight knot of me until my head lay in her lap. She murmured, brushing my hair away from my forehead, her hands cool against my hot face. “I know,” she said sadly. “It’s bad sometimes, isn’t it?” She stroked my hair gently, and it only made me cry harder. I could not remember the last time someone had touched me in a loving way. “I know,” she said. “You have a stone in your heart, and some days it’s so heavy there is nothing to be done. But you don’t have to be alone for it. You should have come to me. I understand.” My body clenched and suddenly the taste of plum filled my mouth again. “I miss her,” I said before I realized I was speaking. Then I bit it off before I could say anything else. I clenched my teeth and shook my head furiously, like a horse fighting its reins. “You can say it,” Auri said gently. I shook again, tasted plum, and suddenly the words were pouring out of me. “She said I sang before I spoke. She said when I was just a baby she had the habit of humming when she held me. Nothing like a song. Just a descending third. Just a soothing sound. Then one day she was walking me around the camp, and she heard me echo it back to her. Two octaves higher. A tiny piping third. She said it was my first song. We sang it back and forth to each other. For years.” I choked and clenched my teeth. “You can say it,” Auri said softly. “It’s okay if you say it.” “I’m never going to see her again,” I choked out. Then I began to cry in earnest. “It’s okay,” Auri said softly. “I’m here. You’re safe.

Dan: He’s a contractor; if porn has taught me anything, it’s that if you ask him to check your pipes, you’ll end up getting gang banged by him and like three other hot dudes. Ren: You’re thinking of plumbers

You know, the horizontal bop. Hide the salami. The hot thing. The big O.  Getting lucky. Going all the way. Hitting a home run. Scoring big-time. Laying pipe. Plowing a field. Stuffing the muff. Doing the big dirty,

Some children sit in their warm cosy beds with snacks and hot cocoas watching Hollywood movies with age rating while others shivering in the freezing blizzards drinking from icy broken pipes and ripping pieces of jewellery off bloody bombed up limbs.

the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals. A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations. A ship was “three sheets to the wind” when the lines to the sails broke and the vessel pitched drunkenly out of control. To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat. Not only did Byron have

...and I'll be able to go on, no, I'll be able to stop, or start, another guzzle of lies but piping hot, it will last my time, it will be my time and place, my voice and silence, a voice of silence, the voice of my silence. It's with such prospects they exhort you to have patience, whereas you are patient, and calm, somehow somewhere calm, what calm here, ah that's an idea, say how calm it is here, and how fine I feel, and how silent I am, I'll start right away, I'll say what calm and silence, which nothing has ever broken, nothing will ever break, which saying I don't break, or saying I'll be saying, yes, I'll say all that tomorrow, yes, tomorrow evening, some other evening, not this evening, this evening it's too late, too late to gets things right, I'll go to sleep, so that I may say, hear myself say, a little later, I've slept, he's slept, but he won't have slept, or else he's sleeping now, he'll have done nothing, nothing but go on, doing what, doing what he does, that is to say, I don't know, giving up, that's it, I'll have gone on giving up, having had nothing, not being there.

At times the engine stopped, and grown-ups and children climbed out of the carriages with tins to collect water from the engine steam pipes. This was the only drinking water that we had access to, and though it was hot and very rusty, it was the best drink I felt I’d ever had.

Then, amid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a clatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which brings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more nice cuts down the speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost of nice cuts that have been disposed of, and a general flush and steam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and a considerably heated atmosphere in which the soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break out spontaneously into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the legal triumvirate appease their appetites.

To “toe the line” derives from when boys on a ship were forced to stand still for inspection with their toes on a deck seam. To “pipe down” was the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals. A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations. A ship was “three sheets to the wind” when the lines to the sails broke and the vessel pitched drunkenly out of control. To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat.

Tell me why you guys were laughing.” Clicking into my seat belt, I say, “At least once a week, Ms. Rothschild runs out to her car and spills hot coffee all over herself.” Kitty pipes up, “It’s the funniest thing in the world.” Peter snorts. “You guys are sadistic.” “What’s sadistic?” Kitty wants to know. She puts her head between us. I push her back and say, “Put your seat belt on.” Peter puts the car in reverse. “It means seeing other people in pain makes you happy.” “Oh.” She repeats it to herself softly. “Sadistic.” “Don’t teach her weird stuff,” I say. “I like weird stuff,” Kitty protests. Peter says, “See? The kid likes weird stuff.

This wrap! It's made of rice! Now I get it... it's a variation on a Bánh Xèo!" BÁNH XÈO Literally meaning "Sizzling Cake," it is a Vietnamese rice-flour pancake. The batter is made from rice flour, water, coconut milk and other ingredients and is then spread thinly and fried like a crepe. Once cooked, ingredients like pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts are folded inside. I see the concept behind this dish now! It's mixing piping-hot rice with juicy fried chicken! Fried chicken and rice have always been a golden combination. Here they've recreated that in a form that's easy to eat on the go and just as delicious. And they even managed to do it in an innovative and eye-catching way!

At a chain coffee bar in San Francisco, I saw a sign near the cream counter that read NAPKINS COME FROM TREES — CONSERVE! In case you missed the first sign, there was a second one two feet away, reading YOU WASTE NAPKINS — YOU WASTE TREES!!! The cups, of course, are also made of paper, yet there’s no mention of the mighty redwood when you order your four-dollar coffee. The guilt applies only to those things that are being given away for free. Were they to charge you ten cents per napkin, they would undoubtedly make them much thinner so you’d need to waste even more in order to fight back the piping hot geyser forever spouting from the little hole conveniently located in the lid of your cup.

During the age of sail, when wind-powered vessels were the only bridge across the vast oceans, nautical language was so pervasive that it was adopted by those on terra firma. To “toe the line” derives from when boys on a ship were forced to stand still for inspection with their toes on a deck seam. To “pipe down” was the boatswain’s whistle for everyone to be quiet at night, and “piping hot” was his call for meals. A “scuttlebutt” was a water cask around which the seamen gossiped while waiting for their rations. A ship was “three sheets to the wind” when the lines to the sails broke and the vessel pitched drunkenly out of control. To “turn a blind eye” became a popular expression after Vice-Admiral Nelson deliberately placed his telescope against his blind eye to ignore his superior’s signal flag to retreat.

Each course was more delectable than the last. Phoebe would have thought nothing could have surpassed the efforts of the French cook at Heron's Point, but this was some of the most delicious fare she'd ever had. Her bread plate was frequently replenished with piping-hot milk rolls and doughy slivers of stottie cake, served with thick curls of salted butter. The footmen brought out perfectly broiled game hens, the skin crisp and delicately heat-blistered... fried veal cutlets puddled in cognac sauce... slices of vegetable terrine studded with tiny boiled quail eggs. Brilliantly colorful salads were topped with dried flakes of smoked ham or paper-thin slices of pungent black truffle. Roasted joints of beef and lamb were presented and carved beside the table, the tender meat sliced thinly and served with drippings thickened into gravy.

O happiness! O happiness! Wilt thou perhaps sing, O my soul? Thou liest in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd playeth his pipe. Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect. Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo—hush! The old noontide sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now drink a drop of happiness— —An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh over it, its happiness laugheth. Thus—laugheth a God. Hush! "For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!" Thus spoke I once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: that have I now learned. Wise fools speak better. The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye-glance—little maketh up the best happiness. Hush!

