Recipe For A Good Life Quotes

The recipe for great art has always been misery and a good bowel movement.

We don't learn to love each other well in the easy moments. Anyone is good company at a cocktail party. But love is born when we misunderstand one another and make it right, when we cry in the kitchen, when we show up uninvited with magazines and granola bars, in an effort to say, I love you.

Your body is a Temple. You are what you eat. Do not eat processed food, junk foods, filth, or disease carrying food, animals, or rodents. Some people say of these foods, 'well, it tastes good'. Most of the foods today that statically cause sickness, cancer, and disease ALL TATSE GOOD; it's well seasoned and prepared poison. THIS IS WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE SICK; mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually; because of being hooked to the 'taste' of poison, instead of being hooked on the truth and to real foods that heal and provide you with good health and wellness. Respect and honor your Temple- and it will honor you.

I once read that the recipe for a good life had but three ingredients: something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.

There is a good life. The goodnews is that you can live that good life. The good life is the happy life. To live this good life, be happy! A truly happy man is a good man.

It’s rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to dance, to love your life. It’s much easier and much more common to be miserable. We could just live our normal, day-to-day lives, saving all the good living up for someday, but I think it’s our job to live each day like it’s a special occasion, because we’ve been given a gift.

The air was fresh and crisp and had a distinct smell which was a mixture of the dried leaves on the ground and the smoke from the chimneys and the sweet ripe apples that were still clinging onto the branches in the orchard behind the house.

Good day, be grateful. Bad day, be graceful. Be grateful, be graceful, and on it goes.

I suppose a good recipe for life would be to allow nothing into it, knowingly at least, which is bitter. It’s disappointing we aren’t able to simply spit people out that don’t taste well.

Oh Beck, I love reading your e-mail. Learning your life. And I am careful; I always mark new messages unread so that you won't get alarmed. My good fortune doesn't stop there; You prefer e-mail. You don't like texting. So this means that I am not missing out on all that much communication. You wrote an "essay" for some blog in which you stated that "e-mails last forever. You can search for any word at any time and see everything you ever said to anyone about that one word. Texts go away." I love you for wanting a record. I love your records for being so accessible and I'm so full of you, your calendar of caloric intake and hookups and menstrual moments, your self-portraits you don't publish, your recipes and exercises. You will know me soon too, I promise.

Someday Never Comes “Some day my prince will come.…” Good old Walt Disney. Well, that may have worked out for Snow White. Back here on Earth, it’s a recipe for disappointment. In flesh-and-blood life, waiting for “some day” is no strategy for success, it’s a cop-out. What’s more, it’s one that the majority follow their whole lives. Someday, when my ship comes in … Someday, when I have the money … Someday, when I have the time … Someday, when I have the skill … Someday, when I have the confidence … How many of those statements have you said to yourself? Have I got some sobering news for you: “some day” doesn’t exist, never has, and never will. There is no “some day.” There’s only today. When tomorrow comes, it will be another today; so will the next day. They all will. There is never anything but today.

She loved him, but that wasn't good enough. The word "love" was required to cover such a range of emotions that it almost meant nothing at all. Since the love we distill for each beloved conforms to such a specific, rarefied recipe, with varying soupcons of resentment, pity, or lust, and sometimes even pinches of dislike, you really needed as many different words for the feeling as there were people whom you cared for in your life.

Happiness is the good life that is marked by flourishing well-being, joy, prosperity, peace, satisfaction, and pleasure.

Don’t kill yourself when your scorching sun intensifies; the very hot sun is a very good recipe for a heavy rainfall.

Participation. Good intentions. That's a recipe for a life well lived.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it’s actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o’clock in the morning. While I very much hoped not to die in space, I didn’t live in fear of it, largely because I’d been made to think through the practicalities: how I’d want my family to get the news, for instance, and which astronaut I should recruit to help my wife cut through the red tape at NASA and the CSA. Before my last space flight (as with each of the earlier ones) I reviewed my will, made sure my financial affairs and taxes were in order, and did all the other things you’d do if you knew you were going to die. But that didn’t make me feel like I had one foot in the grave. It actually put my mind at ease and reduced my anxiety about what my family’s future would look like if something happened to me. Which meant that when the engines lit up at launch, I was able to focus entirely on the task at hand: arriving alive.

IT’S EASY to long for nothing but good news and carefree days, but a full life includes the broken and dark and difficult parts, too. Thank God for walking with you in the seasons of heartbreak.

The object most interesting to me for the residue of my life, will be to see you both developing daily those principles of virtue and goodness which will make you valuable to others and happy in yourselves, and acquiring those talents and that degree of science which will guard you at all times against ennui, the most dangerous poison of life. A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe for felicity....In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui is...

Finally, I spread my arms even wider and announced, “It’s a good day to die!” “Well,” Mom chirped in, “it’s not a bad day to live either.” She had a point. So now I end my blessings like this: “It’s a good day to die!” I say. And then, with gusto, “It’s a good day to live!

One theory on cannibals, of course, is that they eat parts of their slain enemies to benefit from that person's greatest assets - their strength, their courage. Then there’s that thing they do in Germany. You heard about that, didn’t you? Some man over there agreed to let another man cut off his penis, cook it, then feed it to him – now, what in hell was that all about? What did he think the taste of his stir-fried cock would tell him about himself? Was he seeking to wring one last drop of pleasure out of the thing? (Goodness, that’s an unnecessarily vivid metaphor.) But somehow – I said this over dinner – this steak with beef marrow sauce, it didn’t seem that different. “It’s like eating life. It’s almost like eating my own life, you know?” No, not really. But it’s a hell of a good steak, sis.

What’s the legacy you want to pass on? We can’t choose what our ancestors did, or what was done to them. But we get to create the recipe that’s handed down. Write a recipe for a life well-lived. Take the good things from your family’s past and add your own ingredients. Give the next generation something delicious and nourishing to build on.

In Paris in the 1950s, I had the supreme good fortune to study with a remarkably able group of chefs. From them I learned why good French good is an art, and why it makes such sublime eating: nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should. Good results require that one take time and care. If one doesn't use the freshest ingredients or read the whole recipe before starting, and if one rushes through the cooking, the result will be an inferior taste and texture--a gummy beef Wellington, say. But a careful approach will result in a magnificent burst of flavor, a thoroughly satisfying meal, perhaps even a life-changing experience. Such was the case with the sole meunière I ate at La Couronne on my first day in France, in November 1948. It was an epiphany. In all the years since the succulent meal, I have yet to lose the feelings of wonder and excitement that it inspired in me. I can still almost taste it. And thinking back on it now reminds me that the pleasures of table, and of life, are infinite--toujours bon appétit!

It’s the perfect recipe for reducing stress and having a pleasant and productive evening.

Everything that's good and tasty has so many calories in it.

You don’t need more recipes. You need to learn to cook without them.

That was life. The good, the bad, the ugly all mixed together in a special kind of recipe of possibility.

Having a good set of principles is like having a good collection of recipes for success.

female superhero, Marston insisted, was the best answer to the critics, since “the comics’ worst offense was their bloodcurdling masculinity.” He explained, A male hero, at best, lacks the qualities of maternal love and tenderness which are as essential to a normal child as the breath of life. Suppose your child’s ideal becomes a superman who uses his extraordinary power to help the weak. The most important ingredient in the human happiness recipe still is missing—love. It’s smart to be strong. It’s big to be generous. But it’s sissified, according to exclusively masculine rules, to be tender, loving, affectionate, and alluring. “Aw, that’s girl’s stuff!” snorts our young comics reader. “Who wants to be a girl?” And that’s the point; not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, power. Not wanting to be girls they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peaceloving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weak ones. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.14

I met the Homeville Women's Institute, a whole gaggle of rural women who have monthly meetings to make their community better. They realized that by joining together they had a stronger voice, and that is empowering,

If you want to have Christ-like character, then you just develop the habits that Christ had,” one of Saddleback’s course manuals reads. “All of us are simply a bundle of habits….Our goal is to help you replace some bad habits with some good habits that will help you grow in Christ’s likeness.” Every Saddleback member is asked to sign a “maturity covenant card” promising to adhere to three habits: daily quiet time for reflection and prayer, tithing 10 percent of their income, and membership in a small group. Giving everyone new habits has become a focus of the church. “Once we do that, the responsibility for spiritual growth is no longer with me, it’s with you. We’ve given you a recipe,” Warren told me. “We don’t have to guide you, because you’re guiding yourself. These habits become a new self-identity, and, at that point, we just need to support you and get out of your way.

