“
Life is wasted on the living.
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Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2))
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Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.
”
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Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
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All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.
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Albert Camus
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All worries are less with wine.
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Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
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You cannot keep something down that is bound to rise.
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Juliet C. Obodo (Writer's Retreat: New York City Edition: Cafes, Restaurants & Coffee Shops for Writers, Bloggers & Students)
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Hunger gives flavour to the food.
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Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
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Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.
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Amit Kalantri (Wealth of Words)
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If you don't have a well-thought out dream, you can start by figuring out where you want to go. If you cannot see yourself fairly or accurately represented in the community you live (from restaurants to department stores to clothing choices to conversations at the dinner table) and nothing there makes you feel awake or alive, I suggest you start doing some research on some other communities.
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Kelly Cutrone
“
Creativity is not so much a boundless well, but an all-you-can-eat buffet of elements for your creative endeavor.
Eventually you've eaten your fill, and it's time to digest and then make something.
But at some point, it will be time to return to the restaurant.
”
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Vera Nazarian (The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration)
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Faith is not a drive-through restaurant, Tanner. You don’t say a prayer and pick it up from the window.
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T.M. Gaouette (Freeing Tanner Rose (Faith & Kung Fu, #1))
“
REST IS THE BEST WEAPON..BATTLES WON AND LOST" ((page 209 ))
JACKAL CHALLENGING BOURNE : " Paris, Jason Bourne! Paris if you dare! Or shall it be a minor university in Maine. Dr,Webb? ((page 276))...
JACKALS WARNING, IN PRINTED WORDS IN A BLACK BUTCHER'S PENCIL ((at an country restaurant Epernon, Paris ))
"The trees of Tannenbaum will burn and children will be the kindling. Sleep well Jason Bourne
”
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Robert Ludlum
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Everything great in art is born of service. It is a free and willing bondage, for it is born of inspiration. Not from servitude or slavishly “catering to the market.” And not from any base servility before today’s bored neurotics who fill the salons, restaurants, dance clubs, and the columns of the “literati.” Not servility, but service.
”
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Ivan Ilyin (Foundations of Christian Culture)
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I pity you Juliet. You don't know what love is. You think it's Valentine's Day, and weekends in Italy. You think it's drinking champagne in some expensive restaurant and being bought stupid bloody underwear. But that's just the trimmings. The decoration. They're just gestures. Without trust, and respect, and kindness, they don't mean shit. I thought love was about caring about someone day in and day out, about being there when it's rucking amazing and still wanting to be there when it feels like crap, I thought it was about forever.
”
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Alexandra Potter (Calling Romeo)
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No voy a ser la marioneta de nadie, mucho menos, de mí mismo.
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Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2))
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I don't think people grasp the real me when they see me on television. I've got the wonderful family, the big house, the flash car. I run several of the world's best restaurants. I'm running round, cursing and swearing, telling people what to do. They probably think: that flash bastard. But my life, like most people's, is about hard work. It's about success. Beyond that, though, something else is at play. I'm as driven as any man you'll ever meet. When I think about myself, I still see a little boy who is desperate to escape, and keen to please. I just keep going, moving as far away as possible from where I began. Work is who I am, who I want to be. I sometimes think that if I were to stop working, I'd stop existing.
”
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Gordon Ramsay (Humble Pie)
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The world is so much bigger than you know, and if you set your mind to it you can go anywhere. It's just a flight away, whether you want to go eat hippo meat in Tanzania, or anything!
”
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Ito Ogawa (The Restaurant of Love Regained)
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We live in a strange world, where we think we can buy or build our way out of a crisis that has been created by buying and building things.
Where a football game or a film gala gets more media attention than the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced.
Where celebrities, film and pop stars who have stood up against all injustices will not stand up for our environment and for climate justice because that would inflict on their right to fly around the world visiting their favourite restaurants, beaches and yoga retreats.
”
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Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference)
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Creating a home that makes you feel wonderful is a gift you give yourself that echoes through the rest of your life.
A bedroom you love is one in which you want to have an organized, well-cared-for wardrobe, which means less money spent replacing your battered items.
A happy, practical, smartly appointed kitchen is one you actually *want* to cook in, which means much less money spent eating out or ordering in.
A chic and comfortable living room means more entertaining at home and embracing the lost art of dinner parties (always cheaper than doing drinks and a restaurant dinner!).
Even a Zen, candle-filled, clean bathroom is one in which you want to spend time doing home spa treatments instead of feeling like you have to go somewhere expensive to feel beautiful.
If you create a home that is most attuned to your life and somewhere you really enjoy being, everything benefits.
”
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Chelsea Fagan (The Financial Diet)
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Planning Meetings might be the greatest art form ever, since what happens is nothing less than this: a soul shapes a new incarnation, then boldly commits. Quite the contrast to Life Reviews, when a soul comes out the other end.
Frankly this returning to heaven to learn about your recent incarnation… it’s like coming out the poop end of life… in contrast to the restaurant-like, lip-smacking deliciousness of a planning meeting. Around here we have this saying, “Planning Meetings for joy. Life Reviews for… compassion.”
Basically, watching a Life Review makes you want to hunker down with some celestial tissues, feeling sorry for the sad parts of the story, consoling yourself with knowledge of growth that took place anyway, and maybe wondering if you’ll ever risk leaving heaven again. By contrast, how do you feel after watching an inspiring Planning Meeting? You can’t wait to leave.
”
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Rose Rosetree (Bigger than All the Night Sky: The Start Of Spiritual Awakening. A Memoir.)
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Making others happy can give us happiness.
I treated the staff in a restaurant to a plate of Momos. Little things can make our World a better place.
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Avijeet Das
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Minimalism is a way of living at the maximum of your potential.
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Anastasiya Kotelnikova
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Values beat experience when experience doesn't work hard.
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Doug Radkey (Bar Hacks: Developing The Fundamentals for an Epic Bar)
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the man who has a favorite restaurant but not a favorite author. He’s picked out a favorite place to feed his body, but he doesn’t have a favorite place to feed his mind! One
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Jim Rohn (Leading an Inspired Life)
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I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.
”
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Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
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Whether you feel your absolute best or your absolute worst today, you still deserve comfort, care, and love. You still deserve the kindness of strangers and the compassion of good friends. You still deserve hearty belly laughs and a good night’s sleep. You still deserve warm baths and a night out to your favorite restaurant. You still deserve those little moments that make you feel glad you were there to witness them. Regardless of how you feel, you will always remain a deserving being worthy of the best moment that is possible for you right here and right now.
”
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Emily Maroutian (The Book of Relief: Passages and Exercises to Relieve Negative Emotion and Create More Ease in The Body)
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After her mother died and Adrienne and her father took up with wanderlust, Adrienne became exposed to new foods. For two years they lived in Maine, where in the summertime they ate lobster and white corn and small wild blueberries. They moved to Iowa for Adrienne's senior year of high school and they ate pork tenderloin fixed seventeen different ways. Adrienne did her first two years of college at Indiana University in Bloomington, where she lived above a Mexican cantina, which inspired a love of tamales and anything doused with habanero sauce. Then she transferred to Vanderbilt in Nashville, where she ate the best fried chicken she'd ever had in her life. And so on, and so on. Pad thai in Bangkok, stone crabs in Palm Beach, buffalo meat in Aspen. As she sat listening to Thatcher, she realized that though she knew nothing about restaurants, at least she knew something about food.
”
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Elin Hilderbrand (The Blue Bistro)
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Fiction seemed all about harnessing infinity. In fiction, when you walk into a restaurant and you sit down, there’s nobody there and the restaurant doesn’t exist. The restaurant is a horrific, never-ending nothingness. So you make scattershot decisions about what the restaurant might look like and the person you might be sitting with.
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Jon Ronson (Frank: The True Story That Inspired the Movie)
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I think most of us moms think it’s wrong to do nice things for ourselves, thinking we’re someone who should always be humble. Maybe God wants to bless our socks off and let us know it’s more than okay to get a manicure and a massage in the same year! We need to stop feeling bad when God wants us to feel cherished, pampered, and special. If a shiny purse or a pair of high heel shoes puts a spring in your step, work those heels girl! God created you to rock it! You still got it and show your kids and family that “Mommy’s Still the Hot Chick”! Maybe it will inspire your husband to get out of his sweat pants from 1987 and take you out in public to a restaurant that has menus you can’t color on!
”
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Kerri Pomarolli (Moms' Night Out and Other Things I Miss: Devotions To Help You Survive)
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My food, they generously agreed, was fantastic.
I opened a midpriced restaurant in Paris that served the kind of cuisine that would become commonplace, Italianish and Chinese Americanish for a new age. Chili oil and ricotta shared space with mung flour, dandelion greens, ash. As the first of its kind, my restaurant was a minor success. It expanded to half a dozen locations before young and hungry chefs came flooding back into Paris.
”
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C Pam Zhang (Land of Milk and Honey)
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We live in the era of the search engine. Gone is the era of finding things on your own. If you want to find something, you can use your computer or phone to easily google it. You can find popular restaurants, movies, novels, and fashion anywhere in the world with no challenge. Ours is now a life of passive acquisition. But the joy of finding is gone, as is the catharsis of going to great trouble in searching for something and finding it.
