“
that is what abuse is: knowing you are going to get salt but still hoping for sugar for nineteen years. -
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in this One)
“
a wise woman puts a grain of sugar in everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.
”
”
Helen Rowland
“
Neither a person entirely broken
nor one entirely whole can speak.
In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
“
Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other things.
Love is the same way.
Use it to "season" people.
”
”
Vera Nazarian (The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration)
“
Imagine that it's sugar," Korbyn said. 'You're riding across candy.'
"Salt can never be sugar," Fennik said.
"We should talk about the definition of the word 'imagine'.
”
”
Sarah Beth Durst (Vessel)
“
i hope you can find it in your heart to be proud of the woman i have become in spite of you. - still hoping for sugar instead of salt.
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in this One)
“
Children should have a balanced diet. They should only consume sugar, salt, and fat in equal quantities.
”
”
Bauvard (Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic)
“
And a mother without children is not a mother at all, and if I am not a mother, than I am nothing. Nothing. I am like sugar dissolved in a glass of water. Or, I am like salt, which disappears when you cook with it. I am salt. Without my children, I cease to exist.
”
”
Thrity Umrigar (The Space Between Us)
“
It’s funny how the good things are all tied up with the bad. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. But either way, you end up taking your sugar with your salt and your kicks with your kisses.
”
”
Kami Garcia
“
Some of the largest companies are now using brain scans to study how we react neurologically to certain foods, especially to sugar. They've discovered that the brain lights up for sugar the same way it does for cocaine.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
The pair of us are like salt and sugar: such different flavors, but so close in every other way you could never sort us apart once we're together.
”
”
Sarah Miller (The Lost Crown)
“
That is what abuse is:
knowing you are
going to get salt
but still hoping for sugar
for nineteen years.
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1))
“
By nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across—each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip—is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.
”
”
Rabih Alameddine (The Hakawati)
“
The Kitchen
Half a papaya and a palmful of sesame oil;
lately, your husband’s mind has been elsewhere.
Honeyed dates, goat’s milk;
you want to quiet the bloating of salt.
Coconut and ghee butter;
he kisses the back of your neck at the stove.
Cayenne and roasted pine nuts;
you offer him the hollow of your throat.
Saffron and rosemary;
you don’t ask him her name.
Vine leaves and olives;
you let him lift you by the waist.
Cinnamon and tamarind;
lay you down on the kitchen counter.
Almonds soaked in rose water;
your husband is hungry.
Sweet mangoes and sugared lemon;
he had forgotten the way you taste.
Sour dough and cumin;
but she cannot make him eat, like you.
”
”
Warsan Shire (Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth)
“
There the beloved red sweater,
bright tangle of necklace, earrings of amber.
Each confirming: I chose these, I.
But habit is different: it chooses.
And we, it's good horse,
opening our mouths at even the sight of the bit.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
“
i could not contain myself any longer
i ran to the ocean
in the middle of the night
and confessed my love for you to the water
as i finished telling her
the salt in her body became sugar
”
”
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
“
there were no more words, as tears streamed down their faces and mixed on their lips, the sugar and salt of love.
”
”
Soman Chainani (The Last Ever After (The School for Good and Evil, #3))
“
it has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. i learned everything is temporary. moments. feelings. people. flowers. i learned love is about giving. everything. and letting it hurt. i learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. i learned all things come in twos. life and death. pain and joy. salt and sugar. me and you. it is the balance of the universe. it has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. making friends out of strangers. making strangers out of friends. learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. and for the pains it can’t there will always be my mother’s arms. we must learn to focus on warm energy. always. soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. for if we can’t learn to be kind to each other how will we ever learn to be kind to the most desperate parts of ourselves.
”
”
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
“
I love you, and I always will.
I need you, and I keep you with me.
The good and the bad, the sugar and the salt, the kicks and the kisses—what's come before and what will come after, you and me—
We are all mixed up in this together, under one warm piecrust.
Everything about me remembers everything about you.
”
”
Kami Garcia (Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles, #4))
“
Sugar and salt and kicks and kisses.
”
”
Kami Garcia (Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles, #3))
“
She got a confused, disgusted look on her face, like she done salted her coffee instead a sugared it.
”
”
Kathryn Stockett (The Help)
“
They may have salt, sugar, and fat on their side, but we, ultimately, have the power to make choices. After all, we decide what to buy. We decide how much to eat.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
don’t mistake
salt for sugar
if he wants to
be with you
he will
it’s that simple
”
”
Rupi Kaur (Milk and Honey)
“
And then we're at that moment when you both go and get what you want or you both go back. The moment when you say, Stuff being scared; what's on the other side is better. That moment when you inch closer to each other little by little, till your skin starts and ends in the same place. Till your faces get so close your lips start and end in the same place, too. Till you taste milk shake and salt and sugar days and the world spins and the stars sound like harmonicas.
”
”
Cath Crowley (A Little Wanting Song)
“
As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,
we become our choices.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
“
Road trips required a couple of things: a well-balanced diet of caffeine, salt and sugar and an excellent selection of tunes—oh, and directions.
”
”
Jenn McKinlay (Books Can Be Deceiving (Library Lover's Mystery, #1))
“
that is what abuse is: knowing you are going to get salt but still hoping for sugar for nineteen years.
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in this One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1))
“
Images are deceiving. Salt and sugar look exactly the same but taste very different.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
my mother
smiled
as she offered
a cube of
sugar
in her
upturned palm.
greedily,
i accepted.
i reached inside
my mouth,
delicately placing one
(just one)
on the center
of my tongue,
& i clamped
down.
salt.
this is what abuse is:
knowing you are
going to get salt
but still hoping for sugar
for nineteen years.