They're installing a boiler system," Pandora said, flipping through a book. "It's a set of two large copper cylinders filled with water pipes that are heated by gas burners. One never has to wait for the hot water- it comes at once through expansion pipes attached to the top of the boiler." "Pandora," Kathleen asked suspiciously, "how do you know all that?" "The master plumber explained it to me." "Dear," Helen said gently, "it's not seemly for you to converse with a man when you haven't been introduced. Especially a laborer in our home." "But Helen, he's old. He looks like Father Christmas." "Age has nothing to do with it," Kathleen said crisply. "Pandora, you promised to abide by the rules." "I do," Pandora protested, looking chagrined. "I follow all the rules that I can remember." "How is it that you remember the details of a plumbing system but not basic etiquette?" "Because plumbing is more interesting.

That girl has been listening,” she said. The culprit snatched up her brush, and scrambled to her feet. She caught at the coal box and simply scuttled out of the room like a frightened rabbit. Sara felt rather hot-tempered. “I knew she was listening,” she said. “Why shouldn’t she?” Lavinia tossed her head with great elegance. “Well,” she remarked, “I do not know whether your mamma would like you to tell stories to servant girls, but I know my manna wouldn’t like me to do it.” “My mamma!” said Sara, looking odd. “I don’t believe she would mind in the least. She knows that stories belong to everybody.” “I thought,” retorted Lavinia, in severe recollection, “that your mamma was dead. How can she know things?” “Do you think she doesn’t know things?” said Sara, in her stern little voice. Sometimes she had a rather stern little voice. “Sara’s mamma knows everything,” piped in Lottie. “So does my mamma--’cept Sara is my mamma at Miss Minchin’s--my other one knows everything. The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sara tells me when she puts me to bed.” “You wicked thing,” said Lavinia, turning on Sara; “making fairy stories about heaven.” “There are much more splendid stories in Revelation,” returned Sara. “Just look and see! How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can tell you”--with a fine bit of unheavenly temper--“you will never find out whether they are or not if you’re not kinder to people than you are now. Come along, Lottie.

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

HEY, LADY? IS THAT PRETTY DECORATION ON THE CURRY... REALLY A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE?!" "How is that even possible?!" "Do you see its delicate, complex design? And they're mass-producing it?! It even has a colorful swirl pattern on it!" "Not even a professional could manage something like this!" "It wasn't hard, really. I just printed those chocolates using a 3-D Food Printer." "A 3-D Printer? Oh, I've heard of those!" "But I didn't know you could use it to print food!" "Dark chocolate makes a perfect accent to curry, y'know. Take some 80 percent cacao chocolate, add a dash of curry spices to it and then print it out in totally cute designs with a 3-D Printer! Put it on top of some piping hot curry, and it will start to melt, adding a rich, colorful undertone to the flavor of the dish!" "Papa, I want some! Buy me that!" "Sure thing! Your papa wants to try it too!" "Mm! The curry itself smells so good I could melt! But then they go and add that beautiful chocolate topping?!" "Man, Totsuki students are amazing!" They like it. "That chocolate is, like, all bonus. It adds a colorful touch and a little sweet scent... without affecting the curry spices you balanced so carefully.

As I laid the book down there was a knock at the door, and my stranger came in.  I gave him a pipe and a chair, and made him welcome.  I also comforted him with a hot Scotch whisky; gave him another one; then still another—hoping always for his story. After a fourth persuader, he drifted into it himself, in a quite simple and natural way: THE STRANGER'S HISTORY I am an American.  I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State of Connecticut—anyway, just over the river, in the country.  So I am a Yankee of the Yankees—and practical; yes, and nearly barren of sentiment, I suppose—or poetry, in other words.

They [mountains] are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight—that is what it is. Now think: out of that caldron, where all the bubbles would be as big as the Alps if it could get room for its boiling, certain bubbles have bubbled out and escaped—up and away, and there they stand in the cool, cold sky—mountains. Think of the change, and you will no more wonder that there should be something awful about the very look of a mountain: from the darkness—for where the light has nothing to shine upon, it is much the same as darkness—from the heat, from the endless tumult of boiling unrest—up, with a sudden heavenward shoot, into the wind, and the cold, and the starshine, and a cloak of snow that lies like ermine above the blue-green mail of the glaciers; and the great sun, their grandfather, up there in the sky; and their little old cold aunt, the moon, that comes wandering about the house at night; and everlasting stillness, except for the wind that turns the rocks and caverns into a roaring organ for the young archangels that are studying how to let out the pent-up praises of their hearts, and the molten music of the streams, rushing ever from the bosoms of the glaciers fresh-born. Think too of the change in their own substance—no longer molten and soft, heaving and glowing, but hard and shining and cold. Think of the creatures scampering over and burrowing in it, and the birds building their nests upon it, and the trees growing out of its sides, like hair to clothe it, and the lovely grass in the valleys, and the gracious flowers even at the very edge of its armour of ice, like the rich embroidery of the garment below, and the rivers galloping down the valleys in a tumult of white and green! And along with all these, think of the terrible precipices down which the traveller may fall and be lost, and the frightful gulfs of blue air cracked in the glaciers, and the dark profound lakes, covered like little arctic oceans with floating lumps of ice. All this outside the mountain! But the inside, who shall tell what lies there? Caverns of awfullest solitude, their walls miles thick, sparkling with ores of gold or silver, copper or iron, tin or mercury, studded perhaps with precious stones—perhaps a brook, with eyeless fish in it, running, running ceaseless, cold and babbling, through banks crusted with carbuncles and golden topazes, or over a gravel of which some of the stones are rubies and emeralds, perhaps diamonds and sapphires—who can tell?—and whoever can't tell is free to think—all waiting to flash, waiting for millions of ages—ever since the earth flew off from the sun, a great blot of fire, and began to cool. Then there are caverns full of water, numbing cold, fiercely hot—hotter than any boiling water. From some of these the water cannot get out, and from others it runs in channels as the blood in the body: little veins bring it down from the ice above into the great caverns of the mountain's heart, whence the arteries let it out again, gushing in pipes and clefts and ducts of all shapes and kinds, through and through its bulk, until it springs newborn to the light, and rushes down the mountain side in torrents, and down the valleys in rivers—down, down, rejoicing, to the mighty lungs of the world, that is the sea, where it is tossed in storms and cyclones, heaved up in billows, twisted in waterspouts, dashed to mist upon rocks, beaten by millions of tails, and breathed by millions of gills, whence at last, melted into vapour by the sun, it is lifted up pure into the air, and borne by the servant winds back to the mountain tops and the snow, the solid ice, and the molten stream.

Each season the people of Canterbury re-enact Becket’s death: it is the monkish version, because till now no other kind of history has been available. Crowds line the streets—excited, as if the tale might come out different this year. Hot pasties are sold. There are processions with drummers and pipes, and then the show begins. The knights get tuppence and some beer, but the lad who plays the saint gets a shilling, for the knights make him suffer, smashing him on the flags as the old archbishop was smashed. As Becket calls on Christ, a child crouching behind the altar squirts the scene with pig’s blood. The actor is carried away. Then everybody gets drunk.