When our mothers die, we are on our own; there is no one to call for help, no one to blame, and no one left who has a copy of your grandmother’s recipe for the traditional Christmas coffee cake, which you can’t find anywhere. Her

Life is like a recipe. What do you want in your life cake? What ingredients do you need to make it rise and taste wonderful? Sometimes the simplest recipe is the best, because the more you add to the mix, the more things can go wrong.

That is just one more thing I love about cooking. Recipes are certain. Use good ingredients, follow the directions, be sure your oven temperature is true and monitor your stove properly, and you are assured success. There are not many variables once you understand how cooking works. Life, on the other hand, is full of variables. Nothing is predictable. Not the weather, not other people, not traffic, not even our own bodies. We are like seaweed, whipped around in the current of an erratic ocean.

Lawrence C. Becker puts it, “Stoic ethics is a species of eudaimonism. Its central, organizing concern is about what we ought to do or be to live well—to flourish.”16 In the words of the historian Paul Veyne, “Stoicism is not so much an ethic as it is a paradoxical recipe for happiness.

You don’t know what the story is about when you’re in the middle of it. All you can do is keep walking. At the beginning, you have buoyancy and a little arrogance. The journey looks beautiful and bright, and you are filled with resolve and silver strength, sure that you will face it with optimism and chutzpah. And the end is beautiful. You are wiser, better, deeper. The end is revelation, resolution, a soft place to land. But, oh, the middle. The middle is fog, exhaustion, loneliness, the daily battle against despair and the nagging fear that tomorrow will be just like today, only you’ll be wearier and less able to defend yourself against it. All you can ask for, in the middle, are sweet moments of reprieve in the company of people you love. For a few hours, you’ll feel protected by the goodness of friendship and life around the table, and that’s the best thing I can imagine.

Research aside, we know intuitively that sky-high expectations are a recipe for disappointment. When we expect work to help us self-actualize—to constantly motivate and fulfill us—settling for anything less can feel like a failure. A job, like a baby, is not always something that you can control.

Life is also about balance, just the way recipes are about balance. When your recipe isn't balanced, it doesn't taste right. Too much salt, or too little can make all the difference. Lack of acid, too much bitter or sweetness, if you don't find the balance your food will never be all it can be. The same is true of your life. You need it all. Work that makes you happy and fulfilled and supports you financially. Family and friends to lean on and celebrate with. Hopefully someone special to share your life with, and a family of your own if you want that. Some way of giving back, in honor of your own blessings. A sense of spirituality or something that keeps you grounded. Time to do the things you need for good health, eating right and exercising and managing your stress. If you have too much of one and not enough of another, then your life isn't balanced, and without that balance, nothing else will matter.

Balzac was pretty funny. His philosophy is plain and simple, says basically that pure materialism is a recipe for madness. The only true knowledge for Balzac seems to be in superstition. Everything is subject to analysis. Horde your energy. That’s the secret of life. You can learn a lot from Mr. B. It’s funny to have him as a companion. He wears a monk’s robe and drinks endless cups of coffee. Too much sleep clogs up his mind. One of his teeth falls out, and he says, “What does this mean?” He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious.

She reached up and rubbed the four-leaf clover charm, saying a quick prayer for faith, hope, love, and luck. Faith that everything would turn out, hope that what was lost could be restored, gratitude that she had found the love of the woman who had born her, and at the end she tacked on a heartfelt request for a little bit of luck to smooth out these next uncertain, scary steps.

Recent studies have found that the best predictor for good sibling relationships later in life is how much fun the kids have together when they’re young. The rate of conflict can even be high, as long as there’s plenty of fun to balance it out. The real danger comes when the siblings just ignore each other. There may be less tension to deal with, but that’s also a recipe for a cold and distant relationship as adults.

One rule of thumb is to keep searching for options until you fall in love at least twice. If you’ve only identified one good candidate for a job, for instance, you’ll have the strong urge to talk yourself into hiring her, which is a recipe for the confirmation bias. You’ll start to make excuses for the flaws you see: She asked us not to call her old boss for a reference, but that’s probably okay, because the boss sounded like a real jerk …

Georgia closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensations of the island--- the bracing, spicy scent of evergreen needles, the briny creaminess of an oyster still in its shell, the chewy, viscous luxury of Star's honey on the comb, the light acidity of a local cider. And then she cooked what she felt, that sense of wonder, the lightness and clean sea salt air. A sprinkle of salt, the crispness of fresh vegetables, the unctuous luxury of good olive oil.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it's actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills do deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o'clock in the morning.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it's actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o'clock in the morning.

I hear that old song I’ve heard all my life: You’re not good enough. You’re not good enough. But that voice is a lie. And it’s a terrible guide. When I listen to it, I burn the candle at both ends and try to light the middle while I’m at it. The voice of God invites us to full, whole living—to rest, to abundance, to enough. To say no. To say no more. To say I’m going to choose to live wholly and completely in the present, even though this ragged, run-down person I am right now is so far from perfect.

I was ready to get this show on the road, creating a new generation with an updated set of rules and regulations. Not that there was anything wrong with the way either one of us was brought up, but still, the world is changing, so the way you bring up kids had to change, too. Part of my plan was to never one time mention picking cotton. My parents always talked about either real cotton or the idea of it. White people say, 'It beats digging a ditch'; black people say, 'It beats picking cotton.' I'm not going to remind my kids that somebody died in order for me to do everyday things. I don't want Roy III sitting up in the movie theater trying to watch Star Wars or what have you and be thinking about the fact that sitting down eating some popcorn is a right that cost somebody his life. None of that. Or maybe not much of that. We'll have to get the recipe right. Now Celestial promises that she will never say that they have to be twice as good to get half as much. 'Even if it's true,' she said, 'what kind of thing is that to say to a five-year-old?

Every day, each of us is faced with a blizzard of situations we must respond to. Without principles we would be forced to react to all the things life throws at us individually, as if we were experiencing each of them for the first time. If instead we classify these situations into types and have good principles for dealing with them, we will make better decisions more quickly and have better lives as a result. Having a good set of principles is like having a good collection of recipes for success. All successful people operate by principles that help them be successful, though what they choose to be successful at varies enormously, so their principles vary. To

Little Blaine: Stop! Stop it, you're killing him! Eddie: (in his mind) What do you think he's trying to do to us, squirt? He considered shooting Blaine one Jake had told while they'd been sitting around the campfire that night and then didn't. He wanted to stick further inside the bounds of logic than that one allowed...and he could do it. He didn't think he would have to get much more surreal than the level of, say, a third-grader with a fair-to-good collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards in order to fuck Blaine up royally...and permanently. Because no matter how many emotions his fancy dipolar circuits had allowed him to mimic, HE was still an IT--a computer. Even allowing Eddie this far into riddledom's Twilight Zone had caused Blaine's sanity to totter. Eddie: Why do people go to bed, Blaine? Blaine: BECAUSE...BECAUSE...GODS DAMN YOU, BECAUSE...BECAUSE THE BED WON'T COME TO THEM, GODS DAMN YOU! Eddie: Give up, Blaine. Stop before I have to blow your mind completely. If you don't quit, it's going to happen. We both know it. Blaine: NO! Eddie: I got a million of these puppies. Been hearing them my whole life. They stick to my mind the way flies stick to flypaper. Hey, with some people it's recipes. So what do you say? Want to give? Blaine: NO! Eddie: Okay, Blaine. You asked for it. Here comes the cruncher. Why did the dead baby cross the road? (later) It crossed the road because it was stapled to the chicken, you dopey fuck!