”
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Hideo Kojima (The Creative Gene: How Books, Movies, and Music Inspired the Creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid)
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I can’t help but think of one of my favorite moments in any Pixar movie, when Anton Ego, the jaded and much-feared food critic in Ratatouille, delivers his review of Gusteau’s, the restaurant run by our hero Remy, a rat. Voiced by the great Peter O’Toole, Ego says that Remy’s talents have “challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking … [and] have rocked me to my core.” His speech, written by Brad Bird, similarly rocked me—and, to this day, sticks with me as I think about my work. “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy,” Ego says. “We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.
”
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Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: an inspiring look at how creativity can - and should - be harnessed for business success by the founder of Pixar)
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There was another inspiring moment: a rough, choppy, moonlit night on the water, and the Dreadnaught's manager looked out the window suddenly to spy thousands of tiny baitfish breaking the surface, rushing frantically toward shore. He knew what that meant, as did everyone else in town with a boat, a gaff and a loaf of Wonder bread to use as bait: the stripers were running! Thousands of the highly prized, relatively expensive striped bass were, in a rare feeding frenzy, suddenly there for the taking. You had literally only to throw bread on the water, bash the tasty fish on the head with a gaff and then haul them in. They were taking them by the hundreds of pounds. Every restaurant in town was loading up on them, their parking lots, like ours, suddenly a Coleman-lit staging area for scaling, gutting and wrapping operations. The Dreadnaught lot, like every other lot in town, was suddenly filled with gore-covered cooks and dishwashers, laboring under flickering gaslamps and naked bulbs to clean, wrap and freeze the valuable white meat. We worked for hours with our knives, our hair sparkling with snowflake-like fish scales, scraping, tearing, filleting. At the end of the night's work, I took home a 35-pound monster, still twisted with rigor. My room-mates were smoking weed when I got back to our little place on the beach and, as often happens on such occasions, were hungry. We had only the bass, some butter and a lemon to work with, but we cooked that sucker up under the tiny home broiler and served it on aluminum foil, tearing at it with our fingers. It was a bright, moonlit sky now, a mean high tide was lapping at the edges of our house, and as the windows began to shake in their frames, a smell of white spindrift and salt saturated the air as we ate. It was the freshest piece of fish I'd ever eaten, and I don't know if it was due to the dramatic quality the weather was beginning to take on, but it hit me right in the brainpan, a meal that made me feel better about things, made me better for eating it, somehow even smarter, somehow . . . It was a protein rush to the cortex, a clean, three-ingredient ingredient high, eaten with the hands. Could anything be better than that?
”
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Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)
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Poets may be the “unacknowledged legislators” but I don’t know if we’re that important. My fear overwhelms me at times; I gave you my fear, a withered gift. You are the true poet of the family. You gave me the cry of a baby in its mother’s arms, cotton candy at the circus, John Cage exhibits at the museum, lying under the light of the full moon. You gave me Fellini films and old Romances, a glass of Burgandy in a darkened restaurant where lovers cling to hope of passion and contentment. You gave me hope and love, but most of all, you gave me poetry.
”
”
Scott C. Holstad (Places)
“
Maybe that’s too big of a question. Let’s back up. May Ling has been with you for fourteen months now? What have you done, in the time she’s
been with you, to connect her to her Chinese culture?” “Well.” Another pause, a very long one this time. Mr. Richardson willed Mrs. McCullough to say something, anything. “Pearl of the Orient is one of our very favorite restaurants. We try to take her there once a month. I think it’s good for her to hear some Chinese, to get it into her ears. To grow up feeling this is natural. And of course I’m sure she’ll love the food once she’s older.” Yawning silence in the courtroom. Mrs. McCullough felt the need to fill it. “Perhaps we could take a Chinese cooking class at the rec center and learn together. When she’s older.” Ed Lim said nothing, and Mrs. McCullough prattled nervously on. “We try to be very sensitive to these issues wherever we can.” Inspiration arrived. “Like for her first birthday, we wanted to get her a teddy bear. One she could keep as an heirloom. There was a brown bear, a polar bear, and a panda, and we thought about it and decided on the panda. We thought perhaps she’d feel more of a connection to it.
”
”
Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere)
“
God wants us to use our resources to help others, but He does not want us to be naïve. Use the business, common and spiritual sense that God has blessed you with to stand up to people with unfair business practices. Study His word to see how He handles the enemy when it tries to disguise itself as a supportive customer of yours. The same family member asking you for a free service is the same person that would never think to negotiate their electric bill. The same church member who wants a discount is the same person who will go to a restaurant and not only pay the full bill, but tip the waitress on top of it! Do you not deserve that same respect and consideration?
”
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V.L. Thompson (CEO - The Christian Entrepreneur's Outlook)
“
Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
“
The whole suggestion is predicated on a damnable fucking lie—the BIG lie, actually—one which Richman himself happily helped create and which he works hard, on a daily basis, to keep alive. See … it makes for a better article when you associate the food with a personality. Richman, along with the best and worst of his peers, built up these names, helped make them celebrities by promoting the illusion that they cook—that if you walk into one of dozens of Jean-Georges’s restaurants, he’s somehow back there on the line, personally sweating over your halibut, measuring freshly chopped herbs between thumb and forefinger. Every time someone writes “Mr. Batali is fond of strong, assertive flavors” (however true that might be) or “Jean Georges has a way with herbs” and implies or suggests that it was Mr. Batali or Mr. Vongerichten who actually cooked the dish, it ignores the reality, if not the whole history, of command and control and the creative process in restaurant kitchens. While helpful to chefs, on the one hand, in that the Big Lie builds interest and helps create an identifiable brand, it also denies the truth of what is great about them: that there are plenty of great cooks in this world—but not that many great chefs. The word “chef” means “chief.” A chef is simply a cook who leads other cooks. That quality—leadership, the ability to successfully command, inspire, and delegate work to others—is the very essence of what chefs are about. As Richman knows. But it makes better reading (and easier writing) to first propagate a lie—then, later, react with entirely feigned outrage at the reality.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook)
“
Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever. I can’t just sit back and watch from a distance anymore.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
“
Imagine that a literalist and a moderate have gone to a restaurant for lunch, and the menu promises "fresh lobster" as the speciality of the house. Loving lobster, the literalist simply places his order and waits. The moderate does likewise, but claims to be entirely comfortable with the idea that the lobster might not really be a lobster after all—perhaps it's a goose! And, whatever it is, it need not be "fresh" in any conventional sense—for the moderate understands that the meaning of this term shifts according to context. This would be a very strange attitude to adopt toward lunch, but it is even stranger when considering the most important questions of existence—what to live for, what to die for, and what to kill for. Consequently, the appeal of literalism isn't difficult to see. Human beings reflexively demand it in almost every area of their lives. It seems to me that religious people, to the extent that they're 'certain' that their scripture was written or inspired by the Creator of the universe, demand it too. - pg. 67-68
”
”
Sam Harris
“
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. I can't just sit back and watch from a distance anymore. From here on in, everything I'll tell you is colored by the subjective experience of being part of events. Here's where my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the world feels heavier, now I'm a part of it. I'm talking about bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and the old Italian men take their folding chairs inside. Up until now it hasn't been my word. Not my America. But here we are, at last.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
“
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. I can't just sit back and watch from a distance anymore. From here on in, everything I'll tell you is colored by the subjective experience of being part of events. Here's where my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the world feels heavier, now I'm a part of it. I'm talking about bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and the old Italian men take their folding chairs inside. Up until now it hasn't been my world. Not my America. But here we are, at last.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
“
Your story isn’t powerful enough if all it does is lead the horse to water; it has to inspire the horse to drink, too. On social media, the only story that can achieve that goal is one told with native content. Native content amps up your story’s power. It is crafted to mimic everything that makes a platform attractive and valuable to a consumer—the aesthetics, the design, and the tone. It also offers the same value as the other content that people come to the platform to consume. Email marketing was a form of native content. It worked well during the 1990s because people were already on email; if you told your story natively and provided consumers with something they valued on that platform, you got their attention. And if you jabbed enough to put them in a purchasing mind-set, you converted. The rules are the same now that people spend their time on social media. It can’t tell you what story to tell, but it can inform you how your consumer wants to hear it, when he wants to hear it, and what will most make him want to buy from you. For example, supermarkets or fast-casual restaurants know from radio data that one of the ideal times to run an ad on the radio is around 5:00 P.M., when moms are picking up the kids and deciding what to make for dinner, and even whether they have the energy to cook. Social gives you the same kind of insight. Maybe the data tells you that you should post on Facebook early in the morning before people settle
”
”
Gary Vaynerchuk (Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World)
“
In his book, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Viet Thanh Nguyen writes that immigrant communities like San Jose or Little Saigon in Orange County are examples of purposeful forgetting through the promise of capitalism: “The more wealth minorities amass, the more property they buy, the more clout they accumulate, and the more visible they become, the more other Americans will positively recognize and remember them. Belonging would substitute for longing; membership would make up for disremembering.” One literal example of this lies in the very existence of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chinese immigrants in California had battled severe anti-Chinese sentiment in the late 1800s. In 1871, eighteen Chinese immigrants were murdered and lynched in Los Angeles. In 1877, an “anti-Coolie” mob burned and ransacked San Francisco’s Chinatown, and murdered four Chinese men. SF’s Chinatown was dealt its final blow during the 1906 earthquake, when San Francisco fire departments dedicated their resources to wealthier areas and dynamited Chinatown in order to stop the fire’s spread. When it came time to rebuild, a local businessman named Look Tin Eli hired T. Paterson Ross, a Scottish architect who had never been to China, to rebuild the neighborhood. Ross drew inspiration from centuries-old photographs of China and ancient religious motifs. Fancy restaurants were built with elaborate teak furniture and ivory carvings, complete with burlesque shows with beautiful Asian women that were later depicted in the musical Flower Drum Song. The idea was to create an exoticized “Oriental Disneyland” which would draw in tourists, elevating the image of Chinese people in America. It worked. Celebrities like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Ronald Reagan and Bing Crosby started frequenting Chinatown’s restaurants and nightclubs. People went from seeing Chinese people as coolies who stole jobs to fetishizing them as alluring, mysterious foreigners. We paid a price for this safety, though—somewhere along the way, Chinese Americans’ self-identity was colored by this fetishized view. San Francisco’s Chinatown was the only image of China I had growing up. I was surprised to learn, in my early twenties, that roofs in China were not, in fact, covered with thick green tiles and dragons. I felt betrayed—as if I was tricked into forgetting myself. Which is why Do asks his students to collect family histories from their parents, in an effort to remember. His methodology is a clever one. “I encourage them and say, look, if you tell your parents that this is an academic project, you have to do it or you’re going to fail my class—then they’re more likely to cooperate. But simultaneously, also know that there are certain things they won’t talk about. But nevertheless, you can fill in the gaps.” He’ll even teach his students to ask distanced questions such as “How many people were on your boat when you left Vietnam? How many made it?” If there were one hundred and fifty at the beginning of the journey and fifty at the end, students may never fully know the specifics of their parents’ trauma but they can infer shadows of the grief they must hold.