As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and gnawed his fingers, like a man under some deep affront. “Enough!” he cried. “Ye can blow the pipes—make the most of that.” And he made as if to rise. But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in itself, and nobly played; but it seems, besides, it was a piece peculiar to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time quickened, he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long before that piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he had no thought but for the music.

Did he want Nick to die on the floor of his bathroom from an overdose of mentholated rub? Did he want me to spend the last eighty years of my lifespan in a convent? Maybe he was mad that I was trying to sneak out of the house wearing his jeans for the third day in a row. "I am taking Doofus for another walk," I said clearly,daring him to defy me. "That would not be good for Doofus." Josh folded his arms. "Mom,that would not be good for Doofus." Oh! Dragging Mom into this was low.Not to mention Doofus. "Since when is going for a walk not good for a dog?" I challenged Josh. "He's an old dog," Josh protested. "He's four!" I pointed out. "That's twenty-eight in dog years! He's practically thirty!" "Strike!" Mom squealed amid the noise of electronic pins falling. Then she shook her game remote at both of us in turn. "I'm not stupid, you know.And I'm not as out of it as you assume. I know the two of you are really arguing about something else.It's those jeans again, isn't it?" She nodded to me. "I should cut them in half and give each of you a leg.Why does either of you want to wear jeans with 'boy toy' written across the seat anyway?" "I thought that was the fashion." Josh said. "Grandma wears a pair of sweatpants with 'hot mama' written across the ass." "That is different," Mom hissed. "She wears them around the kitchen." I sniffed indignantly. "I said," I announced, "I am goig for a walk with my dog. My beloved canine and I are taking a turn around our fair community. No activity could be more wholesome for a young girl and her pet. And if you have a problem with that,well! What is this world coming to? Come along, dear Doofus." I stuck my nose in the air and stalked past them, but the effect was lost. Somewhere around "our fair community," Mom and Josh both had lost interest and turned back to the TV. Or so I thought.But just as I was about to step outside,hosh appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the mud room. "What the hell are you doing" he demanded. I said self-righteously, "I am taking my loyal canine for a w-" "You're going to Nick's,aren't you?" he whispered. "Do you think that's a good idea? I heard you yelled at him for no reason at the half-pipe,right before he busted ass.

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

In a far-off country there was once a little girl who was called Silver-hair, because her curly hair shone brightly. She was a sad romp, and so restless that she could not be kept quiet at home, but must needs run out and away, without leave. One day she started off into a wood to gather wild flowers, and into the fields to chase butterflies. She ran here and she ran there, and went so far, at last, that she found herself in a lonely place, where she saw a snug little house, in which three bears lived; but they were not then at home. The door was ajar, and Silver-hair pushed it open and found the place to be quite empty, so she made up her mind to go in boldly, and look all about the place, little thinking what sort of people lived there. Now the three bears had gone out to walk a little before this. They were the Big Bear, and the Middle-sized Bear, and the Little Bear; but they had left their porridge on the table to cool. So when Silver-hair came into the kitchen, she saw the three bowls of porridge. She tasted the largest bowl, which belonged to the Big Bear, and found it too cold; then she tasted the middle-sized bowl, which belonged to the Middle-sized Bear, and found it too hot; then she tasted the smallest bowl, which belonged to the Little Bear, and it was just right, and she ate it all. She went into the parlour, and there were three chairs. She tried the biggest chair, which belonged to the Big Bear, and found it too high; then she tried the middle-sized chair, which belonged to the Middle-sized Bear, and she found it too broad; then she tried the little chair, which belonged to the Little Bear, and found it just right, but she sat in it so hard that she broke it. Now Silver-hair was by this time very tired, and she went upstairs to the chamber, and there she found three beds. She tried the largest bed, which belonged to the Big Bear, and found it too soft; then she tried the middle-sized bed, which belonged to the Middle-sized Bear, and she found it too hard; then she tried the smallest bed, which belonged to the Little Bear, and found it just right, so she lay down upon it, and fell fast asleep. While Silver-hair was lying fast asleep, the three bears came home from their walk. They came into the kitchen, to get their porridge, but when the Big Bear went to his, he growled out: “SOMEBODY HAS BEEN TASTING MY PORRIDGE!” and the Middle-sized Bear looked into his bowl, and said: “Somebody Has Been Tasting My Porridge!” and the Little Bear piped: “Somebody has tasted my porridge and eaten it all up!” Then they went into the parlour, and the Big Bear growled: “SOMEBODY HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY CHAIR!” and the Middle-sized Bear said: “Somebody Has Been Sitting In My Chair!” and the Little Bear piped: “Somebody has been sitting in my chair, and has broken it all to pieces!” So they went upstairs into the chamber, and the Big Bear growled: “SOMEBODY HAS BEEN TUMBLING MY BED!” and the Middle-sized Bear said: “Somebody Has Been Tumbling My Bed!” and the little Bear piped: “Somebody has been tumbling my bed, and here she is!” At that, Silver-hair woke in a fright, and jumped out of the window and ran away as fast as her legs could carry her, and never went near the Three Bears’ snug little house again.

He picks one of the boxes on the table this time, a polished-wood box with a swirling pattern etched into its lid. The inside of the box is lined with white silk. The scent is like incense, deep and spiced, and he can feel smoke curling around his head. It is hot, a dry desert air with pounding sun and powder-soft sand. His cheeks flush from the heat and from something else. The feel and sensation of something as luscious as silk falls across his skin in waves. There is music that he cannot discern. A pipe or a flute. And laughter, a high-pitched laugh that blends harmoniously with the music. The taste of something sweet but spicy on his tongue. The feeling is luxurious and lighthearted, but also secretive and sensual. He feels a hand on his shoulder and jumps in surprise, dropping the lid down on the box.

What happened?” Dallas asked immediately, his hand reaching out toward Louie. I didn’t miss how Lou took his hand instantly. “She called me a brat,” Louie blurted out, his other little hand coming up to meet with the one already clutching our neighbor’s. I blinked and told myself I was not going to look at Christy until I had the full story. “Why?” Dallas was the one who asked. “He spilled some of his hot chocolate on her purse,” it was Josh who explained. “He said sorry, but she called him a brat. I told her not to talk to my brother like that, and she told me I should have learned to respect my elders.” For the second time around this woman, I went to ten. Straight through ten, past Go, and collected two hundred dollars. “I tried to wipe it up,” Louie offered, those big blue eyes going back and forth between Dallas and me for support. “You should teach these boys to watch where they’re going,” Christy piped up, taking a step back. Be an adult. Be a role model, I tried telling myself. “It was an accident,” I choked out. “He said he was sorry… and your purse is leather and black, and it’ll be fine,” I managed to grind out like this whole thirty-second conversation was jabbing me in the kidneys with sharp knives. “I’d like an apology,” the woman, who had gotten me suspended and made me cry, added quickly. I stared at her long face. “For what?” “From Josh, for being so rude.” My hand started moving around the outside of my purse, trying to find the inner compartment when Louie suddenly yelled, “Mr. Dallas, don’t let her get her pepper spray!” The fuck? Oh my God. I glared at Louie. “I was looking for a baby wipe to offer her one, Lou. I wasn’t getting my pepper spray.” “Nuh-uh,” he argued, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christy take a step back. “I heard you on the phone with Vanny. You said, you said if she made you mad again you were gonna pepper spray her and her mom and her mom’s mom in the—” “Holy sh—oot, Louie!” My face went red, and I opened my mouth to argue that he hadn’t heard me correctly. But… I had said those words. They had been a joke, but I’d said them. I glanced at Dallas, the serious, easygoing man who happened to look in that instant like he was holding back a fart but was hopefully just a laugh, and finally peeked at the woman who I’d like to think brought this upon herself. “Christy, I would never do that—” ... I cleared my throat and popped my lips. “Well, that was awkward.” “I’m not a brat.” Louie was still hung up and outraged. I pointed my finger at him. “You’re a tattletale, that’s what you are. Nosey Rosie. What did I tell you about snitches?” “You love them?