Georgia's fingers drifted to the charm at her throat, the four worn little clover leaves. She rubbed the metal edges, sending a prayer of gratitude heavenward. Faith, hope, love, and luck--- the recipe for a charmed life. Once Georgia had thought she could make it happen on her own by planning and striving, by attaining concrete measures of success. Now she saw how wrong she had been. The real recipe for a charmed life was simple. Not easy, but simple. To do the work that filled her with wonder and delight. To walk lightly through the world, giving generously to those around her. To love all in her care as best she could. That's what she had been seeking all along. And Georgia found that now her life, which had once seemed so bitter, tasted so very sweet indeed.

Imagine sitting down at a table with two cups of flour, three eggs, a tablespoon of vanilla, one cup of sugar, one teaspoon of baking powder and a few other ingredients. You taste the sugar and it is good, but when you taste the baking powder it is bitter. You continue to taste the ingredients, some tasty and some downright gross. This is like life. Some of the events in your life are sweet like the sugar, others dry like the flour, and others still that you do not like at all. However, using Jesus’ perfect recipe, all of the events of your life will be mixed together and put through some intense heat—and then you will rise. Just as a cake would not be the same if you left out some of the ingredients, so Jesus wants to use all of your life experiences to make you complete and able to be used for His glory.

And what books should we so read? The principle which has never failed to confer superiority on a man's thinking activity is the well-worn precept: DO NOT READ GOOD BOOKS—life is too short for that—ONLY READ THE BEST. This simple recipe is as infallible as good air and good food are in physical hygiene. Yet, it is a fact that nineteen out of twenty modern people quake away from it. "Masterpieces again," they groan, "The Aeneid, the Divina Commedia, Paradise Lost, we have heard that before: much rather be ordinary than bored." The notion that masterpieces are boresome school books interpreted by dull teachers, or examination stuff, is a marvellous product of education. Ignorance is assuredly less deadly, for it can create no such inferiority complex as the schoolboy's notion of his lack of kinship with the best literature. But this phantasm can easily be exorcised if we modify the above principle to: ONLY READ WHAT GIVES YOU THE GREATEST PLEASURE.

What do you remember most about what your pai put in his lamb chops?" "I think it was basically salt, pepper, and garlic." He squeezed his eyes shut and focused so hard that not dropping a kiss on his earnestly pursed mouth was the hardest thing. His eyes opened, bright with memory. "Of course. Mint." "That's perfect. Since we're only allowed only five tools, simple is good." "My mãe always made rice and potatoes with it. How about we make lamb chops and a biryani-style pilaf?" Ashna blinked. Since when was Rico such a foodie? He shrugged but his lips tugged to one side in his crooked smile. "What? I live in London. Of course Indian is my favorite cuisine." Tossing an onion at him, she asked him to start chopping, and put the rice to boil. Then she turned to the lamb chops. The automatic reflex to follow Baba's recipe to within an inch of its life rolled through her. But when she ignored it, the need to hyperventilate didn't follow. Next to her Rico was fully tuned in to her body language, dividing his focus between following the instructions she threw out and the job at hand. As he'd talked about his father's chops, she'd imagined exactly how she wanted them to taste. An overtone of garlic and lemon and an undertone of mint. The rice would be simple, in keeping with the Brazilian tradition, but she'd liven it up with fried onions, cashew nuts, whole black cardamom, cloves, bay leaves, and cinnamon stick. All she wanted was to create something that tasted like Rico's childhood, combined with their future together, and it felt like she was flying. Just like with her teas, she knew exactly what she wanted to taste and she knew exactly how to layer ingredients to coax out those flavors, those feelings. It was her and that alchemy and Rico's hands flying to follow instructions and help her make it happen. "There's another thing we have to make," she said. Rico raised a brow as he stirred rice into the spice-infused butter. "I want to make tea. A festive chai." He smiled at her, heat intensifying his eyes. Really? Talking about tea turned him on? Wasn't the universe just full of good news today.

Tomally had always wanted children of her own. Unfortunately, she'd never been able to conceive. Tomally said she had made her peace with it years ago, but Iduna suspected there was still a part of her that longed to be a mother. Iduna had always thought Tomally would make an exceptional one... and now she'd have the chance. Tomally loved hearing stories about Anna's spunk- Tomally had been just like her when they were young- and expressed delight whenever Iduna wrote about Anna doing something precocious. Iduna knew they'd get along well. She could just picture Tomally and Anna baking in their shop. Anna loved to bake and was always so proud of her krumkaker. Tomally would have to be the one to teach her new recipes now and help her keep up with her studies and learn about the world around her. It wasn't the childhood Iduna had envisioned for Anna, but it would still be a good life and excellent training for her future as a princess. When Elsa someday ascended to the throne, it would be Anna who understood their people and could help her sister relate to their kingdom. Their relationship would be much like the one she and Tomally had shared when they were children.

NOURISH YOUR HAIR: 1. There are a number of 'kitchen recipes' for feeding hair. It needs the contents of your refrigerator just as much as your skin does. Right back to mayonnaise! Olive oil, eggs, and lemon juice. Massage the mixture into your hair, let it stay on for ten or fifteen minutes, then rinse it off with cool water. Cool - or you'll have scrambled eggs on your head. 2. For years I washed my daughter' hair with raw eggs, never soap or shampoo. I wet their hair fist and then rubbed in six whole eggs, one by one - a trick I learned from Katherine. Hepburn. (Four eggs will do for short hair, but theirs was long.) Some people use eggs beaten up with a jigger of rum; others mix an egg with red wine. 3. Hot oils is good for dry hair. Apply it with the fingertips and then wrap your head in a warm towel. Keep changing the oil for an hour, to keep it hot and penetrating. Then shampoo. 4. I believe in brushing. I made my girls give their hair the old-fashioned hundred strokes every night, using two brushes, and bending forward from the waist. It stimulates hair grows, and the rush of blood to the face is an added benefit. I pull my hair gently to encourage growth too.

I want you to cook more. It's good for you. You know exactly what you're nourishing yourself with (which for me almost always includes a healthy dose of fresh vegetables). It allows you to feel the natural rhythms of life in a way that microwaved frozen dinners never can. And cooking often draws people to the table, encouraging dialogue and providing a moment to appreciate the good (and truly tasty) things in life. I know: if I want you to cook more, I need to make it easy for you. And to my way of thinking, that means I need to help you with three things: First I need to help wean you from a slavish dependency on recipes - I need to hand you a few go-to recipes that are easily varied depending on what you have on hand, and teach you to look at other recipes with an eye to how they can be varied to suit your own tastes and kitchen. Second, I need to help you know what ingredients and basic preparations to have on hand so that a good meal is never more than a few minutes away. And third, I need to help you know which kitchen equipment will enable you to create delicious food fast (and, of course, I need to guide you in how to use it to its best advantage). I can do all that.