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
“
You know,” I said, “you don’t owe New Fiddleham anything. You don’t need to help them.”
“Look,” Charlie said as we clipped past Market Street. He was pointing at a man delicately painting enormous letters onto a broad window as we passed. NONNA SANTORO’S, it read, although the RO’S was still just an outline.
“That Italian restaurant?”
“Yes,” he smiled. “They will be opening their doors for the first time very soon. Sweet family. I bought my first meal in New Fiddleham from that man. A couple of meatballs from a street cart were about all I could afford at the time. He’s an immigrant, too. He’s going to do well. His red sauce is amazing.”
“That’s grand for him, then,” I said.
“I like it when doors open,” said Charlie. “Doors are opening in New Fiddleham every day. It is a remarkable time to be alive anywhere, really. Do you think our parents could ever have imagined having machines that could wash dishes, machines that could sew, machines that do laundry? Pretty soon we’ll be taking this trolley ride without any horses. I’ve heard that Glanville has electric streetcars already. Who knows what will be possible fifty years from now, or a hundred. Change isn’t always so bad.”
“Your optimism is both baffling and inspiring,” I said.
“The sun is rising,” he replied with a little chuckle.
I glanced at the sky. It was well past noon.
“It’s just something my sister and I used to say,” he clarified. “I think you would like Alina. You often remind me of her. She has a way of refusing to let the world keep her down.” He smiled and his gaze drifted away, following the memory.
“Alina found a rolled-up canvas once,” he said, “a year or so after our mother passed away. It was an oil painting—a picture of the sun hanging low over a rippling ocean. She was a beautiful painter, our mother. I could tell that it was one of hers, but I had never seen it before. It felt like a message, like she had sent it, just for us to find.
“I said that it was a beautiful sunset, and Alina said no, it was a sunrise. We argued about it, actually. I told her that the sun in the picture was setting because it was obviously a view from our camp near Gelendzhik, overlooking the Black Sea. That would mean the painting was looking to the west.
“Alina said that it didn’t matter. Even if the sun is setting on Gelendzhik, that only means that it is rising in Bucharest. Or Vienna. Or Paris. The sun is always rising somewhere. From then on, whenever I felt low, whenever I lost hope and the world felt darkest, Alina would remind me: the sun is rising.”
“I think I like Alina already. It’s a heartening philosophy. I only worry that it’s wasted on this city.”
“A city is just people,” Charlie said. “A hundred years from now, even if the roads and buildings are still here, this will still be a whole new city. New Fiddleham is dying, every day, but it is also being constantly reborn. Every day, there is new hope. Every day, the sun rises. Every day, there are doors opening.”
I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “When we’re through saving the world,” I said, “you can take me out to Nonna Santoro’s. I have it on good authority that the red sauce is amazing.”
He blushed pink and a bashful smile spread over his face. “When we’re through saving the world, Miss Rook, I will hold you to that.
”
”
William Ritter (The Dire King (Jackaby, #4))
“
Self-Obsession & Self-Presentation on Social-Media"
Some people always post their cars/bikes photos because they love their cars/bikes so much.
Some people always post their dogs/cats/birds/fish/pets photos because they love their pets so
much. Some people always post their children’s/families photos because they love their
children/families so much.
Some people always post their daily happy/sad moments because they love sharing their daily lives
so much.
Some people always post their poems/songs/novels/writings because they love being
poets/lyricists/novelists/writers so much.
Some people always copy paste other people’s writings/quotes without mentioning the actual writers
name because they love seeking attention/fame so much. [Unacceptable & Illegal]
Some people always post their plants/garden’s photos because they love planting/gardening so much.
Some people always post their art/paintings because they love their creativity so much.
Some people always post their home-made food because they love cooking/thoughtful-presentation so
much. Some people always post their makeup/hairstyles selfies because they love wearing
makeup/doing hair so much. Some people always post their party related photos because they love
those parties so much.
Some people always post their travel related photos because they love traveling so much. Some
people always post their selfies because they love taking selfies so much.
Some people always post restaurant/street-foods because they love eating in restaurants/streets so
much. Some people always post their job-related photos because they love their jobs so much.
Some people always post religious things because they love spreading their religion so much. Some
people always post political things because they love politics/power so much.
Some people always post inspirational messages because they love being spiritual. Some people
always share others posts because they love sharing links so much.
Some people always post their creative photographs because they love photography so much. Some
people always post their business-related products because they love advertising so much.
And some people always post complaints about other people’s post because they love complaining so
much
”
”
Zakia FR
“
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.
”
”
Beth Harbison (The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship)
“
What a joy this book is! I love recipe books, but it’s short-lived; I enjoy the pictures for several minutes, read a few pages, and then my eyes glaze over. They are basically books to be used in the kitchen for one recipe at a time.
This book, however, is in a different class altogether and designed to be read in its entirety. It’s in its own sui generis category; it has recipes at the end of most of the twenty-one chapters, but it’s a book to be read from cover to cover, yet it could easily be read chapter by chapter, in any order, as they are all self-contained. Every bite-sized chapter is a flowing narrative from a well-stocked brain encompassing Balinese culture, geography and history, while not losing its main focus: food.
As you would expect from a scholar with a PhD in history from Columbia University, the subject matter has been meticulously researched, not from books and articles and other people’s work, but from actually being on the ground and in the markets and in the kitchens of Balinese families, where the Balinese themselves learn their culinary skills, hands on, passed down orally, manually and practically from generation to generation.
Vivienne Kruger has lived in Bali long enough to get it right. That’s no mean feat, as the subject has not been fully studied before.
Yes, there are so-called Balinese recipe books, most, if I’m not mistaken, written by foreigners, and heavily adapted. The dishes have not, until now, been systematically placed in their proper cultural context, which is extremely important for the Balinese, nor has there been any examination of the numerous varieties of each type of recipe, nor have they been given their true Balinese names.
This groundbreaking book is a pleasure to read, not just for its fascinating content, which I learnt a lot from, but for the exuberance, enthusiasm and originality of the language. There’s not a dull sentence in the book. You just can’t wait to read the next phrase.
There are eye-opening and jaw-dropping passages for the general reader as Kruger describes delicacies from the village of Tengkudak in Tabanan district — grasshoppers, dragonflies, eels and live baby bees — and explains how they are caught and cooked. She does not shy away from controversial subjects, such as eating dog and turtle. Parts of it are not for the faint-hearted, but other parts make you want to go out and join the participants, such as the Nusa Lembongan fishermen, who sail their outriggers at 5.30 a.m.
The author quotes Miguel Covarrubias, the great Mexican observer of the 1930s, who wrote “The Island of Bali.” It has inspired all writers since, including myself and my co-author, Ni Wayan Murni, in our book “Secrets of Bali, Fresh Light on the Morning of the World.” There is, however, no bibliography, which I found strange at first. I can only imagine it’s a reflection of how original the subject matter is; there simply are no other sources.
Throughout the book Kruger mentions Balinese and Indonesian words and sometimes discusses their derivations. It’s a Herculean task. I was intrigued to read that “satay” comes from the Tamil word for flesh ( sathai ) and that South Indians brought satay to Southeast Asia before Indonesia developed its own tradition. The book is full of interesting tidbits like this.