She dared not forbid her to mention the matter, but she hit upon the idea of making her daughter think of other things by taking her to the baths of Vignone, south of Siena. At that time this was a fine large watering-place, with a number of inns to accommodate the stream of visitors who came to the warm sulphur springs. Catherine agreed to her mother’s plan obediently. But when they were about to begin their cure, she asked to be allowed to bathe alone. Lapa said she might do so—she did not know that instead of going to the pool where the water was pleasantly warm, Catherine went to the place where the sulphur water ran out of the pipes, scalding hot. The pain was awful, but she tried to imagine the torments of purgatory and hell, while she begged her Creator to receive these self-inflicted sufferings instead of the torments she deserved to suffer as punishment for each time she had offended God.

This texture... you used an aspic." "Bingo! Those golden cubes under the egg... are a chicken aspic! So what's an "aspic"? Easy! It's a jelly made from the chilled broth of gelatin-rich meats and fishes. I simmered chicken wings in bonito broth seasoned with saké and light soy sauce. This drew the chicken's natural savory flavor and gelatin into the broth. I quickly chilled the resulting broth until it gelled, and then cut it into small cubes." "It was the aspic he was making in that enormous pot." "Sprinkle the cubes over piping-hot rice... and the rich chicken aspic will melt and coat the egg curds with a "ploop"!" I see. In other words... the aspic is really a thick, rich and savory chicken soup! The full-bodied and salty flavor of the aspic broth... brings out the soft, mild sweetness of the egg curds perfectly. Not only that, each bite is a heaven of fluffy smoothness. In every way, the aspic is emphasizing and magnifying the deliciousness of the eggs!

Then there are caverns full of water, numbingly cold, fiercely hot—hotter than any boiling water. From some of these the water cannot get out, and from others it runs in channels as the blood in the body: little veins bring it down from the ice above into the great caverns of the mountain's heart, whence the arteries let it out again, gushing in pipes and clefts and ducts of all shapes and kinds, through and through its bulk, until it springs newborn to the light, and rushes down the Mountainside in torrents, and down the valleys in rivers—down, down, rejoicing, to the mighty lungs of the world, that is the sea, where it is tossed in storms and cyclones, heaved up in billows, twisted in waterspouts, dashed to mist upon rocks, beaten by millions of tails, and breathed by millions of gills, whence at last, melted into vapour by the sun, it is lifted up pure into the air, and borne by the servant winds back to the mountaintops and the snow, the solid ice, and the molten stream.

John Fire Lame Deer, a Lakota medicine man, wrote gut-wrenchingly about what the bison meant for his people, and what happened when they were destroyed: The buffalo gave us everything we needed. Without it we were nothing. Our tipis were made of his skin. His hide was our bed, our blanket, our winter coat. It was our drum, throbbing through the night, alive, holy. Out of his skin we made our water bags. His flesh strengthened us, became flesh of our flesh. Not the smallest part of it was wasted. His stomach, a red-hot stone dropped in to it, became our soup kettle. His horns were our spoons, the bones our knives, our women’s awls and needles. Out of his sinews we made our bowstrings and thread. His ribs were fashioned into sleds for our children, his hoofs became rattles. His mighty skull, with the pipe leaning against it, was our sacred altar. The name of the greatest of all Sioux was Tatanka Iyotake—Sitting Bull. When you killed off the buffalo you also killed the Indian—the real, natural, “wild” Indian.

1¾ cups flour 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg ½ teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda 2 eggs ¾ cup honey 4 tablespoons melted butter ¼ cup oil (vegetable or canola) 1 cup milk (buttermilk can also be used) 1½ teaspoons vanilla Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk eggs, honey, butter, oil, milk, and vanilla. Fold dry ingredients into wet and stir until just combined. Grease a donut pan or cupcake tin and fill halfway with batter. (If you do not have a donut pan, use a cupcake/muffin pan. Create small cylinders of tinfoil, place one in the middle of each cup, and spray each cylinder with cooking oil. If using the cupcake tin with aluminum foil cylinders, transfer batter to a ziplock bag and cut a hole to pipe batter around cylinders.) Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. HONEY GLAZE ¼ cup melted butter 1 cup confectioners’ sugar ½ teaspoon vanilla ⅓ cup hot water 1 teaspoon honey Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Dip warm donuts in glaze. You can omit the glaze and just drizzle honey on top and, if you like, sprinkle with sea salt.

HONEY-GLAZED SPICED DONUTS (Makes a dozen) 1¾ cups flour 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg ½ teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda 2 eggs ¾ cup honey 4 tablespoons melted butter ¼ cup oil (vegetable or canola) 1 cup milk (buttermilk can also be used) 1½ teaspoons vanilla Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk eggs, honey, butter, oil, milk, and vanilla. Fold dry ingredients into wet and stir until just combined. Grease a donut pan or cupcake tin and fill halfway with batter. (If you do not have a donut pan, use a cupcake/muffin pan. Create small cylinders of tinfoil, place one in the middle of each cup, and spray each cylinder with cooking oil. If using the cupcake tin with aluminum foil cylinders, transfer batter to a ziplock bag and cut a hole to pipe batter around cylinders.) Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. HONEY GLAZE ¼ cup melted butter 1 cup confectioners’ sugar ½ teaspoon vanilla ⅓ cup hot water 1 teaspoon honey Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Dip warm donuts in glaze. You can omit the glaze and just drizzle honey on top and, if you like, sprinkle with sea salt.