I decide that candor is probably best, that I will never see this woman again after this month. “I’m honestly not sure why I’m here, other than I feel like I could use some spiritual direction in my life.” This is the truth. “Why do you feel that way?” Nora asks. I sit for a few seconds, because this is a good question. I’m not terribly sure, other than my soul is weary, my usual recipe of prayer and reflecting on passages from the Bible isn’t inspiring me, and I sense a gaping, run-ragged hole in my soul where mature wisdom should be. Also, I don’t know where my home is, where I might really belong. Years have passed since I last felt poured-into, I tell her, and I have not bothered to seek it out. I have embarked on this year of travel, at age thirty-seven, feeling less confident than I did a decade ago about what I believe to be true, and how that truth intersects with who I am. I am weary from game playing and formulaic answers, and the evangelical-Christian hat that I have worn daily with every outfit since I was fourteen feels too small, headache inducing. I fidget daily in its discomfort, but I don’t know how to exchange it, how it should be resized. Perhaps I can stitch a new hat from scraps I find scattered around the globe, I suggest. Perhaps she could be my milliner, maybe help me find the first scrap, floating somewhere along the sidewalks of old Chiang

GM: What are the foods you recommend that have sufficient calorie density that make you feel full? What are the best foods to make the staples of your diet? PP: Whole grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables. More broadly, I tell people to make the staples of their diet the four food groups, which are whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. We have our own little pyramid that we use here at The Wellness Forum. Beans, rice, corn, and potatoes are at the bottom of the pyramid. Then steamed and raw vegetables and big salads come next, with fruits after that. Whole grains, or premade whole grain foods like cereals and breads, are all right to eat. Everything else is either optional or a condiment. As for high-fat plant foods—nuts, seeds, avocados, olives—use them occasionally or when they’re part of a recipe, but don’t overdo it; these foods are calorie-dense and full of fat. No oils, get rid of the dairy, and then, very importantly, you need to differentiate between food and a treat. I don’t think you can get through to people by telling a twenty-five-year-old that she can’t have another cookie or a piece of cake for the rest of her life. Where you can gain some traction is to say, “Look, birthday parties are a good time for cake, Christmas morning is a good time for cookies, and Valentine’s Day is a good time for chocolate, but you don’t need to be eating that stuff all the time.” People end up in my office because they’re treating themselves several times a day.

What did this Madame Moon tell you?” Her friend frowned slightly. “It was so strange. She said there was a man here tonight who was everything I could ever want, and that if I did not find him, my life would be empty and…tragic.” “Good lord.” Rose dug in her heels. “I’m not going near this woman. It’s all about men.” “We’re women,” Eve needlessly reminded her, giving her a shove toward the tent entrance. “Of course it’s all about men. Now get in th…oh my.” Rose turned her head. Her friend was staring at someone on the other side of the room-a man. A handsome, lean, dangerous-looking man with the grace of a cat. A very predatory cat, and he was staring at Eve as though she was the sweetest, plumpest mouse he’d ever seen. Perhaps there was more to this Madame Moon than she first suspected. One look at Eve’s face and she could tell her friend was just as taken by this man as he by her. “Go,” Rose whispered. And then loudly she said, “Eve, is not that Amanda Ross by the punch bowl? She said she had a recipe for a new face cream. Go get it from her, will you?” Eve shot her a startled glance, because they both knew Amanda Ross was standing not two feet away from Vienna La Rieux, who was conversing with Mr. Dangerous. But as startled as her friend might have been by the encouragement, she also realized that both of their chaperones were in line to have their fortunes told and that she might never have an opportunity like this again. “Of course,” she replied loudly as well. “I will be right back.” And off she went. Alone, and the target of exasperated looks by the ladies waiting their turns, Rose ducked into the tent to face her future.

When Florence Allen took a bite of her dessert the expression on her face changed completely. She looked puzzled at first, as if she wasn't at all sure it was cake that she was eating. She cut herself another bite and then held up her fork and looked at it for a minute before slipping it into her mouth. She chewed slowly, as if she were a scientist engaged in an important experiment. She lifted up her plate and held it up to the light, studied it from different angles. Then she dipped down her nose and inhaled the cake. "This is sweet potato." I dabbed at my eyes again and told her that it was. "Sweet potatoes and raisins and... rum? That's a spiked glaze?" I nodded. She took another bite and this time she ate it like a person who knew what she was getting into. She closed her eyes. She savored. "This is," she said. "This is..." "Easy," I said. "I can give you the recipe." She opened up her eyes. She had lovely dark eyes. "This is brilliant. This is a brilliant piece of cake." In my family people tended to work against the cake. They wished it wasn't there even as they were enjoying it. But Florence Allen's reaction was one I rarely saw in an adult: She gave in to the cake. She allowed herself to love the cake. It wasn't that she surrendered her regrets (Oh well, I'll just have to go to the gym tomorrow, or, I won't have any dinner this week). She had no regrets. She lived in the moment. She took complete pleasure in the act of eating cake. "I'm glad you like it," I said, but that didn't come close to what I meant. "Oh, I don't just like it. I think this is-" But she didn't say it. Instead she stopped and had another bite. I could have watched her eat the whole thing, slice by slice, but no one likes to be stared at. Instead I ate my own cake. It was good, really. Every raisin bitten gave a sweet exhalation of rum. It was one of those cakes that most people say should be made for Thanksgiving, that it was by its nature a holiday cake, but why be confined? I was always one to bake whatever struck me on any given day. Florence Allen pressed her fork down several times until she had taken up every last crumb. Her plate was clean enough to be returned to the cupboard directly. "I've made sweet potato pies," she said. "I've baked them and put them in casseroles, but in a cake? That never crossed my mind." "It isn't logical. They're so dense. I think of it as the banana bread principle.

That's too bad, Anneliese, the house is really spectacular. Anneke is a true talent." "It will be a new standard-bearer for the neighborhood," Caroline says. "I have no doubt," my mother says in a way that implies the opposite. And I? Snap. "You have every doubt, although I can't imagine why. Exactly what did you want from me, except for me not to exist? I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment, but for the love of god, why on earth did you even come here? Surely with all your experience over these many years and many husbands, you have figured out how to avoid me, why did you come this time? Why did you not just tell Alan I wasn't going to be in town and save us all the fucking painful charade?" Hedy reaches out and holds my hand, giving it a squeeze in a way that clearly says, "You go, girl." And not, "You might want to shut up now." "This is why I avoided coming here, to face your accusations. You never wanted me, Anneke, not from the moment you were born. You wouldn't take the breast; I had to bottle-feed you from day one. You never wanted to be near me, always running off, playing by yourself, going into other rooms when I came near. When I would travel, never a card or a letter. Never once did you ever tell me you missed me when I called or when I returned. I did the best I could, Anneke, but it was never good enough." And then I start to laugh. Because the whole thing is so ridiculous. "I didn't take the BREAST? You're mad at me because I didn't SUCKLE? You didn't travel, Anneliese, you LEFT. For months and years on end. You left me with your bitter, judgmental mother to go off with an endless string of men, and always made clear how uncomfortable you were on your rare visits home. Even when you married Joe and we were together for those three years, you weren't really there, were you? Not like a real mother. Do you know why I may never have kids of my own? Not because I can't or don't want to, but because I'm so afraid of being like you. Of being another in a long line of self-absorbed, cold, aloof bitches who are incapable of providing a loving home. And I will never forgive you for that. For making me think I shouldn't be a mother. But you know what? I'm beyond it. I'm beyond needing your approval or validation. So let me be clear about something, Mommy. Take whatever you need from this evening, because it is the last time you are welcome in my life. Fuck you." "Hear, hear," Hedy says under her breath.