The book contains 47 recipes in all, 11 of which came from Murni’s own restaurant, Murni’s Warung, in Ubud. Mr Dolphin of Warung Dolphin in Lovina also contributed a number of recipes. Kruger adds an introduction to each recipe, with a detailed and usually very personal commentary. I think my favorite, though, is from a village priest (pemangku), I Made Arnila of the Ganesha (Siwa) Temple in Lovina.
water. I am sure most will enjoy this book enormously; I certainly did.”
Review published in The Jakarta Globe, April 17, 2014. Jonathan Copeland is an author and photographer based in Bali.
thejakartaglobe/features/spiritual-journey-culinary-world-bali
”
”
Vivienne Kruger
“
All of that flowed from manifesting an idea that aligned with my purpose. By “manifesting,” I simply mean making the intangible tangible. Making a dream reality. Executing on a vision. It changed my life, this idea, but if you think about it, a pop-up restaurant is really just a catering event repackaged with creativity and purpose. However, because we live in a time when purpose-driven ideas have more power than ever before, the concept transcended its components.
”
”
Alan Philips (The Age of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential)
“
They record thoughts and overheard conversations, as well as maps of their personal paths, phone numbers for hotels, restaurant recommendations, airline flight numbers. Eventually,
”
”
Danny Gregory (An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers)
“
loopholes in some United States liquor laws allow it to be served in restaurants with only a beer and wine license. This has led to shochu’s use as a mixer in Asian-inspired cocktails—think lemongrass martinis—
”
”
Amy Stewart (The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks)
“
I’M SITTING at the counter in my favorite New York diner, tucking into eggs over easy with hash browns—very English, the breakfast fry-up, but very American, too. I’m washing it down with cranberry juice—caffeine is probably the only vice I don’t have—and someone turns on the radio. Most of the time, I don’t hear music. My brain just tunes it out. We’re all bombarded with some sort of music on a daily basis—in shops, TV commercials, restaurants, lifts—most of it simply noise pollution, deadening us to the real joy of music. So I only listen when I really want to. But the Puerto Rican waitress has turned on a Spanish channel, and a seductive salsa rhythm seeps into the room. It’s a charanga band—a traditional group that uses flute and violin over the standard latin rhythm section of congas, bongos, and timbales—and now I’m half-listening. Then the violinist takes a solo, and I’m hooked. He’s a great, inspired player. The band is playing a simple three-chord vamp, and he follows the chords closely, and yet still manages to come up with witty, ingenious, melodic twists. And the way he plays with the time! Dragging a phrase, and then ending it right on the beat. Setting up syncopations—accents that go against the beat—and then turning them around, playing them backwards. Then he hits an unexpected high note, and it’s like a shaft of light going right through my body, filling me with warmth. Without even thinking, I cry out—“Yeah!” or “All right!” or something—and I marvel at the way that music, after all these years, can still surprise me. The guy next to me just goes on munching his cheeseburger. But something special has happened, even if I’m the only one who knows it. The band on the radio are most likely second- or third-generation Puerto Ricans who were raised uptown, way uptown—in the Bronx—in a different world from me. But through the music, they’ve connected with an Englishman way downtown, in a way that would otherwise never happen.
”
”
Joe Jackson (A Cure For Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage)
“
This is how it comes to pass that one morning you open up the newspaper and discover that somebody else has written your book, or directed your play, or released your record, or produced your movie, or founded your business, or launched your restaurant, or patented your invention—or in any way whatsoever manifested some spark of inspiration that you’d had years ago, but had never entirely cultivated, or had never gotten around to finishing. This may vex you, but it really shouldn’t, because you didn’t deliver!
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
Do not shy away from eating alone. Even going to a restaurant alone is ideal.
”
”
Mitta Xinindlu
“
This is how it comes to pass that one morning you open up the newspaper and discover that somebody else has written your book, or directed your play, or released your record, or produced your movie, or founded your business, or launched your restaurant, or patented your invention—or in any way whatsoever manifested some spark of inspiration that you’d had years ago, but had never entirely cultivated, or had never gotten around to finishing. This may vex you, but it really shouldn’t, because you didn’t deliver! You didn’t show up ready enough, or fast enough, or openly enough for the idea to take hold within you and complete itself. Therefore, the idea went hunting for a new partner, and somebody else got to make the thing.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
My eyes flickered toward the kitchen window. There she was, a large blue dragonfly (une libellule), zipping around in the blue sky, soaring and diving, never crashing down. These beautiful insects were the reason my grand-mère named the restaurant Les Libellules. I knew she wasn't the same one my grand-mère had discovered when she'd found her inspiration, but part of me wanted to believe that this marvelous creature, its iridescent wings sparkling in the sunlight, embodied her spirit, and the crazy notion that she was checking in on me bolstered my confidence.
”
”
Samantha Verant (Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars (Sophie Valroux #2))
“
studio, and a bar and restaurant. The staff is professional and friendly, and like the hotel in the book, the real hotel is located on the edge of town within easy walking distance of not only shopping, restaurants, museums, and galleries but also Children’s Beach, Jetties Beach, and Brant Point Light. Website: Thenantuckethotel.com; Instagram: @thenantucket. The only accommodation that is directly on the beach is the Cliffside Beach Club, which was the inspiration for my first novel, The Beach Club.
”
”
Elin Hilderbrand (The Hotel Nantucket)
“
It never fails, the most awful human beings, the power hungry, those with the least personality, kindness, and humanity, are general managers in restaurants.
”
”
Michael Cecchi-Azzolina (Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D')
“
The more you ask, the more you get, but it takes practice to get good at it. success is a numbers game. As the Buddhist sages observed, “Every arrow that hits the bull’s eye is the result of one hundred misses.” Flex your “asking muscles” by asking for a better table at your favorite restaurant, for a free second scoop at your local ice cream shop or for a complimentary upgrade on your next airline flight. you might be surprised at the abundance that will flow into your life when you just ask sincerely for the things you want.
”
”
Robin Sharma (Daily Inspiration From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari)
“
historical statistics tell us that July and August are the busy times on the Camino, June close but somewhat quieter, and that the shoulder seasons of May and September are ideal – warm without being too hot, and quieter without any danger of albergues and restaurants closing. April and October are seen as pushing it, weather-wise and from an infrastructure standpoint, while November to March are only for those hardy fools who either relish frozen appendages and feel that hiking 800 kilometres isn’t already enough of a challenge, or are just way too busy the rest of the year with their job as assistant manager of paddling pool security.
”
”
Dean Johnston (Behind the Albergue Door: Inspiration Agony Adventure on the Camino de Santiago)
“
The British public first fell in love with Jamie Oliver’s authentic, down-to-earth personality in the late ‘90s when he was featured in a documentary on the River Café. Jamie became a household name because of his energetic and infectious way of inspiring people to believe that anyone can cook and eat well. In his TV shows and cookery books and on his website, he made the concept of cooking good food practical and accessible to anyone. When Jamie Oliver opened a new restaurant in Perth, it naturally caused a bit of a buzz. High-profile personalities and big brands create an air of expectation. Brands like Jamie Oliver are talked about not just because of their fame and instant recognition, but because they have meaning attached to them. And people associate Jamie with simplicity, inclusiveness, energy, and creativity. If you’re one of the first people to have the experience of eating at the new Jamie’s Italian, then you’ve instantly got a story that you can share with your friends. The stories we tell to others (and to ourselves) are the reason that people were prepared to queue halfway down the street when Jamie’s Italian opened the doors to its Perth restaurant in March of 2013. As with pre-iPhone launch lines at the Apple store, the reaction of customers frames the scarcity of the experience. When you know there’s a three-month wait for a dinner booking (there is, although 50% of the restaurant is reserved for walk-ins), it feels like a win to be one of the few to have a booking. The reaction of other people makes the story better in the eyes of prospective diners. The hype and the scarcity just heighten the anticipation of the experience. People don’t go just for the food; they go for the story they can tell. Jamie told the UK press that 30,000 napkins are stolen from branches of his restaurant every month. Customers were also stealing expensive toilet flush handles until Jamie had them welded on. The loss of the linen and toilet fittings might impact Jamie’s profits, but it also helps to create the myth of the brand. QUESTIONS FOR YOU How would you like customers to react to your brand?
”
”
Bernadette Jiwa (The Fortune Cookie Principle: The 20 Keys to a Great Brand Story and Why Your Business Needs One)
“
recruiters wooed interesting candidates they had spotted with a cloak-and-dagger shtick. They would hand out blank envelopes that contained invitations to meet at a specific time and place, usually a bar or restaurant near the event, for an initial interview. The candidates that showed up would discover they were among only a handful of people who been anointed out of all the conference attendees. They were immediately made to feel special and inspired. Like many
”
”
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Inventing the Future)
“
Chew like a Cow I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. —PSALM 119:15 We want God’s time. But are we willing to give Him a portion of our day, our thoughts? Meditation takes effort, discipline, and the willingness to make space for God. We are in so much of a hurry that we just can’t seem to fit meditation into our busy schedules. Oh, most of us want an intimate relationship with the Lord, but are we ready to give of our time? After all…we are busy. We’ve got to make more money, buy bigger toys, and race our children from one activity to another. I get tired just thinking about all the activities, don’t you? Those activities and the scrambling we do to get from one to the next start to breed impatience. I’ve even heard people complain at a fast-food restaurant that they need to speed up the service! No wonder we aren’t able to meditate on God’s Word. We are in too much of a hurry. Contrast this idea of constantly hurrying with the idea given in today’s verse. It says we are to meditate on God’s precepts. To meditate means to dwell on a passage. Sort of like a cow chewing her cud. Why do cows spend so much time chewing their cud? Cows first fill their stomachs with grass and other food. Then they begin the long chew-and-rechew process. It seems painfully slow, but this process turns the food into rich, creamy milk. Time consuming? Yes. But it’s a must if you want good milk. That’s the way it is with us Christians. If we want to grow, we must slow down and meditate on God’s principles. We need to read His precious truths, then ponder their meaning and influence and wonder. Take comfort in knowing that there is rest and renewal for all of us when we meditate on God’s precepts. Prayer: Father God, thank You for giving me a quiet time so I can meditate on Your words. Your principles have given me such peace—for one thing, I’ve wanted to slow down. Amen. Action: Slow down—meditate. Chew on God’s Word and truths.