HONEY-GLAZED SPICED DONUTS (Makes a dozen) 1¾ cups flour 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg ½ teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda 2 eggs ¾ cup honey 4 tablespoons melted butter ¼ cup oil (vegetable or canola) 1 cup milk (buttermilk can also be used) 1½ teaspoons vanilla Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk eggs, honey, butter, oil, milk, and vanilla. Fold dry ingredients into wet and stir until just combined. Grease a donut pan or cupcake tin and fill halfway with batter. (If you do not have a donut pan, use a cupcake/muffin pan. Create small cylinders of tinfoil, place one in the middle of each cup, and spray each cylinder with cooking oil. If using the cupcake tin with aluminum foil cylinders, transfer batter to a ziplock bag and cut a hole to pipe batter around cylinders.) Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. HONEY GLAZE ¼ cup melted butter 1 cup confectioners’ sugar ½ teaspoon vanilla ⅓ cup hot water 1 teaspoon honey Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Dip warm donuts in glaze. You can omit the glaze and just drizzle honey on top and, if you like, sprinkle with sea salt. HONEY

A long time ago, I collected the flower petals stained with my first blood; I thought there was something significant about that, there was importance in all the little moments of experience, because when you live forever, the first times matter. The first time you bleed, first time you cry — I don’t remember that — first time you see your wings, because new things defile you, purity chips away. your purity. nestled flowers in your belly, waiting to be picked. do you want innocence back? small and young smiles that make your eyes squint and cheeks flare the feeling of your face dripping down onto the grass, the painted walls you tore down, the roads you chipped away, they’ll eat away at you, the lingering feelings of a warm hand on your waist, the taps of your feet as you dance, the beats of your timbrel.’ ‘and now you are like Gods, sparkling brilliant with jewelry that worships you, and you’re splitting in order to create.’ ‘The tosses of your wet hair, the rushes of chariots speeding past, the holy, holy, holy lord god of hosts, the sweetness of a strawberry, knocks against the window by your head, the little tunes of your pipes, the cuts sliced into your fingers by uptight cacti fruits, the brisk scent of a sea crashing into the rocks, the sweat of wrestling, onions, cumin, parsley in a metal jug, mud clinging to your skin, a friendly mouth on your cheeks and forehead, chimes, chirps of chatter in the bazaar, amen, amen, amen, the plump fish rushing to take the bread you toss, scraping of a carpenter, the hiss of chalk, the wisps of clouds cradling you as you nap, the splashes of water in a hot pool, the picnic in a meadow, the pounding of feet that are chasing you, the velvet of petals rustling you awake, a giant water lily beneath you, the innocent kiss, the sprawl of the universe reflected in your eyes for the first time, the bloody wings that shred out of your back, the apples in orchards, a basket of stained flowers, excited chants of a colosseum audience, the heat of spinning and bouncing to drums and claps, the love braided into your hair, the trickles of a piano, smell of myrrh, the scratches of a spoon in a cup, the coarseness of a carpet, the stringed instruments and trumpets, the serene smile of not knowing, the sleeping angel, the delight of a creator, the amusement of gossip and rumors, the rumbling laughter between shy singing, the tangling of legs, squash, celery, carrot, and chayote, the swirled face paint, the warmth of honey in your tea, the timid face in the mirror, mahogany beams, the embrace of a bed of flowers, the taste of a grape as its fed to you, the lip smacks of an angel as you feed him a raspberry, the first dizziness of alcohol, the cool water and scent of natron and the scratch of the rock you beat your dirty clothes against, the strain of your arms, the columns of an entrance, the high ceilings of a dark cathedral, the boiling surface of bubbling stew, the burn of stained-glass, the little joyous jump you do seeing bread rise, the silky taste of olive oil, the lap of an angel humming as he embroiders a little fox into his tunic, the softness of browned feathers lulling you to sleep, the weight of a dozen blankets and pillows on your small bed, the proud smile on the other side of a window in a newly-finished building, the myrtle trees only you two know about, the palm of god as he fashions you from threads of copper, his praises, his love, his kiss to your hair, your father.

And indeed at the hotel where I was to meet Saint-Loup and his friends the beginning of the festive season was attracting a great many people from near and far; as I hastened across the courtyard with its glimpses of glowing kitchens in which chickens were turning on spits, pigs were roasting, and lobsters were being flung alive into what the landlord called the ‘everlasting fire’, I discovered an influx of new arrivals (worthy of some Census of the People at Bethlehem such as the Old Flemish Masters painted), gathering there in groups, asking the landlord or one of his staff (who, if they did not like the look of them; would recommend accommodation elsewhere in the town) for board and lodging, while a kitchen-boy passed by holding a struggling fowl by its neck. Similarly, in the big dining-room, which I had passed through on my first day here on my way to the small room where my friend awaited me, one was again reminded of some Biblical feast, portrayed with the naïvety of former times and with Flemish exaggeration, because of the quantity of fish, chickens, grouse, woodcock, pigeons, brought in garnished and piping hot by breathless waiters who slid along the floor in their haste to set them down on the huge sideboard where they were carved immediately, but where – for many of the diners were finishing their meal as I arrived – they piled up untouched; it was as if their profusion and the haste of those who carried them in were prompted far less by the demands of those eating than by respect for the sacred text, scrupulously followed to the letter but naïvely illustrated by real details taken from local custom, and by a concern, both aesthetic and devotional, to make visible the splendour of the feast through the profusion of its victuals and the bustling attentiveness of those who served it. One of them stood lost in thought by a sideboard at the end of the room; and in order to find out from him, who alone appeared calm enough to give me an answer, where our table had been laid, I made my way forward through the various chafing-dishes that had been lit to keep warm the plates of latecomers (which did not prevent the desserts, in the centre of the room, from being displayed in the hands of a huge mannikin, sometimes supported on the wings of a duck, apparently made of crystal but actually of ice, carved each day with a hot iron by a sculptor-cook, in a truly Flemish manner), and, at the risk of being knocked down by the other waiters, went straight towards the calm one in whom I seemed to recognize a character traditionally present in these sacred subjects, since he reproduced with scrupulous accuracy the snub-nosed features, simple and badly drawn, and the dreamy expression of such a figure, already dimly aware of the miracle of a divine presence which the others have not yet begun to suspect. In addition, and doubtless in view of the approaching festive season, the tableau was reinforced by a celestial element recruited entirely from a personnel of cherubim and seraphim. A young angel musician, his fair hair framing a fourteen-year-old face, was not playing any instrument, it is true, but stood dreaming in front of a gong or a stack of plates, while less infantile angels were dancing attendance through the boundless expanse of the room, beating the air with the ceaseless flutter of the napkins, which hung from their bodies like the wings in primitive paintings, with pointed ends. Taking flight from these ill-defined regions, screened by a curtain of palms, from which the angelic waiters looked, from a distance, as if they had descended from the empyrean, I squeezed my way through to the small dining-room and to Saint-Loup’s table.

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes A combination to die for – hot chocolate AND cupcakes! This recipe makes 14 cupcakes. Ingredients For the chocolate cupcakes: - ½ cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder - ¾ cup all-purpose flour - 1 teaspoon baking powder - ½ teaspoon baking soda - ¼ teaspoon salt - 2 large eggs at room temperature - ½ cup granulated sugar - ½ cup packed light brown sugar - ⅓ cup vegetable oil - 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract - ½ cup buttermilk For the frosting: - ½ cup dry hot chocolate mix (with NO marshmallows) - ⅓ cup heavy cream - ¾ cup unsalted butter at room temperature - 3 – 3 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar Instructions Make the cupcakes Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius). Line muffin time with cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Beat together the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, vegetable oil and vanilla extract until combined. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk to batter. The batter will be somewhat thin. Pour batter into the prepared cupcake tin. Fill each paper liner halfway. Bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool before frosting. Make the frosting In a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the hot cocoa mix and heavy cream. Heat for 5 minutes, stirring often, until warm. Remove from heat and cool for 20 minutes or until at room temperature. Beat the butter until smooth, about 1 minute. Add confectioners’ sugar and beat until combined, about 1 minute. With the mixer on low, slowly pour in hot cocoa mixture. Once combined, increase speed to medium-high and beat for 1 minute. For a thicker frosting, add more confectioners’ sugar. Transfer frosting to a pastry bag fitted with desired tip. Pipe frosting on to cupcakes and garnish with mini marshmallows.