Physicians of the Soul and Pain. All preachers of morality, as also all theologians, have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary. And because mankind as a whole has for centuries listened too eagerly to those teachers, something of the superstition that the human race is in a very bad way has actually come over men: so that they are now far too ready to sigh; they find nothing more in life and make melancholy faces at each other, as if life were indeed very hard to endure. In truth, they are inordinately assured of their life and in love with it, and full of untold intrigues and subtleties for suppressing everything disagreeable, and for extracting the thorn from pain and misfortune. It seems to me that people always speak with exaggeration about pain and misfortune, as if it were a matter of good behaviour to exaggerate here: on the other hand people are intentionally silent in regard to the number of expedients for alleviating pain; as for instance, the deadening of it, feverish flurry of thought, a peaceful position, or good and bad reminiscences, intentions, and hopes, — also many kinds of pride and fellow-feeling, which have almost the effect of anaesthetics: while in the greatest degree of pain fainting takes place of itself. We understand very well how to pour sweetness on our bitterness, especially on the bitterness of our soul; we find a remedy in our bravery and sublimity, as well as in the nobler delirium of submission and resignation. A loss scarcely remains a loss for an hour: in some way or other a gift from heaven has always fallen into our lap at the same moment — a new form of strength, for example: be it but a new opportunity for the exercise of strength! What have the preachers of morality not dreamt concerning the inner 'misery' of evil men! What lies have they not told us about the misfortunes of impassioned men! Yes, lying is here the right word: they were only too well aware of the overflowing happiness of this kind of man, but they kept silent as death about it; because it was a refutation of their theory, according to which happiness only originates through the annihilation of the passions and the silencing of the will! And finally, as regards the recipe of all those physicians of the soul and their recommendation of a severe radical cure, we may be allowed to ask: Is our life really painful and burdensome enough for us to exchange it with advantage for a Stoical mode of living, and Stoical petrification? We do not feel sufficiently miserable to have to feel ill in the Stoical fashion!

Waiting on God doesn’t mean sitting around and hoping. Waiting means believing he will do what he’s promised and then acting with confidence. Waiting on God is not at all like the meaningless waiting that you do at the dentist’s office. You know, he’s overbooked, so you’re still sitting there more than an hour past your scheduled appointment. You’re a man, but you’re now reading Family Circle magazine. You’ve begun to read the article titled “The 7 Best Chicken Recipes in the World.” When you’re a man and you’re getting ready to tear a chicken recipe out of Family Circle magazine because the recipe sounds so good, you know that you have been waiting too long! But waiting on God is not like that. Waiting on God is an active life based on confidence in his presence and promises, not a passive existence haunted by occasional doubt. Waiting on God isn’t internal torment that results in paralysis. No, waiting on God is internal rest that results in courageous action. Waiting is your calling. Waiting is your blessing. Every one of God’s children has been chosen to wait, because every one of God’s children lives between the “already” and the “not yet.” Already this world has been broken by sin, but not yet has it been made new again. Already Jesus has come, but not yet has he returned to take you home with him forever. Already your sin has been forgiven, but not yet have you been fully delivered from it. Already Jesus reigns, but not yet has his final kingdom come. Already sin has been defeated, but not yet has it been completely destroyed. Already the Holy Spirit has been given, but not yet have you been perfectly formed into the likeness of Jesus. Already God has given you his Word, but not yet has it totally transformed your life. Already you have been given grace, but not yet has that grace finished its work. You see, we’re all called to wait because we all live right smack dab in the middle of God’s grand redemptive story. We all wait for the final end of the work that God has begun in and for us. We don’t just wait—we wait in hope. And what does hope in God look like? It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. We wait believing that what God has begun he will complete, so we live with confidence and courage. We get up every morning and act upon what is to come, and because what is to come is sure, we know that our labor in God’s name is never in vain. So we wait and act. We wait and work. We wait and fight. We wait and conquer. We wait and proclaim. We wait and run. We wait and sacrifice. We wait and give. We wait and worship. Waiting on God is an action based on confident assurance of grace to come.

Perhaps the hardest part of the job was simply being attached to and dependent on people who didn’t think much of you. Virginia Woolf’s diaries are almost obsessively preoccupied with her servants and the challenge of maintaining patience with them. Of one, she writes: “She is in a state of nature: untrained; uneducated … so that one sees a human mind wriggling undressed.” As a class they were as irritating as “kitchen flies.” Woolf’s contemporary Edna St. Vincent Millay was rather more blunt: “The only people I really hate are servants. They are not really human beings at all.” It was unquestionably a strange world. Servants constituted a class of humans whose existences were fundamentally devoted to making certain that another class of humans would find everything they desired within arm’s reach more or less the moment it occurred to them to desire it. The recipients of this attention became spoiled almost beyond imagining. Visiting his daughter in the 1920s, in a house too small to keep his servants with him, the tenth Duke of Marlborough emerged from the bathroom in a state of helpless bewilderment because his toothbrush wasn’t foaming properly. It turned out that his valet had always put the toothpaste on the brush for him, and the Duke was unaware that toothbrushes didn’t recharge automatically. The servants’ payoff for all this was often to be treated appallingly. It was common for mistresses to test the honesty of servants by leaving some temptation where they were bound to find it—a coin on the floor, say—and then punishing them if they pocketed it. The effect was to instill in servants a slightly paranoid sense that they were in the presence of a superior omniscience. Servants were also suspected of abetting burglars by providing inside information and leaving doors unlocked. It was a perfect recipe for unhappiness on both sides. Servants, especially in smaller households, tended to think of their masters as unreasonable and demanding. Masters saw servants as slothful and untrustworthy. Casual humiliation was a regular feature of life in service. Servants were sometimes required to adopt a new name, so that the second footman in a household would always be called “Johnson,” say, thus sparing the family the tedium of having to learn a new name each time a footman retired or fell under the wheels of a carriage. Butlers were an especially delicate issue. They were expected to have the bearing and comportment of a gentleman, and to dress accordingly, but often the butler was required to engage in some intentional sartorial gaucherie—wearing trousers that didn’t match his jacket, for instance—to ensure that his inferiority was instantly manifest.* One handbook actually gave instructions—in fact, provided a working script—for how to humiliate a servant in front of a child, for the good of both child and servant.

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

A third assumption: a commitment to monogamy is an admirable consequence of love, stemming from a deep-seated generosity and an intimate interest in the other’s flourishing and well-being. A call for monogamy is a sure indication that one partner has the other’s best interests at heart. To Rabih’s new way of thinking, it seems anything but kind or considerate to insist that a spouse return to his room alone to watch CNN and eat yet another club sandwich while perched on the edge of his bed, when he has perhaps only a few more decades of life left on the planet, an increasingly dishevelled physique, an at best intermittent track record with the opposite sex, and a young woman from California standing before him who sincerely wishes to remove her dress in his honour. If love is to be defined as a genuine concern for the well-being of another person, then it must surely be deemed compatible with granting permission for an often harassed and rather browbeaten husband to step off the elevator on the eighteenth floor, in order to enjoy ten minutes of rejuvenating cunnilingus with a near-stranger. Otherwise it may seem that what we are dealing with is not really love at all but rather a kind of small-minded and hypocritical possessiveness, a desire to make one’s partner happy if, but only if, that happiness involves oneself. It’s past midnight already, yet Rabih is just hitting his stride, knowing there might be objections but sidestepping them nimbly and, in the process, acquiring an ever more brittle sense of self-righteousness. A fourth assumption: monogamy is the natural state of love. A sane person can only ever want to love one other person. Monogamy is the bellwether of emotional health. Is there not, wonders Rabih, an infantile idealism in our wish to find everything in one other being – someone who will be simultaneously a best friend, a lover, a co-parent, a co-chauffeur and a business partner? What a recipe for disappointment and resentment in this notion, upon which millions of otherwise perfectly good marriages regularly founder. What could be more natural than to feel an occasional desire for another person? How can anyone be expected to grow up in hedonistic, liberated circles, experience the sweat and excitement of nightclubs and summer parks, listen to music full of longing and lust and then, immediately upon signing a piece of paper, renounce all outside sexual interest, not in the name of any particular god or higher commandment but merely from an unexplored supposition that it must be very wrong? Is there not instead something inhuman, indeed ‘wrong’, in failing to be tempted, in failing to realize just how short of time we all are and therefore with what urgent curiosity we should want to explore the unique fleshly individuality of more than one of our contemporaries? To moralize against adultery is to deny the legitimacy of a range of sensory high points – Rabih thinks of Lauren’s shoulder blades – in their own way just as worthy of reverence as more acceptable attractions such as the last moments of ‘Hey Jude’ or the ceilings of the Alhambra Palace. Isn’t the rejection of adulterous possibilities tantamount to an infidelity towards the richness of life itself? To turn the equation on its head: would it be rational to trust anyone who wasn’t, under certain circumstances, really pretty interested in being unfaithful?