”
”
Emilie Barnes (Walk with Me Today, Lord: Inspiring Devotions for Women)
“
I’m going to guess that in our seventeen years together, Joe and I have eaten an average of at least one meal out a week—plus at least one or two weeks a year when we are on vacation and we get to enjoy twenty-one restaurant meals. Using this rough calculation, I have heard my husband utter that exact line approximately one thousand four hundred times. If I didn’t madly love the man, or I had years of bitter resentment born of unmet needs and unheard desires festering in me, I can see where this might make me want to stick something sharp into his eye socket and twist it around a few dozen times for good measure. But I do and I don’t, respectively, so his attempted joke is actually endearing. It’s one of his things that I’d miss tragically if it went away. It would be that “Yeah, I hated it” line—not his dashing good looks or prowess with power tools or skills on the basketball court or anything else the rest of the world can plainly see—that I’d get most choked up on if I were delivering his eulogy today.
There was a breakthrough, pivotal scene in the epically good movie Good Will Hunting, where Robin Williams plays a therapist reminiscing about his dead wife with his patient (Matt Damon). “She used to fart in her sleep,” Williams tells the clueless Damon character during an otherwise unproductive therapy session. “One night it was so loud it woke the dog up . . . She’s been dead two years, and that’s the shit I remember . . . little things like that, those are the things I miss the most. Those little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about; that’s what made her my wife. People call these things imperfections, but they’re not. No, that’s the good stuff.”
That.
”
”
Jenna McCarthy (I've Still Got It...I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It: Awkwardly True Tales from the Far Side of Forty)
“
It’s a blessing and a curse, being in this place of comfortable marital security. On one hand, you’ve got someone who will come right out and tell you if you have broccoli in your teeth or if you neglected to apply enough deodorant, somebody who will lie to you and tell you that you don’t need a face-lift and that he can see the triceps muscles you’ve been working diligently to unearth, somebody who’s seen you naked on numerous occasions without laughing or cringing or running screaming into the next room. On the other hand, you also have evenings out that look like this:
[Sitting at a stoplight on the way to dinner.]
ME: What are you doing?
JOE: I’m trying to [yank] pull out [tug] this three-inch [rip] nose hair. Where did it come from, anyway? Damn it, I can’t get it. Hey, your fingers are smaller, and you have nails. Can you grab it?
ME: You want me to pull your nose hair out?
JOE: Well, I can’t sit there at dinner with it just hanging out like this. You didn’t notice it before we left?
ME: I was very busy trying to squeeze into these Spanx, thank you very much. I think I have manicure scissors in the glove box. [Finds scissors, hands them to Joe. The light turns green.]
JOE: Hold the wheel while I do this.
ME: I don’t think this is such a great idea.
[Joe sticking scissors tips up his nose and snipping randomly; Jenna gripping steering wheel with white knuckles.]
JOE: Shit, I can’t see it without my cheaters. You do it.
ME: Honey, I would rather not stick scissors up your nose while you’re driving. I’ll do it when we get to the restaurant.
And, of course, I did, because it turned out Joe forgot his reading glasses* (which always makes for a fun and romantic game of “Wait, Read Me the Entrée Specials Again” at restaurants) so he simply couldn’t.
“You’re going to write about this,” Joe accused me as I stashed my manicure scissors back in the glove box.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked, offended. “Of course I’m going to write about this! This shit is comedy gold right here.”
Like I said, the man knows me inside and out.
”
”
Jenna McCarthy (I've Still Got It...I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It: Awkwardly True Tales from the Far Side of Forty)
“
In the restaurant, my wife always says, ‘You didn’t look at the bill.’ I say, ‘I don’t want to worry myself by looking at the bill and asking, ‘who had the onion rings?’ or ‘they overcharged me for chips.’ Because those moments all add up to years. And how much money would you pay for another year?” Why
”
”
Chris Luke (Power Habits: 101 Life Lessons & Success Habits of Great Leaders, Business Icons and Inspirational Achievers)
“
Part 1. My Life Story.
- If I can do it, so can you-
I was born and lived in one of the most oldest and most beautiful cities in Albania. for 23 years I lived under the communist regime, where everyone was poor, there was no rich people beside the Elite group who dictate the country. Since I was little girl I dreamed of fairy tale life. But for some reason no one was supportive of my dreams. It looked like they were enjoying watching us living in poverty and keep our heads down, for instance I remember when I was in 5th grade I told my literature teacher "When I get older I want to be a beautician." With a smire on her face she said "You are going to be just like your mother, keep having kids in a row" At that time I did not understood what she meant, but I did not expected that answer from an "educated" person, especially your teacher. As I got older I started to isolate myself from all the negative people until one day I asked my uncle to help me to get in a beauty college, he knew people in town that's why, I did not wanted to believe he respond. Even today I can hear his words whisper in my ears, telling me "Beauty college is not for poor children, education is only for rich kids" But that did not stopped me either, I told myself "No one can tell me what I can and can't do" They just motivated me to prove them wrong. Poor children can go to college. So I decided to make a very big move my that would either end it my life or could change my life for ever. Sep 2, 1990 I had it enough of that hell place, communist regime and all the negative people.I decided to leave everyone behind me and move forward in life, I decided to escape the communist and followed my dreams. I was also escaped from army who was chasing to kill us, but mighty God was with us. We made the local news saying "Two young girls were killed today by army forces escaping the borders" but I made it alive to Yugoslavia, I spend almost seven months there in concentration camp. There I meet the love of my life also, we dated for five months, until his visa was approved to come in US, two months later I come to state on March of 1991. New place, new chapter in my life, two weeks later got united, neither of us spoke English, it was very hard to find jobs, we manage to get a job in a local restaurant as a dishwasher and me as a bustable, at that time I was very I found a happy, so I did it with smile on my face. We were living at my husband's cousins unfinished basement. Yes we were sharing a single / twin size bed, we had to saved money so we can get our own apartment, we had nothing insite site. I remember when the manager showed us the appartment, it was green shaggy carpet, I told my husband. "Honey the carpet is thick enough, we don't need mattress to sleep on it, we can sleep on the carpet" later on a co-worker give us some household stuff to start our life with. Later that year our 1st child /daughter was born, two months later we get married in a local Albania church. Life was getting way better than living under the communist regime, later on we have two more children. We decided to bring my parents here so they can help us, I can get back to work or go to school . On April 1, 1998 my father come, we picked him at airport, with tears on his eye he was looking the street lights outside of the car window and said, "America is beautiful country, is land of dreams,....when I die please bury me here and not in Albania" By that time have I learning enough English to continued my education. I went to beauty school. two years later I graduated and got the state license. Yahhhh my dreams start coming true, remember I told you I always wanted to be a beautician. I found a job in a local salon, couple months later I was promoted to a salon manager. I did it for me and not for them who did not believed on me, As I said " I never cared
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
O’Neill jumped out into the road, jammed a note into the driver’s hand, and dodged another motorcyclist as he made his way past the endless huddle of peep shows and Chinese restaurants into a narrow, Dickensian alley piled high with rubbish.
”
”
Michael Dobbs (House of Cards: The dark political thriller that inspired the hit Netflix series)
“
He pulled me into the middle of the restaurant and stood behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle, his chin on my shoulder, as he slowly turned me to a blank space on the wall in the middle of the restaurant. "It's for you, if you ever find the inspiration to put something there."
I pressed my fingers tightly around his at my waist, my lips pressed together as tears stung my eyes. "Really?" I whispered, and felt him nod against my shoulder.
”
”
Ashley Poston (The Seven Year Slip)
“
Laughing with blood relatives
amidst memorable melodies
in the background, styrofoam
plate in hand, topped with
foods that restaurants can’t
duplicate, it hit me:
I don’t belong here.
Staring at an unbelievable
sunrise from a balcony villa
in Tanzania, it hit me:
I don’t belong here.
Recognized and awarded for
notable news journalism, a few
semesters away from achieving
a prestigious degree decorated
with promised opportunities,
it hit me: I don’t belong here.
Hoping quietly for the best, to
“win my husband over” with
traditional submission,
more frequent sex,
and minimized speech,
it hit me: I don’t belong here.
Walking down a dusty
Egyptian street filled with
the welcoming laughter of
carefree children, it hit me:
I don’t belong here.