I’m sweaty. I’m tired. And I stink in places I really shouldn’t be stinking.” I whine and shoot a glare to Dean, who’s sitting in the passenger seat looking sheepish. “What?” he exclaims with his hands raised. “I didn’t know we’d have fucking car trouble. Your car isn’t even a year old.” “I know!” I snap, hitting my hand on the wheel and growling in frustration. “Stupid old lady car!” I exclaim and push my head closer to the window for a breeze. “The frickin’ air conditioning isn’t even working anymore. Me and this car are officially in a fight.” “I think we all just need to remain calm,” Lynsey chirps from the back seat, leaning forward so her head comes between Dean’s and mine. “Because, as horrible as this trip was, after everything that’s happened between the three of us the past couple of years, I think this was really healing.” I close my eyes and shake my head, ruing the moment I agreed that a road trip to the Rocky Mountains to pick up this four-thousand-dollar carburetor from some hick who apparently didn’t know how to ‘mail things so they don’t get lost.’” Honestly! How are people who don’t use the mail a thing? Though, admittedly, when we got to the man’s mountain home, I realized that he was probably more familiar with the Pony Express. And I couldn’t be sure his wife wasn’t his cousin. But that’s me being judgmental. Still, though, it’s no wonder he wouldn’t let me PayPal him the money. I had to get an actual cashier’s check from a real bank. Then on our way back down the mountain, I got a flat tire. Dean, Lynsey, and I set about changing it together, thinking three heads could figure out how to put a spare tire on better than one. One minute, I’m snapping at Dean to hand me the tire iron, and the next minute, he’s asking me if I’m being a bitch because he told me he had feelings for me. Then Lynsey chimes in, hurt and dismayed that neither of us told her about our conversation at the bakery, and it was a mess. On top of all of that, my car wouldn’t start back up! It was a disaster. The three of us fighting with each other on the side of the road looked like a bad episode of Sister Wives: Colorado Edition. I should probably make more friends. “God, I hope this thing is legit,” Dean states, turning the carburetor over in his hands. “Put it down. You’re making me nervous,” I snap, eyeing him cautiously. We’re only five miles from Tire Depot, and they close in ten, so my nerves are freaking fried. “I just want to drop this thing off and forget this whole trip ever happened.” “No!” Lynsey exclaims. “Stick to the plan. This is your grand gesture! Your get out of jail free card.” “I don’t want a get out of jail free card,” I cry back. “The longer we spent on that hot highway trying to figure out what was wrong with my car, the more ridiculous this plan became in my head. I don’t want to buy Miles’s affection back. I want him to want me for me. Flaws and all.” “So what are you going to do?” Dean asks, and I feel his concerned eyes on mine. “I’m going to drop this expensive hunk of metal at the counter and leave. I’m not giving it to him naked or holding the thing above my head like John Cusack in Say Anything. I’ll drop it off at the front counter, and then we’ll go. End of story.” Lynsey’s voice pipes up from behind. “That sounds like the worst ending to a book I’ve ever heard.” “This isn’t a book!” I shriek. “This is my life, and it’s no wonder this plan has turned into such a mess. It has desperation stamped all over it. I just want to go home, eat some pizza, and cry a little, okay?” The car is dead silent as we enter Boulder until Dean’s voice pipes up. “Hey Kate, I know you’re a little emongry right now, but I really don’t think you should drive on this spare tire anymore. They’re only manufactured to drive for so many miles, you know.” I turn and glower over at him. He shrinks down into his seat a little bit.

Three hot daddies. How does it feel to be god’s favorite?” Randal prattles on. “Will you pipe down?” I mutter as I push through the door. “One of us got piped down, and it sure as shit wasn’t me.

If you want to kill creativity: Get five hours of sleep a night, fight traffic for two hours a day, and start each day with a piping hot thermos of a psychoactive drug. This is the unfortunate and inescapable reality of most Americans today.

But then, he looked up at me with big blue eyes under long beautiful lashes. “It’s just he makes it look so simple, you know?” Yeah, no way I was walking away now. “I take it you have a leak under your sink?” I asked. “A leak? More like a geyser. But the pipe isn’t broken. It’s the part where the pipe changes directions for some reason. I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to just go straight to where it needs to go instead of looking like a freaking spaghetti highway down there?” “Look, kid, plumbing is like life. If you know what the pipe’s purpose is, where they’re coming from and where they’re going, it all makes sense.” “Oh my god,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Doesn’t that just fucking figure. This was such a shit day. And now I’m stuck in a hardware store with a hotter than fuck stranger who’s talking about plumbing using metaphors like he’s freaking Socrates or some shit.” He glared at me. “Plumbing is like life,” he mimicked. I forced myself not to laugh, which was hard because, in hindsight, it was a pretty stupid thing to say. Instead, I ignored the fact that he called me hot and focused on the fact that he was having a meltdown in the local home improvement store. Apparently not over a burst pipe, but over… well, I wasn’t sure exactly what over, but obviously something bigger than a pipe.

Well if that isn't a plague and a nuisance!” said Pippin. The news: no fire, and a move again by night, had been broken to him, as soon as he woke in the late afternoon. “All because of a pack of crows! I had looked forward to a real good meal tonight: something hot.” “Well, you can go on looking forward,” said Gandalf. “There may be many unexpected feasts ahead for you. For myself I should like a pipe to smoke in comfort, and warmer feet.

We only have five minutes before dessert's ready," she protests. "I can do a lot to you in five minutes, sweetheart." "Then what are you waiting for, boyfriend?" He moves with purpose, hooking his hands around her thighs so that he can lift her up and lay her down on the kitchen table. The dishes have already been cleared, save for a pair of forks that clink together with the sudden movement. His skillful hands make quick work of the front of her jeans, tugging them off hurriedly before kneeling on the kitchen tile between her thighs. They've already eaten dinner, but he's ravenous. With the time now sitting at four minutes and thirty seconds, he wastes no more time and dips down to enjoy his meal. The sounds she makes. Alexander's so hard, it's almost painful. He teases her with his tongue, his fingers; makes his business her pleasure. Eden reaches her peak just as the timer on the oven beeps. Alexander can't help but smirk at himself. He always knew he worked well under pressure. "Mmph, thank you for that," Eden mumbles. "Sit tight. I'll go get dessert." "I've already had dessert." She rolls her eyes. "Cheesy." Alexander reclaims his seat just as Eden returns with a piping hot baking dish. It's a layer of molten chocolate topped with a gooey marshmallow layer and a buttery graham cracker crust. She also retrieves a tub of vanilla bean ice cream from the fridge and a can of whipped cream... Which she immediately sprays all over his chest. He's momentarily shocked by the cold, but then Eden gets on her knees with that mischievous glint in her eye that he adores so much. "Food needs to cool," she reasons. "We've got time to kill.

Ben looked so f****** hot twisting that wrench. The way his muscles flexed with every move made my core tingle in excitement. I knew that it was over for me when he decided to lie on my floor and fix the pipe, and let me tell you, the hardwood surface wasn’t the only thing that got wet.