AUNT CAROL’S CRUNCHY SALAD Salad         2 tablespoons butter         1 package ramen noodles (like the $.13 package)         ½ cup or so of chopped almonds         Handful of sunflower seeds         4 to 6 cups sturdy lettuce (I like romaine)         2 cups or so of chopped broccoli         Some chopped green onions         You can add any crunchy thing: carrots, radishes, snap peas, cabbage Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the uncooked ramen noodles (break them all up), almonds, and sunflower seeds, and saute until toasted light brown. Maybe 3 to 4 minutes. Let cool. Pour the dressing (recipe below) into the bottom of your salad bowl. Add the lettuce, broccoli, green onions, and toasted crunch mix. Toss when ready to serve. Vinaigrette         4 tablespoons brown sugar         1 teaspoon salt         6 tablespoons rice wine vinegar         2 to 3 drops Tabasco         ½ cup oil (olive, sunflower, walnut, whatever oil you like. Aunt Carol uses canola oil, so no need to get trendy) Mix all the vinaigrette ingredients with a whisk (or just shake this all together in a mason jar if you want to control the quantity or make extra). This is so good. Cannot deal. Add chicken or shrimp, and it is a whole meal. This is a doldrum fixer. I’m so

It doesn't matter what's happening around you. You can create your own life. You can be as original as you like, find what makes you happy, and start doing it! Remember that you always have choices. If you don't see them now, reach out for support. Good friends, family members, coaches, counsellors, and other specialized professionals are just a few options. Don't give up your search!

Most of her recipes came from her father, but Noor learned how to make the luscious potato cake from Nelson's mother. The recipe her mother-in-law had whispered into Noor's ear was the authentic one used by Nelson's great-grandmother. In its own unpresumptuous way, the Spanish Tortilla is an honest love omelet, and every bite must be suffused with fragrant olive oil- in this case, too much of a good thing is not a sin. Even when Noor was an amateur and the potatoes were sometimes raw, Nelson would say, "Oh my God! That was the best tortilla of my whole life!" Which of course wasn't true, but he was acknowledging the effort of peeling and slicing immense quantities of potatoes. What she loved most about Spanish food was its lusty simplicity, so unlike the gastronomical somersaults of French cuisine or the complexity of the Persian food she grew up with. When she was little she could eat pyramids of saffron rice and rich meat stews, but she now associated the colors and perfumes of her husband's native cuisine with their courtship, with paddleboats and honeymoons and champagne in silver buckets, with flamenco and candlelight and little fried sardines with sea salt by the water. Her postcards were menus, smudged and wine-stained, saved from their meals, addressed to herself and read carefully like romance manuals.

Look to your sensuality for the recipe to your love life.

What is the best thing you've ever eaten?" Poulet rôti. I was sure that my mother was going to say the poulet rôti from L'Ami Louise in Paris because she'd sat next to Jacques Chirac there and he'd said that since she was a chef, perhaps she would cook something for him. And so she did. She went right back into the kitchen and whipped up something fabulous. After that, they used goose as well as duck fat when frying their potatoes, because it had been her way. I mouthed Poulet rôti into the pillow. But my mother was quiet. She could have made conversation, little noises while she was thinking. But she didn't. Lou didn't care. "Masgouf," she said. "From an Iraqi restaurant that's closed now." I sat up. I opened my mouth. I almost yelled, What? But she was still talking. "I went there with her dad years and years ago." I imagined her jerking her thumb in the direction of my room. "The company was like watching paint dry, but the food was fantastic. Out of this world." "And?" Lou said. "And," my mother said, "I went back a couple of years ago, just to see, and it was closed up. Totally empty and sad. One silver tray sat in the middle of the place, I remember. Broke my heart to pieces." "Masgouf?" Lou said. I was already out of bed, sockless and by the bookshelf, ripping through the index of The Joy of Cooking, then Cook Everything, then, finally, Recipes from All Over. I found it. "'Traditional Iraqi fish dish, grilled with tamarind and/or lemon, salt, and pepper,'" I whispered, shocked. "It was heaven," my mother said. "Literally heaven. I've tried to replicate it, I can't tell you how many times." For a second, I saw spots. I would have bet my life on it- on the poulet rôti. "You know how they say that life imitates art?" my mother said. "Well, life imitated masgouf. The fish was so good, so tender, and we ate it with our fingers. For a little while, I convinced myself that life could be so simple." Which meant happiness. Masgouf was my mother's happiness.

True, there's an aisle devoted to foreign foods, and then there are familiar foods that have been through the Japanese filter and emerged a little bit mutated. Take breakfast cereal. You'll find familiar American brands such as Kellogg's, but often without English words anywhere on the box. One of the most popular Kellogg's cereals in Japan is Brown Rice Flakes. They're quite good, and the back-of-the-box recipes include cold tofu salad and the savory pancake okonomiyaki, each topped with a flurry of crispy rice flakes. Iris and I got mildly addicted to a Japanese brand of dark chocolate cornflakes, the only chocolate cereal I've ever eaten that actually tastes like chocolate. (Believe me, I've tried them all.) Stocking my pantry at Life Supermarket was fantastically simple and inexpensive. I bought soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, rice, salt, and sugar. (I was standing right in front of the salt when I asked where to find it This happens to me every time I ask for help finding any item in any store.) Total outlay: about $15, and most of that was for the rice. Japan is an unabashed rice protectionist, levying prohibitive tariffs on imported rice. As a result, supermarket rice is domestic, high quality, and very expensive. There were many brands of white rice to choose from, the sacks advertising different growing regions and rice varieties. (I did the restaurant wine list thing and chose the second least expensive.) Japanese consumers love to hear about the regional origins of their foods. I almost never saw ingredients advertised as coming from a particular farm, like you'd see in a farm-to-table restaurant in the U.S., but if the milk is from Hokkaido, the rice from Niigata, and the tea from Uji, all is well. I suppose this is not so different from Idaho potatoes and Florida orange juice. When I got home, I opened the salt and sugar and spooned some into small bowls near the stove. The next day I learned that Japanese salt and sugar are hygroscopic: their crystalline structure draws in water from the air (and Tokyo, in summer, has enough water in the air to supply the world's car washes). I figured this was harmless and went on licking slightly moist salt and sugar off my fingers every time I cooked.

There will be days when we feel fully risen and expansive and up to facing life's most difficult challenges, and we will gaze at our lovely fat challahs with pride. There will also be days when we may feel deeply deflated and incapable, and the slightly lop-sided challahs cooling on the counter may be more reflective of that state of mind. Through all the risings and the fallings, through the knowledge that we are good enough to nurture, exactly as we are, will help us appreciate the yield of our efforts and recognize the loveliness in all its imperfection.