Sitting in a church pew
notating another good
message, clapping to some
of my favorite songs, and
then exiting to talk with
familiar faces, it hit me:
I don’t belong here.
Communing with those who
know who the “real chosen”
are, beholding their unknown
names unmasked, and secret
knowledges revealed
to ponder incessantly,
it hit me: I don’t belong here.
Placed underneath the
wanting body of a rare man
who showed me
unprecedented love,
it hit me: I don’t belong here.
My soul.
My mind.
My body.
Each malnourished.
My community.
My life purpose.
Both misplaced.
All starving for home.
So, I moved. Not to what looks
and feels good for them, but to
what
”
”
Zara Hairston
“
But,later, my parents explained that a man dining at a restaurant had secretly paid for our meal as a random act of kindness. He told the waiter it was because we looked like a really nice family, enjoying a meal together. He requested that they wait to bring our bill until he left, so we did not get a chance to thank him or even meet him. But that added to the sense of magic. He could have been anyone, and so he was everyone. The whole world seemed a more generous place.
”
”
Dallas Woodburn (The Best Week that Never Happened)
“
Not only did he want this for himself, but after his recent interaction with Tiana, Naveen had a burning need to show her that he, too, could prosper. Seeing how hard she worked to make her restaurant a success made him want to do the same in his job.
”
”
Farrah Rochon (Almost There)
“
But Rio begins, appropriately enough, with the title track which Le Bon Wrote as “an homage to New York, really - to America,” he said in a 2011 interview. As with many of his lyrics, however, inspiration first came from another place: a comely Birmingham restaurant server…”I took that home and put it together with all my wonderful feelings about being on tour in America. The song started off with a girl from Birmingham - but it became about the entire United States, from the mountains in the north down to the Rio Grande.
”
”
Annie Zaleski (Rio)
“
I have no idea how millennials are getting so fat. Perhaps it’s because, as we’ve learnt, they prefer lunching via telephone to getting off their arses and going to an actual restaurant. But I think the real problem is that they are a very miserable generation who believe that Theresa May set the Grenfell Tower alight by herself and that the country would be better if it had a man called Stormzy in the hot seat. They are steered through life by campaigning websites, leftie tweets and inspirational hashtags, and as a result see inequality and injustice all around them. Especially on Instagram, where everyone else is always on holiday. And has a better-looking dog.
”
”
Jeremy Clarkson (Can You Make This Thing Go Faster?)
“
You could eat in the finest restaurants, you could partake in every sensual
pleasure, you could sing on stage in São Paulo to twenty thousand people,
you could soak up whole thunderstorms of applause, you could travel to the ends of the Earth, you could be followed by millions on the internet, you
could win Olympic medals, but this was all meaningless without love.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Midnight Library)
“
We leave Prince Arthur passing rows of restaurants and bars. Chad comes close to my ear and whispers, “It’s crowded here.” He looks at me and gently grabs my hand.
”
”
Corey M.P. (High)
“
At the Chinese restaurant, I stared out the window overlooking a tranquil garden with water features, ponds covered in lily pads, and koi fish. Amid the serenity and smell of dumplings, I struggled to breathe. It seemed the walls were closing in, and everyone was looking at me. Words danced around on the menu. I didn’t want the waiter near us. I wanted to shrink until I popped and disappeared.
”
”
Dana Da Silva (The Shift: A Memoir)
“
She gave me inspiration for my restaurant business I continued later as McHalumi and the reason for this book to appear - to pass the knowledge gathered from ayurvedic cooking classes.
”
”
Martins Ate (Martins Ate's 108 Pure Vegetarian Food Cookbook: Excellent munchies recipes for a whole family (3))
“
Why choose the only 100% vegetarian restaurant in Zanzibar? For the breathtaking views of Zanzibar's white sandy beaches and tranquil blue ocean, for truly delicious creative meals inspired from all corners around the globe.
”
”
#resortpaje
“
To bridge the gap between the two factions, improving communication was going to be key. At the same time, we needed systems, so everybody would know what they were supposed to be doing and how they were supposed to be doing it. It was my hope that both fixes would make the team feel safer—and inspire them to come along on our mission. There was a lot to be done to make the restaurant better, but there would be no point to doing any of it if the people who worked there didn’t love coming to work.
”
”
Will Guidara (Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect)
“
Reading a SoHo restaurant review in the New York Times for me is like reading Fifty Shades of Gravy. By the end of it, you're drooling and fully turned on for more.
- (done) It wasn’t always pretty in SoHo. When the moon clocked in for its night shift, the homeless community got cozy with their couture cardboard beds sprawled across the cobblestone catwalk.
”
”
Kim Lee (The Big Apple Took a Bite Off Me: A funny memoir of a SoHo-living foreigner who survived NYC)
“
Welcome to The Nest Vegetarian Restaurant, For the breathtaking views of Zanzibar's white sandy beaches and tranquil blue ocean, for truly delicious creative meals inspired from all corners around the globe.
”
”
Ivan Belomorski
“
Being a restaurateur means being a self-starter and being independent. It is synonymous with being an entertainer. You have to perform to market your idea to ensure other people will also like it as much as you do.
”
”
Jack Rasmussen (Fine Dining: The Secrets Behind the Restaurant Industry)
“
the island of Java, in Indonesia, and at Malabar, in southern India, Polo saw vast quantities of spices – including various kinds of pepper – on their way to the West. It is this incident which seems to have inspired the inventor of the dish which bears Polo’s name. “Duck à la Marco Polo” was first prepared and served at the famous Parisian restaurant La Tour d’Argent – one of the oldest restaurants in the world, facing the river Seine and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
”
”
Rafael Agam (Foods That Made History: The Big Names Behind the World’s Favorite Dishes)
“
Where Do Ideas Come From? As you begin to think like an entrepreneur, you’ll notice that business ideas can come from anywhere. When you go to the store, pay attention to the way they display the signage. Check the prices on restaurant menus not just for your own budget but also to compare them with the prices at other places. When you see an ad, ask yourself: What is the most important message the company is trying to communicate? While thinking like this, you’ll notice opportunities for microbusiness projects everywhere you go. Here are a few common sources of inspiration.
”
”
Chris Guillebeau (The $100 Startup: Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better To Live More)
“
She had a personality that did not inspire people to be better but persuaded them to be comfortable at their worst.
”
”
Lillian Li (Number One Chinese Restaurant)
“
Our culinary memory is short and we live in a very different food world now. Chances are you won’t remember the late nineties as a time when restaurants were basically inaccessible to most Americans, but it was. Our dining culture was, by and large, bifurcated. On one side, you had prohibitively expensive, mostly French-inspired restaurants with excellent service and comfortable dining rooms. On the other, there were far more affordable options serving the cuisines of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in humble settings—a genre that’s been lumped together as “ethnic food” since the 1960s. But as delicious as those places could be, they were usually locked into the traditions and time periods from which their immigrant proprietors first came. There really wasn’t a place where you could find something in between: innovative cuisine that was neither married to France nor fixed to the recipes of the motherland, made with high-quality ingredients, and available for, say, twenty bucks. I could tell that race played a major role in America’s slow uptake on this concept, which only made it more personal for me.* 9
”
”
David Chang (Eat a Peach)
“
Chimac | No-1 Korean - American Chicken Restaurant in Houston
Chimac is a Korean - American restaurant bringing you a variety of American food inspired by Korean cuisine. Come and join us today!
”
”
Saurav Sahoo
“
Shake Shack- The now multinational, publicly traded fast-food chain was inspired by the roadside burger stands from Danny's youth in the Midwest and serves burgers, dogs, and concretes- frozen custard blended with mix-ins, including Mast Brothers chocolate and Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie, depending on the location.
Blue Smoke- Another nod to Danny's upbringing in the Midwest, this Murray Hill barbecue joint features all manner of pit from chargrilled oysters to fried chicken to seven-pepper brisket, along with a jazz club in the basement.
Maialino- This warm and rustic Roman-style trattoria with its garganelli and braised rabbit and suckling pig with rosemary potatoes is the antidote to the fancy-pants Gramercy Park Hotel, in which it resides.
Untitled- When the Whitney Museum moved from the Upper East Side to the Meatpacking District, the in-house coffee shop was reincarnated as a fine dining restaurant, with none other than Chef Michael Anthony running the kitchen, serving the likes of duck liver paté, parsnip and potato chowder, and a triple chocolate chunk cookie served with a shot of milk.
Union Square Café- As of late 2016, this New York classic has a new home on Park Avenue South. But it has the same style, soul, and classic menu- Anson Mills polenta, ricotta gnocchi, New York strip steak- as it first did when Danny opened the restaurant back in 1985.
The Modern- Overlooking the Miró, Matisse, and Picasso sculptures in MoMA's Sculpture Garden, the dishes here are appropriately refined and artistic. Think cauliflower roasted in crab butter, sautéed foie gras, and crispy Long Island duck.
”
”
Amy Thomas (Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself)
“
There are two kinds, I think. The first, a friend with a small ‘f,’ is one you see from time to time, maybe go to a restaurant or a show with, talk with about general things. The relationship is inspired in a large part by either physical proximity or some particular interest in common.” “And the second kind?” “A friend with a capital ‘F’ is one you trust implicitly, one you go out of your way for and one who’ll go out of his or her way for you, one you might choose as a relative if relatives could be chosen. A big ‘F’ friend is someone you share deeper things with, emotional things like feelings and dreams.