Hold still." Emma squirmed again, her lush lips curving in a smile as she gazed up at me coyly. "But it tickles." My dick pulsed, sheer lust twisting my insides up in knots. But I kept my hands steady. "Almost there." I piped another series of rosettes along the curve of her breast, heading for the pretty little pouting nipple, now deep pink and stiff. Her breath hitched, and I gave her a wicked smile. "Be good, or I won't lick it off." "Liar. You can't wait." She was laid out on my bed, wearing nothing but the lemon-buttercream flowers and swirls I'd decorated her lovely body with. "Guilty as charged." My mouth actually watered with the need to taste her, mix her flavors with my cream. Fuck up into the tight, silky-hot clasp of her body, where it felt both like home and the best pleasure I'd ever had in my life. My hand shook a little as I circled her perky nipple, choosing to highlight rather than cover it. Emma bit her bottom lip, her lids lowering as she subtly arched into the tip of the pastry bag. Heat rippled through me, and I tossed the buttercream aside. "Now, where to start?" I wanted it all at once. Every delectable inch of her. Always. All the time. Impatient and aching, I stroked my shaft, keeping the hold light lest I blow now. Because nothing looked more delicious than Emma Maron spread out before me, smiling in that way that said she was all mine. Happiness warred with lust, making for a heady cocktail in my veins. I had Emma right where I wanted her----with me. Everything else took a back seat to her and the way she watched me palm my dick, all greedy need and anticipation. It fueled my own.

Gulab Jamun Shops in Delhi Looking to satisfy your sweet tooth with delicious Gulab Jamun in Delhi? Discover a myriad of delightful options at various Gulab Jamun shops spread across the bustling streets of the capital. Indulge in these soft, syrup-soaked delicacies that melt in your mouth, offering a burst of sweetness with every bite. Whether you prefer them piping hot or chilled, these traditional Indian sweets are sure to delight your taste buds. Explore the rich flavors and varied preparations offered by the numerous Gulab Jamun shops in Delhi, each with its own unique twist on this beloved dessert. Dive into the sweetness today!

He felt he was knowing less and less, and it was more and more beautiful to do so. Why had he been alarmed? He was sitting on a stool, and around him in the stall sat, almost preternaturally near, a man in a black masque, an Asp he hadn’t noticed before, the Tiger whose breath ran hot and meaty on his neck, a beautiful schoolgirl, or was that the bride on her honeymoon? Did the whole stall then tilt forward, like a gently swung bucket? Anyway, they leaned together toward the central dais, an altar of veils and sacrifices. Boq loosened his collar and then his belt, felt the gingery appetite between heart and stomach and the resulting stiffening apparatus below that. The music of pipes and whistles was slowing, or was it that as he watched and waited and breathed so, so slowly, that the secret area inside himself uncloaked itself, where nothing mattered?

drew in air, compressed it in a chamber with a piston (becoming hot), and forced it into a labyrinth of pipe. As it escaped into the pipe and expanded (becoming cool), it was routed through a tank of brine, which itself became chilled below freezing and helped to lower the temperature of the air even more. This was already a familiar theory; a number of inventors and physicists around the world, Benjamin Franklin among them, had written on the possible ways in which artificial cold could be produced.

So heaven right? Do you just get to do what you love for all of eternity? Cause you know, you spend your life finding and trying your best to do what you love, some people have passions, others have hobbies, and some just like to sit and do nothing. So if you're into getting drunk at the bar with friends is that what you get to do in heaven - minus the hangover? I'm a musician, and I'd love to have an eternal jam session with Duke Ellington, but what about people who really enjoy screaming at rats? Would that be their version of heaven? Some people are sexually attracted to cars, will they just get to make out with a BMW for all eternity? Now let's say there's an unlimited all you can eat banquet in heaven of all the best food you can taste with your "heavenly" body. Would you still need to take a shit? I mean it's heaven that sounds rather unholy, maybe there'd just be food flavored gum... or maybe the shit would go down the heavenly sewer pipe and land on the heads of those in hell. Just an idea... I mean who the heck really knows? Maybe heaven is just getting to perpetually have the feeling of having just taken a fresh sip of water after being in the desert for a week. Or maybe it's the perpetual feeling of getting the text from your ex that they want you back. In the meantime, let's drink a nice hot cup of existentialism!

Well, come along then.” St. Just held out a hand. “We will feed you and then see what’s to be done with you.” The child stared at his hand, frowned, and looked up at his face, then back down at his hand. The earl merely kept his hand outstretched, his expression calm. “Meat pies,” he mused aloud. “Cheese toast, cold cider, apple tarts, strawberry cobbler, sausage and eggs, treacle pudding, clean sheets smelling of sunshine and lavender, beeswax candles…” He felt a tentative touch of little fingers against his palm, so he closed his hand around those fingers and let his voice lead the child along. “Berry tarts, scones in the morning, ham, bacon, nice hot tea with plenty of cream and sugar, kippers, beefsteak, buttered rolls and muffins…” “Muffins?” the child piped up wistfully. St. Just almost smiled at the angelic expression on the urchin’s face. Great blue eyes peered out of a smudged, beguiling little puss, a mop of wheat blond curls completing a childish image of innocence. “Muffins.” The earl reiterated as they gained the side terrace of the manor and passed indoors. “With butter and jam, if you prefer. Or chocolate, or juice squeezed from oranges.” “Oranges?” “Had them all the time in Spain.” “You were in Spain?” the child asked, eyes round. “Did you fight old Boney?” “I was in Spain,” the earl said, his tone grave, “and Portugal, and France, and I fought old Boney. Nasty business, not at all as pleasant as the thought of tea cakes or clean linen or even some decent bread and butter.” “Bread

Towards the end of October 1946, I had the good fortune to be present at a confrontation in Cambridge which marked a water-shed in the history of modern philosophy. The Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club had invited Karl Popper to speak. […] After Popper's declaration that he did not believe in puzzle-solving and his affirmation that there were genuine philosophical problems, Wittgenstein started to challenge him to name a 'philosophical' problem. I cannot now recall the precise sequence of events, but after Popper tried to name one or two philosophical problems and Wittgenstein kept countering by saying that he did not know what he would 'mean' by his statements, the drama occurred. Popper was sitting on one side of the fireplace, and Wittgenstein on the other. Both were facing the audience. In the middle, in a big armchair, there was Bertrand Russell. Suddenly Wittgenstein, who had been playing and fidgeting with the poker in the fire, took the red-hot poker out of the fire and gesticulated with it angrily in front of Popper's face. Thereupon, Russell – who had so far not spoken a word – took the pipe out of his mouth and said very firmly in his high-pitched, somewhat scratchy voice: 'Wittgenstein, put down that poker at once!' Wittgenstein complied and soon after got up and walked out, slamming the door. Looking back now after nearly forty years, one can see the real significance of that incident. It prefigured the clash of philosophical opinions which has developed ever since the gradual decline of Positivism has turned into a rout.