Foreword As a true blue Southern girl I have often wondered…if preppies could have their own handbook…why not us? And now at last, my two good friends Deborah Ford and Edie Hand have written the definitive handbook for Southern gals raised in the South. One must simply not leave home without it! It deserves a place on your shelf between Gone With the Wind and the Memphis Junior League cookbook, and I predict in years to come it will be passed down to daughters along with the family silver and great-grandmother’s lace doilies. It is funny, wise, charming, and smart, just like the two gals who wrote it. As modern Southern women we have learned to network with one another and share all the good advice and recipes and rules of accepted behavior that have been handed down to us (it’s a rough world out there). And so in keeping with that wonderful tradition I would like to share some advice my own wise Southern mother gave to me. When I was in high school contemplating whether to take Home Economics or not, my mother exclaimed: “Oh no, darling…you must never learn to cook and clean or they will expect you to do it!” It is advice that has served me well throughout the years. Good luck in all you do! -Fannie Flagg

I started in our neighborhood, buying a pastrami burrito at Oki Dog and a deluxe gardenburger at Astro Burger and matzoh-ball soup at Greenblatt's and some greasy egg rolls at the Formosa. In part funny, and rigid, and sleepy, and angry. People. Then I made concentric circles outward, reaching first to Canter's and Pink's, then rippling farther, tofu at Yabu and mole at Alegria and sugok at Marouch; the sweet-corn salad at Casbah in Silver Lake and Rae's charbroiled burgers on Pico and the garlicky hummus at Carousel in Glendale. I ate an enormous range of food, and mood. Many favorites showed up- families who had traveled far and whose dishes were steeped with the trials of passageways. An Iranian cafe near Ohio and Westwood had such a rich grief in the lamb shank that I could eat it all without doing any of my tricks- side of the mouth, ingredient tracking, fast-chew and swallow. Being there was like having a good cry, the clearing of the air after weight has been held. I asked the waiter if I could thank the chef, and he led me to the back, where a very ordinary-looking woman with gray hair in a practical layered cut tossed translucent onions in a fry pan and shook my hand. Her face was steady, faintly sweaty from the warmth of the kitchen. Glad you liked it, she said, as she added a pinch of saffron to the pan. Old family recipe, she said. No trembling in her voice, no tears streaking down her face.

28. Experts Should Be On Tap, Not On Top This is another piece of advice from Winston Churchill (he was a fountain of great one-liners): Experts should be on tap, not on top. I have made the mistake all too often in the past of taking experts’ advice as gold, as the only ‘right’ option. It has often been against my instinct, and it has all too frequently landed me in trouble. To let yourself be guided purely by experts is always a recipe for disaster. So-called experts might know their field, but they don’t always know the whole picture of what’s right. Especially for you. I know some very wealthy people who don’t even live where they want to because their accountant told them they could pay less tax if they bought a home in Monaco. It is as if their accountant has more of a say over their lives than their kids or partners do - and that is always a ‘false’ economy. Experts are experts because they specialize in one small part of a field. A leader’s job is to see beyond that, to see the whole picture and then to make a considered decision. The expert advice should be there to serve you: to be ‘on tap’, when you need it, but not as your only option. So when you need guidance, ‘listen’ to all the experts, assemble the knowledge in your head, sleep on it, trust your instinct (more of that later!), then make an informed, not hasty decision. By the way, the only thing worse than making a bad decision? Making no decision! So many people fail to get ahead because they can’t decide. They dither. It is natural. We all get fearful of making a bad decision - but really that is back to being scared of failing, and we know how to deal with that now, don’t we? Failing is OK. A bad decision is better than no decision. So learn to make decisions - informed, good decisions, based on good advice, but not dictated solely by the advisors. Trust your instincts, and commit to your decision. And if it proves wrong, then learn from the error, have the humility to acknowledge it, then move on - wiser and smarter. And remember, like so many things, the more you practice making decisions, the better you will become at making good decisions. You’ll never have a 100 per cent gold strike rate, but some people get pretty darned close, and if you study their habits I bet you will see some clear patterns in their decision-making. So, listen to the experts, keep them on tap, but know your own mind, know your own heart - and let these lead you to the right choices to keep you on top.

Slime is the sticky essence of a gastropod’s soul, the medium for everything in its life: locomotion, defense, healing, courting, mating, and egg protection. Nearly one-third of my snail’s daily energy went into slime production. And rather than making a single batch of “all-purpose” slime, my snail had a species-specific recipe for each of these needs and for different parts of its body. It could adjust the ingredients, just as a good cook would, to meet a particular occasion. And in a catastrophic accident in which a snail is squashed, it can release a flood of lifesaving, medicinal mucus packed with antioxidants and regenerative properties.

Let me give you one of my favorite examples of the difference between trying and endeavoring. When a new motorway was built, taking passing traffic away from Colonel Sanders’ restaurant, his business crumbled. About to retire with just a paltry military pension, he was facing a bleak future. But the one thing he knew he had that was of value was a mighty fine chicken recipe. He didn’t have the money to open a new restaurant, but he figured he could franchise his chicken recipe to other restaurateurs and earn a slice of every chicken meal sold. After all, he had been selling his special chicken recipe for years in his own small restaurant: how hard could it be? The answer was: very. The first restaurant he went to politely asked him to leave with the words: ‘We have a good chicken recipe of our own already; why would we want to pay you for another?’ The same thing happened at the next place he endeavoured to persuade. And the next. But he persisted. Guess how many no’s he got before someone agreed to give his ‘finger-licking’ recipe a ‘try’? The elderly Colonel Sanders had to knock on 1,009 doors before someone gave him a yes and the legend and business empire that became Kentucky Fried Chicken was finally born. Now, how many of us, after the first 50 no’s, might have thought that maybe we should quit (or at least check our chicken recipe!)? What about after ONE THOUSAND no’s? I reckon most people wouldn’t even have got to the hundredth door, and long before they rang the 1,009th doorbell they would have given up. ‘Well, we tried our best’ would have been a fair assessment. But not for the good colonel! Colonel Sanders - he really was an army veteran with some great military doggedness - had that spirit of determination, that endeavor , not to quit until he had found the thing he was looking for. Trying often comes before failure. Endeavour more often leads to success. But they are just words, I hear you say. Why does it matter whether we say ‘try’ or ‘endeavour’? It matters, believe me. Our words become our attitudes and our attitudes become our life.

And then I understood: only then, sipping nettle soup, tasting the green shoots, the force of life itself that had pushed the young nettles up through paving stones, cobbles, packed mud. Ugolino had flavored his dishes with this. With everything: our food. The steam that drifted, invisible, through the streets. The recipes, written in books or whispered on deathbeds. The pots people stirred every day of their lives: tripe, ribollita, peposo, spezzatino, bollito. Making circles with a spoon, painting suns and moons and stars in broth, in battuta. Writing, even those who don't know their letters, a lifelong song of love. Tessina dipped her spoon, sipped, dipped again. I would never taste what she was tasting: the alchemy of the soil, the ants which had wandered across the leaves as they pushed up towards the sun; salt and pepper, nettles; or just soup: good, ordinary soup. And I don't know what she was tasting now, as the great dome of the cathedral turns a deeper red, as she takes the peach from my hand and steals a bite. Does she taste the same sweetness I do? The vinegar pinpricks of wasps' feet, the amber, oozing in golden beads, fading into warm brown, as brown as Maestro Brunelleshi's tiles? I don't know now; I didn't then. But there was one thing we both tasted in that good, plain soup, though I would never have found it on my tongue, not as long as I lived. It had no flavor, but it was there: given by the slow dance of the spoon and the hand which held it. And it was love.

Do you, Nadine, vow again to spend the rest of your life loving this man, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health? Will you stand by his side, keep trying to master his mother’s lasagna recipe, support his Monday night football addiction and forgive him, and keep letting him pretend he’s in charge even though everyone knows he isn’t?

Suddenly, he was ravenous. Ramona ladled the soup into two bowls and passed one to him. He drank it. Spiced just right. He took a second swallow. Even better. “Good,” he said. She rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s good. Everything here is good. They’re serving our family recipes.” “In that case, I should have said passable.” “Clearly, you don’t value your life.

This book aims to systematically overcome all of the above failure points, step-by-step. THE MARGIN OF SAFETY—IF WARREN BUFFETT DESIGNED MENUS Most cookbooks ignore how unreliable recipes can be.

DiSSS The recipe for learning any skill is encapsulated in this acronym.

RECIPE FOR LIFE 1. Life is a funny thing, Abby. Don't take it too seriously. 2. Spend time in the garden. Weeding cleanses your heart and soul. 3. If you need to, then sleep. If you need to cry, then cry. 4. Drink lots of water. It washes out the toxins in your body. 5. Look for the signs. They're all around you. 6. Treasure your friends. Good friends are hard to find. 7. Don't worry about what other people think. It doesn't matter. 8. Appreciate every day - even the ones that suck. 9. Always have eggs in the fridge. They're easy to cook. 10. Fall in love. It's fun

The recipe for happiness is to have just enough money to pay the monthly bills you acquire, a little surplus to give you confidence, a little too much work each day, enthusiasm for your work, a substantial share of good health, a couple of real friends, and a wife and children to share life’s beauty with you.