”
”
Barbara Delinsky (Straight from the Heart)
“
In the way of a reflection of my family and friends I mused at the number of people that I encountered during the past 85 years. Everyone here has played an important part but there have been others, many of whom have now passed across the horizon of life, however the purpose of my reminiscing is to share happy thoughts while at the same time take a peek into the future.
I can look back to those first few glimpses of my life and find my grandmother Ohme, Gertrude Thieme standing at what I perceived to be a high kitchen counter making sandwiches using a slice of almost not eatable German black bread they called schwartsbrod. With great care she laden it with lard, blootwurst or sometimes liberwurst, topped with the half of a crusty Keiser roll. I always got the heel of the roll, with a quarter lengthwise slice of a crunchy dill pickle. It was the first and last time I remember seeing her before she returned to Germany and the war.
My sister Trudy had died a few years prior leaving a collective hole in my family. Her short life and subsequent death was devastating to my mother and father and I constantly felt the sorrow it brought into our home. My father unsuccessfully tried to make a success of a small delicatessen at 11 Nelson Avenue in Jersey City and we moved to 25 Nelson Avenue when my father started working as a chef at Lindy’s Restaurant on Broadway in Manhattan.
At home we exclusively spoke German which was a hindrance during World War II. My mother and father never lost their German accent and the only one of my family that made a real effort to speak English without an accent was my Onkle Willie. My parents refused to associate with my Onkle Walter and his wife Tante Wilma although they always treated me kindly and I sometimes talked with my cousins Klein Walter und Norma. The neighborhood treated us as NAZI outcasts until Italy entered the war on the Axis side and suddenly we all had to prove that we were patriotic. Eventually I joined the tin can army and learned enough English to be accepted. As my accent faded I truly became an American.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
How'm I doing, Mamma?
Celesta, twenty years gone, would undoubtedly approve. The restaurant smelled like the kitchen of Rosa's childhood; the menu featured many of the dishes Celesta had once prepared with warmth, intense flavors and a certain uncomplicated contentment Rosa constantly tried to recapture. She wanted the restaurant to serve Italian comfort food, the kind that fed hidden hungers and left people full of fond remembrances.
”
”
Susan Wiggs (Summer by the Sea)
“
En 1558, Marie de Lorraine, agissant en tant que reine régente d'Ecosse pendant que Marie Stuart (reine d'Ecosse de 1561 à 1567) était élevée à la cour de France, interdit la prédication de la doctrine réformée en Ecosse. En réaction à la persécution des protestants sous ces reines, le réformateur protestant John Knox (1514-1572) publia son oeuvre polémique misogyne, le Premier coup de trompette contre le gouvernement monstrueux des femmes (1558). Malheureusement pour Knox, la même année, Elizabeth 1ere succéda à la couronne anglaise, restaurant le protestantisme en Angleterre et aidant les protestants écossais à se soulever contre leur reine régente. Se trouvant désormais dans une situation politique délicate, Knox fut obligé de présenter ses excuses à Elizabeth pour ses opinions concernant les femmes chefs d'état.
”
”
Carolyn Merchant (The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution)
“
Read all of this story because it is unbelievable Even I am still in shock writing this story. So 2 years ago, I made a joke to my bestie at that time. I was single and wasn’t in any relationship
Firstly, I would like to thank Rhonda Byrne and the entire team of The Secret for the knowledge, hope, and happiness they have given to everyone who has ‘asked.’ My story is not about
This guy that I really like and who likes me as well had told me two weeks ago that he was going to take me on a flashy and special date once he got to know me more. Since then, we were not really talking like we used to, and I 수원오피 didn’t understand why because we had had an incredible time together the last time we hung out, and he treated me like a gentleman does and kept telling me he really likes me. Anyway, I kept the faith that everything would work perfectly and the end result would be us together.
Every day, I started visualizing us on faith and 수원출장샵 visualized us on a date yesterday, but it still did not happen.
So, I decided to just let it go, put him to the side, and just focus on visualizing myself being in a romantic and perfect relationship with my perfect partner. Then, this morning, I asked well, you won’t believe what happened In the middle of my nail painting session, my phone rang, and guess who was calling ?? The guy that I liked I could not believe it. I was very happy Long story short: we had a great conversation, then he drove here, picked me up, and took me to his friend’s mansion party, where he introduced me to all his friends, treated me like his girlfriend, and was by my side the entire night. This girl at the party asked me how long we had been together, and one of his friends asked a similar question. This made me thought I might be a heartbreaker. We had a genuine conversation, and I told him I really liked him. After 수원오피 that, we went back to his house and spent a lovely night together. I fell asleep on his chest, and he romantically wrapped his hand around mine. In the morning, I cooked him breakfast, and he loved it. That made me so happy. He treated me so romantically, and this was by far the best weekend I’ve ever had in my life. Even though we didn’t go on a date, I’m still very grateful because what happened is way better than what I had wished for.
I am very happy and grateful. I can’t wait to come back here and post the story about us finally being in a romantic and serious relationship together because we will. He is the guy I used ‘The Magic‘ for to attract to me, and he has exactly all the qualities I asked for.
That week, My heart jumped when he uttered those words. I was beyond happy. Then, after the restaurant, he gave me the best kiss ever. I was truly happy, and my 수원op heart was filled remembering. ‘The Magic’ worked in every way, and I got everything I wanted. I am beyond happy, joyful, and grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you Thank you so very much to God, to Rhonda Byrne, and to The Secret team. Thank you so very much to everyone out there who posts their inspiring stories on this website. During my 10th standard, I was faced with the challenge of scoring good marks in my board examinations. Although I 수원op was not exceptional in my studies, I was determined to achieve good results. 수원출장샵 I worked hard and put in a lot of effort, which paid off in the end. I managed to score good marks, which surprised everyone around me.
”
”
수원오피 오피쓰.ᴄᴏᴍ 수원ᴏᴘ 수원오피 수원출장샵 수원오피
“
Breakfast at Texas Roadhouse: What You Need to Know
When it comes to hearty meals and a rustic dining experience, Texas Roadhouse is a name that stands out. Known for its hand-cut steaks and warm rolls, many people wonder if Texas Roadhouse serves breakfast. Here’s everything you need to know about enjoying breakfast at Texas Roadhouse—or alternatives if it’s not on the menu.
Does Texas Roadhouse Serve Breakfast?
Traditionally, Texas Roadhouse is not a breakfast-serving restaurant. Its menu primarily focuses on lunch and dinner offerings, including juicy steaks, fall-off-the-bone ribs, and comforting sides like mashed potatoes and baked beans. However, this doesn’t mean breakfast lovers are entirely out of luck.
Special Events and Local Variations
In some locations, Texas Roadhouse may host special breakfast events or offer early morning meals for fundraisers, holidays, or unique occasions. These events typically feature breakfast staples with a Texas Roadhouse twist—think hearty omelets, pancakes, and even breakfast-themed steak dishes.
It’s always a good idea to check with your local Texas Roadhouse for any special breakfast events or promotions they might be running.
Breakfast Alternatives at Texas Roadhouse
While breakfast isn’t part of the regular menu, you can still enjoy some breakfast-inspired options during lunch or dinner. For instance:
Texas-Sized Portions: Pair steak with eggs from the comfort of your kitchen by taking advantage of their take-home options.
Sides That Feel Like Breakfast: Sweet potatoes, baked bread, and loaded mashed potatoes can give off that morning comfort food vibe.
Exploring Breakfast Favorites in Texas
If you’re in Texas and craving breakfast, plenty of nearby diners and breakfast spots offer southern-style breakfast options. From chicken-fried steak with eggs to biscuits and gravy, you’ll find plenty of places to start your day right.
The Final Word on Breakfast at Texas Roadhouse
While Texas Roadhouse isn’t your go-to breakfast destination, its hearty offerings and occasional special events make it worth keeping on your radar. Whether you're stopping by for a weekend dinner or catching a special morning fundraiser, Roadhouse always delivers a satisfying dining experience.
”
”
Texasroadhouseme
“
Texas Roadhouse Hey Dudes Shoe Collaboration: An April Fools’ Prank
In the world of creative marketing, few brands manage to capture attention like Texas Roadhouse. Known for its mouthwatering steaks and legendary rolls, the brand took its humor game to the next level with the "Hey Dudes Shoe Collaboration," an April Fools' prank that left everyone talking.
The Setup: A Perfect Match (Or Was It?)
On April 1st, Texas Roadhouse announced a surprising partnership with Hey Dudes, a casual shoe company loved for its comfort and laid-back style. The concept? A limited-edition shoe line inspired by the iconic restaurant. From designs resembling freshly baked rolls to vibrant steakhouse-themed colors, the announcement was too good (or hilarious) to ignore.
The Reaction: Fans Fell for It!
Social media erupted with excitement. Fans speculated whether the quirky collaboration was real or a cleverly disguised April Fools' joke. Some were ready to purchase, while others laughed at the sheer absurdity of walking around in bread-themed footwear. Either way, Texas Roadhouse succeeded in sparking engagement and bringing a smile to its customers' faces.