Ahead of me there was a low hill with gooseberry bushes on top. I made a beeline for them, only half noticing a place in the grass where something large had slept recently, crushing the stems all around into a curved pressed-down mould. I had my eyes on the hill and didn’t think of anything else or know that I was being watched as I ran, stalked from behind like a young gazelle or kongoni. I picked up speed, scrambling over the rise, and that’s when I felt a force of air push at me, hot and meaty. The blow was like a steel pipe aimed at the muscles of my back. I went down hard, face-first in the grass, my arms coming up instinctively to protect myself. I

If revenge is a dish best served cold, confession should be dished up piping hot or not at all.

The ship’s electricity was produced by three turbo-drive 300 kW DC generators when at sea, but when ashore, for the most part, electricity came from either the Central Maine power grid or a generator in the Engineering Laboratory. The State of Maine was considered cold iron until her boilers were lit off, breathing life into her soul. This would be the first time the engineers fired up the boilers and cautiously brought up a head of steam close to her rated 450 psi at 759 degrees. At this temperature, a failure was not an option. The steam was so hot as to be invisible and could instantly cut a two by four in half. There have been recorded boiler and steam pipe failures resulting in the deaths of people in the engine room, so we were taking no chances! Out on the open deck the sky was sunny however the air was frigid. It was the kind of day you could expect in Maine this time of year and we were just happy that the sun was shining. Now it was up to deck force to let go of all but the forward spring lines. Slowly the ship pulled ahead and as the spring line tightened, our stern swung out into the channel. At the right moment the order was given and we backed away from the dock. It was the first time for our new TS State of Maine to get underway, and so far, everything functioned satisfactorily.

I gave a quick knock on the bathroom door before slipping inside. The water was running, filling the room with steam as Lay poked her head out from behind the curtain. I raised my eyebrows in silent request. “Absolutely not, Chester. Don’t you dare.” I laughed. “Aww come on, Lay-Lay. You’re no fun.” “I mean it. Please don’t.” It’s not like I really thought she’d invite me in for godsakes; I was totally teasing. “Fine. I’ll just wait out here until you’re done.” “Promise?” She looked so adorable, her brown eyes pleading from under her wet lashes, sexy and shy all at once. “Yeah, I promise. But at least give me the play-by-play of what I’m missing out on in there.” She stifled a giggle in response and I figured that was that. I picked up one of the decorative soaps when suddenly, a sultry vixen piped up from behind the curtain. “Wellll, the water is so hot and it’s so steamy in here. God, I’m so wet and it feels so good.” My dick immediately sprang to attention. The rest of me froze in shock. “Now I’m soaping myself down, running my hands allll over my body...” Of course my mind was envisioning her slick soapy hands touching every inch of her gorgeous naked self. Oh Jesus. She chose that moment to peek her head out and check out her handiwork. I was staring at her speechless, my jaw slack, disbelieving. “Layla, what the fuck?

She has touched me. My hatred for her has gone the way of the wind. She saved my life.” He quickly related the tale about the rattlesnake and how she had broken her silence to warn him. “You would prefer that she live for always away from you?” Hunter’s gut contracted. In that instant he realized how much he wanted the woman beside him. “I would prefer that my eyes never again fall upon her than to see her die.” His mouth twisted. “She has great heart for one so small. She makes war with nothing, and wins.” Many Horses nodded. “Huh, yes, Warrior and Swift Antelope have already told me.” “I would take my woman back to her land,” Hunter said. “I know the words of the prophecy, eh? And I would not displease the Great Ones, but I see no other path I might walk.” Hunter’s mother rose to her knees. “My husband, I request permission to speak.” Many Horses squinted into the shadows. “Then do it, woman.” She moved forward into the light, her brown eyes fathomless in the flickering amber. “I would but sing part of the song, so we might hear the words and listen.” She tipped her head back and clasped her hands before her. In a singsong voice, she recited, “‘When his hatred for the White Eyes is hot like the summer sun and cold like the winter snow, there will come to him a gentle maiden from tosi tivo land.’” “Yes, wife, I know the words,” Many Horses said impatiently. “But do you listen?” Woman with Many Robes fixed her all-seeing gaze on her eldest son. “Hunter, she did not come to you, as the prophecy foretold. You took her by force.” “Pia, what is it you’re saying? That she would have come freely?” A breath of laughter escaped Hunter’s lips. “The little blue-eyes? Never.” His mother held up a hand. “I say she would have, and that she shall. You must take her to her wooden walls. The Great Ones will lead her in a circle back to you.” Hunter glanced at his father. Many Horses set his pipe aside and gazed for a long while into the flames. “Your mother may be right. Perhaps we have acted wrongly, sending you to fetch her. Perhaps it was meant for her to come of her own free will.” Hunter swallowed back an argument. Though he didn’t believe his little blue-eyes would ever return to Comancheria freely, his parents had agreed that he should take her home, and that was enough. “What will lead her back to me, pia?” Woman with Many Robes smiled. “Fate, Hunter. It guides our footsteps. It will guide hers.

Having a mind that cannot stay quiet, I've never been able to meditate without going stir-crazy. But give me a ball of dough and the not-so-distant dream of a piping hot cherry tart with a beautiful lattice-weave top and a generous sprinkling of confectioners sugar, and a feeling of serenity washes over me. My mind instantly hushes.

When I started sixth grade, the other kids made fun of Brian and me because we were so skinny. They called me spider legs, skeleton girl, pipe cleaner, two-by-four, bony butt, stick woman, bean pole, and giraffe, and they said I could stay dry in the rain by standing under a telephone wire. At lunchtime, when other kids unwrapped their sandwiches or bought their hot meals, Brian and I would get out books and read. Brian told everyone he had to keep his weight down because he wanted to join the wrestling team when he got to high school. I told people that I had forgotten to bring my lunch. No one believed me, so I started hiding in the bathroom during lunch hour. I’d stay in one of the stalls with the door locked and my feet propped up so that no one would recognize my shoes. When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food: apples, hard-boiled eggs, packages of peanut-butter crackers, sliced pickles, half-pint cartons of milk, cheese sandwiches with just one bite taken out because the kid didn’t like the pimentos in the cheese. I’d return to the stall and polish off my tasty finds. There was, at times, more food in the wastebasket than I could eat. The first time I found extra food—a bologna-and-cheese sandwich—I stuffed it into my purse to take home for Brian. Back in the classroom, I started worrying about how I’d explain to Brian where it came from. I was pretty sure he was rooting through the trash, too, but we never talked about it. As I sat there trying to come up with ways to justify it to Brian, I began smelling the bologna. It seemed to fill the whole room. I became terrified that the other kids could smell it, too, and that they’d turn and see my overstuffed purse, and since they all knew I never ate lunch, they’d figure out that I had pinched it from the trash. As soon as class was over, I ran to the bathroom and shoved the sandwich back in the garbage can.

… behind which the panting dog drooped like a dropped chamois. It was too hot to smoke, but he smoked his pipe anyway. The smoke wreathed a strange smile that Dorrigo later came to realise was fixed; determined to find the world cheery in spite of all the evidence life produced to the contrary.

I’ve sometimes imagined that if sin had a flavor, it might very well be bacon. It even tastes smoky, as if it emerged piping hot out of the fiery pans of hell. More than any forbidden fruit, this delectable treat — best when crispy, the little grease bubbles still dancing happily on its crenelated edges — epitomizes things we know we shouldn’t eat, but still crave and keep going back to. In short, it’s food crack.