Play to your strengths. There are many roads to happiness, but almost all of them are found by pursuing your particular strengths, which are likely to change over time. Change is intimidating for almost everyone, as it requires us to move from the known to the unknown, and hence from the predictable to the unpredictable. For this reason, many people remain too long with jobs or hobbies that once suited them but do not anymore. Just because you once loved something doesn’t mean you are destined to always feel that way. Your changing sources of happiness are probably telling you that your old life doesn’t suit you anymore. Seek the original source. Our modern world provides numerous opportunities for happiness that resemble but do not duplicate the original sources. Some are perfectly fine (e.g., TV and movies), some probably do more harm than good (e.g., alcohol, drugs, and junk food), but none is as good as the ancestral originals. Time with family and friends sits at the top of our species’ checklist and is our best recipe for happiness.

I have always detested the ghastly pasttimes upon which girls are encouraged to squander their lives. Spending hours squinting over an embroidery ring does not strike me as a worthwhile use of anyone's time. For the lower classes, sewing or knitting may be a necessity, but we are not paupers and there is no need for me to go about in homemade togs. Of course, there is the piano, but since Veronica's death it has been no more than an ornament. ... So I spent my evenings in the brocade armchair reading novels about Modern Independent Women who throw it all up at the first whiff of matrimony. I long ago resolved never to become a Modern Independent Woman. I do not myself understand this current mania for freedom. It seems to me that we would all be a good deal better off if we accepted our lot in life, rather than struggling to throw off some imagined shackles. I realise that not everyone is as fortunate as me, but this constant striving for things above one's station is no more than a recipe for discontent. I want nothing more than to look after my father and be able to treat myself now and then to a new coat or a pair of stockings. That is not to say that when I am out and about, I do not sometimes feel a stab of envy towards those to whom success comes easily, but we cannot all be tip-toppers. It is better all round to accept one's allotted portion in life. All the needlepoint and pianoforte in the world cannot alter the fact that, for most of us, quiet despair is the best we can hope for.

JOSEPH O'BRIEN Notes on the basics: Flour, sugar. Only the best ingredients. Quarter to half cup of confectioners' sugar to make him just sweet enough, but not too much. Salt to complement the sweet. A good balance is essential. High-quality yeast. Vanilla extract because it goes well with just about everything. Royal icing to make him stick and never wander away. A pinch here and there of favorite herbs or spices (basil, oregano, anise, cinnamon, turmeric). Warm water, not too hot or you'll create a scalded man, angry and hard to live with. High-quality olive oil for helping him move through life with ease, never getting stuck or losing pieces of himself. Knead the dough just long enough--- very important. Kneading too long will make him hard and unbendable, like a rock in the stomach. Kneading not long enough will make him soft--- too weak, too pliable, a moldable mess in anyone's hands. Not a good man. Creativity, dreams, love: crucial ingredients, always.

What will make him good and wholesome and kind?" Anna asked aloud. "Chocolate?" Lily said, finishing off the bottle of rum. Anna dropped in a palmful of dark cocoa powder. She added the leaves from three sprigs of rosemary because it was her favorite herb and because its woodsy scent would hopefully make him a lover of the outdoors. If she was making the most absurd recipe ever, why not go big with her additions? So she added a pinch of cinnamon because the season called for it, and then she sprinkled in cumin to give him a spicy, smoky edge. Anna added a cashew-size glob of purple royal icing to the mix to make him loyal, then poured in a teaspoon of vanilla extract. She dipped a tablespoon into the sparkling, golden sugar. When she leveled it with her finger, warmth spread up her arm until it reached her head, where it tugged her lips into a smile. She added the special ingredient and shoved her hand into the dough to incorporate everything. Rather than olive oil, Anna poured canola oil into the bowl because he needed to be able to withstand the heat and not break down when life became too hot or too complicated.

Negative people can be like emotional black holes, sucking the joy out of any room they enter. It's like trying to have a picnic in a thunderstorm – not exactly a recipe for fun. So, instead of getting caught up in their storm of negativity, why not bask in the sunshine of positivity elsewhere? Surround yourself with people who radiate good vibes and uplift your spirits. Life's too short to dwell in pessimism when you could be dancing in the sunlight of optimism.

Pursuing your greatness is amazing, but doing it on a poor foundation can be a recipe for long-term disaster.

What if life could be saved by clichés? What if life must be lived by clichés? Somewhere tomorrow and somewhere yesterday—never somewhere today but cliché-land. You promised that you would understand, Nikolai said. Understanding I had promised him. And other things, too: a house in the woods, a kitchen with sunlight, many new recipes, rights to my books—after you die I want the rights to the books you've written, but only the good ones, he had said to me at nine. Yet all these promises were as inadequate as love, promise and love being two anchors of cliché-land.

But in short, the recipe for a growing person is always grace plus truth over time. Give a person grace (unmerited favor) an truth (structure), and do that over time, and you have the greatest chance of this person growing into a person of good character. Grace includes support, resources, love, compassion, forgiveness, and all of the relations sides of God's nature. Truth is the structure of life; it tells us how we are supposed to live our lives and how life really works.

Students are subordinate to materials, much like novice cooks are subordinate to recipes. If you select the wrong material, the wrong textbook, the wrong group of words, it doesn’t matter how much (or how well) you study. It doesn’t matter how good your teacher is. One must find the highest-frequency material. Material beats method.

Life is life. It screws with our plans. It can be cruel and unpredictable.’ Life can also be beautiful and good and great. It can bring us happiness we never imagined. There is no recipe to avoid bad times and have only good ones. My advice is to enjoy the good while it lasts, and when things aren’t great—fight, believe in yourself and never lose hope. If you’re lucky enough to have a family, spouses, kids, and real friends hold on to them tight in joy as well as in sorrow. Hold on to them—period.

What I love the most is that, unlike the world itself in the kitchen you get what you give. If I find a solid recipe, gather nice ingredients, and follow the instructions, I will produce something good to eat. Life may be unpredictable, but pasta puttanesca is not.

You guarantee a good meal by picking the recipes well, not by following recipes well.

Berry Good Smoothie When trying to eat healthy, smoothies are your best friend. They taste great, they are packed full of fruit, and they're healthy. I feel as though we often forget about smoothies in our day to day life. Take full advantage of using smoothies when trying to keep a well-balanced diet. They make great snacks in between meals, are refreshing, and can cure cravings when you're looking for something sweet. When it comes to smoothies there's some really cool creations you can make and you can decide what you like the best, but here’s three great short recipes to get you started. Ingredients– - 1 Banana - 1/2 cup of Strawberries - 1/3 cup of Blackberries - 1/2 cup of Blueberries - 1/2 cup of Greek or Regular Yogurt - 5-6 Ice Cubes - 1/4 cup of Orange Juice Directions– Blend all of that goodness together. If consistency is too thick, add a bit more of milk to fit liking. Adjust flavors to fit desired taste. Serve.

One rule of thumb is to keep searching for options until you fall in love at least twice. If you’ve only identified one good candidate for a job, for instance, you’ll have the strong urge to talk yourself into hiring her, which is a recipe for the confirmation bias.

If we agree that good food is more important than many so-called ‘important things in life,’ and surely no one would dismiss lightly an event which occurs at least twice a day, and which is conducive to happiness or bad temper,” he wrote in his book What Shall We Have Today?, “then we must admit that a cook is an important person in the household, since she dispenses gifts either precious or intolerable.

He who desires to enjoy life desires to possess good physical health, for a healthy body is almost essential to a happy life;