Why It Worked: The Power of Playful Marketing
This April Fools' prank hit all the right notes:
Relatable Humor: Combining everyday items like shoes with the love of food was a genius move.
Brand Connection: Texas Roadhouse played to its strengths, celebrating its beloved menu items in a fun way.
Viral Potential: The idea was outrageous enough to go viral, driving traffic and visibility for both brands.
The Takeaway for Marketers
The "Hey Dudes Shoe Collaboration" prank serves as a masterclass in playful branding. It shows how a well-executed joke can boost a brand’s image, spark conversations, and create a lasting impression.
While no actual shoes hit the market, Texas Roadhouse walked away with a big win in creativity and customer connection.
”
”
Texasroadhosueme
“
Texas Roadhouse Hey Dudes Shoe Collaboration: An April Fools’ Prank
In the world of creative marketing, few brands manage to capture attention like Texas Roadhouse. Known for its mouthwatering steaks and legendary rolls, the brand took its humor game to the next level with the "Hey Dudes Shoe Collaboration," an April Fools' prank that left everyone talking.
The Setup: A Perfect Match (Or Was It?)
On April 1st, Texas Roadhouse announced a surprising partnership with Hey Dudes, a casual shoe company loved for its comfort and laid-back style. The concept? A limited-edition shoe line inspired by the iconic restaurant. From designs resembling freshly baked rolls to vibrant steakhouse-themed colors, the announcement was too good (or hilarious) to ignore.
The Reaction: Fans Fell for It!
Social media erupted with excitement. Fans speculated whether the quirky collaboration was real or a cleverly disguised April Fools' joke. Some were ready to purchase, while others laughed at the sheer absurdity of walking around in bread-themed footwear. Either way, Texas Roadhouse succeeded in sparking engagement and bringing a smile to its customers' faces.
Why It Worked: The Power of Playful Marketing
This April Fools' prank hit all the right notes:
Relatable Humor: Combining everyday items like shoes with the love of food was a genius move.
Brand Connection: Texas Roadhouse played to its strengths, celebrating its beloved menu items in a fun way.
Viral Potential: The idea was outrageous enough to go viral, driving traffic and visibility for both brands.
The Takeaway for Marketers
The "Hey Dudes Shoe Collaboration" prank serves as a masterclass in playful branding. It shows how a well-executed joke can boost a brand’s image, spark conversations, and create a lasting impression.
While no actual shoes hit the market, Texas Roadhouse walked away with a big win in creativity and customer connection.
”
”
Roadhosueme
“
INSPIRED BY PEPPERIDGE FARM® BLUEBERRY TURNOVERS BLUEBERRY TURNOVERS Growing up, I loved to heat up a Pepperidge Farm blueberry turnover for an after-school treat. I decided I’d try my hand at making them for my kids. I think they are really close, and my kids love them. —Christine Hair, Tampa, FL PREP: 45 MIN. • BAKE: 15 MIN. • MAKES: 8 SERVINGS 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, divided 2 Tbsp. sugar 1 Tbsp. cornstarch 2 tsp. grated lemon zest 2 Tbsp. butter 1 pkg. (17.3 oz.) frozen puff pastry, thawed 1 large egg 1 Tbsp. water ½ cup confectioners’ sugar 1 Tbsp. 2% milk 1. Preheat oven to 450°. In a large saucepan, combine ½ cup blueberries, sugar, cornstarch and lemon zest. Mash well with a fork. Bring to a boil over low heat; cook and stir until thickened, 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and remaining 1 ½ cups blueberries. 2. Unfold puff pastry. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each pastry sheet into a 12-in. square. Cut each into 4 squares. Spoon 3 Tbsp. filling into the center of each square; fold diagonally in half and press edges to seal. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Beat egg and water; brush over pastry. 3. Bake until golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Combine confectioners’ sugar and milk; drizzle over turnovers. Serve turnovers warm or at room temperature. Note: If using frozen blueberries, use without thawing to avoid discoloring the batter. 1 turnover: 400 cal., 20g fat (6g sat. fat), 31mg chol., 235mg sod., 51g carb. (14g sugars, 5g fiber), 6g pro.
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Taste of Home (Taste of Home Copycat Favorites Volume 2: Enjoy your favorite restaurant foods, snacks and more at home!)
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INSPIRED BY CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL® CHIPOTLE HONEY VINAIGRETTE HONEY CHIPOTLE VINAIGRETTE We’ve all been there. It’s 7 p.m. and you’re at home with a sudden craving for Chipotle. You don’t feel like going all the way to Chipotle—it doesn’t have a drive-thru anyway—and delivery feels too slow. What’s a hungry person to do? You make an at-home Chipotle salad complete with a copycat version of its Chipotle Honey Vinaigrette! It’s one of our favorite homemade salad dressings. —Lauren Habermehl, Pewaukee, WI TAKES: 15 MIN. • MAKES: 1 CUP ⅓ cup red wine vinegar 3 Tbsp. honey 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce 1 ½ tsp. adobo sauce 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. ground cumin ¾ tsp. salt ½ tsp. dried oregano ¼ tsp. pepper ½ cup extra virgin olive oil In a blender or food processor, combine the first 9 ingredients; puree until smooth. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in olive oil. 2 Tbsp.: 152 cal., 14g fat (2g sat. fat), 0 chol., 253mg sod., 8g carb. (7g sugars, 0 fiber), 0 pro.
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Taste of Home (Taste of Home Copycat Favorites Volume 2: Enjoy your favorite restaurant foods, snacks and more at home!)
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INSPIRED BY POPEYES® CLASSIC CHICKEN SANDWICH COPYCAT FRIED CHICKEN SANDWICH After trying all the major fast food chain’s chicken sandwiches, I decided to come up with my own version. I know everyone says theirs is better than the original, but mine really is! —Ralph Jones, San Diego, CA PREP: 15 MIN. + MARINATING • COOK: 20 MIN./BATCH • MAKES: 6 SERVINGS 3 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (6 oz. each) ¾ cup buttermilk 2 tsp. hot pepper sauce 2 large eggs, beaten 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 Tbsp. each onion powder and paprika 2 tsp. pepper 1 tsp. salt ⅓ cup canola oil 6 brioche hamburger buns, split Optional: Shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, pickle slices, onion slices, mayonnaise 1. Cut each chicken breast horizontally in half; place in a large bowl. Add buttermilk and hot sauce; toss to coat. Refrigerate, covered, 8 hours or overnight. 2. Preheat air fryer to 400°. Stir eggs into chicken mixture. In a shallow dish, whisk flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, pepper and salt. Remove chicken from buttermilk mixture. Dredge chicken in flour mixture, firmly patting to help coating adhere. Repeat, dipping chicken again in the buttermilk mixture and then dredging in the flour mixture. 3. Place chicken on a wire rack over a baking sheet. Refrigerate, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Using a pastry brush, lightly dab both sides of chicken with oil until no dry breading remains. 4. In batches, arrange chicken in a single layer on greased tray in air-fryer basket. Cook until a thermometer reads 165° and coating is golden brown and crispy, 7-8 minutes on each side. Remove chicken; keep warm. Toast buns in air fryer until golden brown, 2-3 minutes. Top bun bottoms with chicken. If desired, add optional toppings. Replace bun tops. Note: In our testing, we find that cook times vary dramatically between brands of air fryers. As a result, we give wider than normal ranges on suggested cook times. Begin checking at the first time listed and adjust as needed. 1 sandwich: 384 cal., 17g fat (3g sat. fat), 136mg chol., 777mg sod., 31g carb. (8g sugars, 3g fiber), 26g pro.
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Taste of Home (Taste of Home Copycat Favorites Volume 2: Enjoy your favorite restaurant foods, snacks and more at home!)
“
INSPIRED BY KFC® ORIGINAL RECIPE CHICKEN COPYCAT KFC FRIED CHICKEN This fried chicken can be served hot or pulled out of the fridge the next day as leftovers. Either way, folks love it. —Jeanne Schnitzler, Lima, MT PREP: 15 MIN. • COOK: 15 MIN./BATCH • MAKES: 12 SERVINGS 4 cups all-purpose flour, divided 2 Tbsp. garlic salt 1 Tbsp. paprika 3 tsp. pepper, divided 2 ½ tsp. poultry seasoning 2 large eggs 1 ½ cups water 1 tsp. salt 2 broiler/fryer chickens (3 ½ to 4 lbs. each), cut up Oil for deep-fat frying 1. In a large shallow dish, combine 2 ⅔ cups flour, garlic salt, paprika, 2 ½ tsp. pepper and poultry seasoning. In another shallow dish, beat the eggs and 1 ½ cups water; add salt and the remaining 1 ⅓ cups flour and ½ tsp. pepper. Dip chicken in egg mixture, then place in flour mixture, a few pieces at a time. Turn to coat. 2. In a deep-fat fryer, heat oil to 375°. Fry chicken, several pieces at a time, until chicken is golden brown and juices run clear, about 7-8 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels. 5 oz. cooked chicken: 543 cal., 33g fat (7g sat. fat), 137mg chol., 798mg sod., 17g carb. (0 sugars, 1g fiber), 41g pro.
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Taste of Home (Taste of Home Copycat Favorites Volume 2: Enjoy your favorite restaurant foods, snacks and more at home!)