- you may be gone, but i still have a stomachache.
”
”
Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1))
“
Gingerbread
I knew I had to get out of there
before the icing cracked and they discovered
that I'm burnt around the edges,
doughy in the center,
that what they thought was sugar
is salt.
If I was a good girl,
if I could satisfy their cravings,
if every dream in my misshapen head
didn't bite, I might have stayed at the table.
Wouldn't you run, too,
from such voracious love?
”
”
Christine Heppermann (Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty)
“
Lastly, tea--unless one is drinking it in the Russian style--should be drunk WITHOUT SUGAR. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
”
”
George Orwell (A Nice Cup Of Tea)
“
Jules hated it when I used "delicious" to describe anything but food, but that day he was nothing if not a sugar cone of melting sea salt and caramel gelato.
”
”
Leila Howland (Nantucket Blue (Nantucket, #1))
“
The good and the bad, the sugar and the salt, the kicks and the kisses—what’s come before and what will come after, you and me—
”
”
Kami Garcia
“
Each year, food companies use an amount of salt that is every bit as staggering as it sounds: 5 billion pounds.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
If the devil decided to run for President, do you think he/she would put on their horns and wicked grin, or a suit with an angelic smile? If the wicked witch stayed green and ugly, would she have been able to give Snow White a poisoned apple? And if the Big Bad Wolf had not disguised himself as an old granny, would he have been able to lure Little Red Riding Hood into the house to eat her? And if a drug dealer wanted to seduce some school kids to get on his drugs, would he act like a greedy businessman — or a caring friend? Salt and sugar look exactly the same but taste very different. We live in a world of illusions, one filled with Luciferians acting like righteous men, and righteous men condemned as criminals.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
The good things are all tied up with the bad. Sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. But either way, you end up taking your sugar with your salt and your kicks with your kisses.
”
”
Kami Garcia (Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles, #3))
“
If sugar is the methamphetamine of processed food ingredients, with its high-speed, blunt assault on our brains, then fat is the opiate, a smooth operator whose effects are less obvious but no less powerful. A
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
You end up taking your sugar with your salt and your kicks with your kisses.
”
”
Kami Garcia
“
The work of existence devours its own unfolding.
What dissolves will dissolve--
you, reader, and I, and all our quick angers and longings.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
“
Gregory observed that our Saviour had not styled us the sugar but the salt of the earth,
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (The Complete Works of Saint Augustine: The Confessions, On Grace and Free Will, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, Expositions on the Book Of Psalms, ... (50 Books With Active Table of Contents))
“
You work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief,
the black clay of stubbornness going on after.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
“
The media have become masters at packaging stimuli in ways that our brains find irresistible, just as food engineers have become expert in creating “hyperpalatable” foods by manipulating levels of sugar, fat, and salt.11 Distractibility might be regarded as the mental equivalent of obesity.
”
”
Matthew B. Crawford (The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction)
“
Well, I am going on 83 now but not about to quit. There are too many things I know about where I want to see what happens. You, my dear, being one of them, and this new century starting.
Do what you can to make it good. And remember, as we used to say, that life is like a pudding: it takes both the salt and the sugar to make a really good one.
”
”
Joan W. Blos (A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32)
“
Many of the Prego sauces—whether cheesy, chunky, or light—have one feature in common: The largest ingredient, after tomatoes, is sugar. A mere half cup of Prego Traditional, for instance, has more than two teaspoons of sugar, as much as two-plus Oreo cookies, a tube of Go-Gurt, or some of the Pepperidge Farm Apple Turnovers that Campbell also makes.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
And the sad fact is that the church, both now and at far too many times in its history, has found it easier to act as if it were selling the sugar of moral and spiritual achievement rather than the salt ofJesus' passion and death.
”
”
Robert Farrar Capon (Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus)
“
BRISTOL HOTEL CUCUMBER SALAD Peel and seed halved cucumbers and slice thinly. Finely chop red onion and one chili pepper. Mix in bowl with white cider vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, dill weed, and a drop of sesame oil. Serve chilled.
”
”
Jason Matthews (Red Sparrow (Red Sparrow Trilogy #1))
“
the sweeter the industry made its food, the sweeter kids liked their food to be.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
In a key--but commonly overlooked--aspect of obesity, weight gain can be caused by the slightest increases in consumption, if it continues day in and day out.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
soft. i learned all things come in twos. life and death. pain and joy. salt and sugar. me and you. it is the balance of the universe.
”
”
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
“
Don’t be a slave of 3 S’s: Salt, Sugar and Sex.
”
”
Vinita Kinra
“
How could they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had been doctored; that their canned peas had been colored with copper salts, and their fruit jams with aniline dyes?
”
”
Upton Sinclair (The Jungle)
“
I love you, and I always will.
I need you, and I keep you with me.
The good and the bad, the sugar and the salt, the kicks and the kisses—what’s come before and what will come after, you and me.
”
”
Kami Garcia (Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles, #4))
“
Inevitably, the manufacturers of processed food argue that they have allowed us to become the people we want to be, fast and busy, no longer slaves to the stove. But in their hands, the salt, sugar, and fat they have used to propel this social transformation are not nutrients as much as weapons—weapons they deploy, certainly, to defeat their competitors but also to keep us coming back for more.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
I'm staying right here," grumbled the rat. "I haven't the slightest interest in fairs."
"That's because you've never been to one," remarked the old sheep . "A fair is a rat's paradise. Everybody spills food at a fair. A rat can creep out late at night and have a feast. In the horse barn you will find oats that the trotters and pacers have spilled. In the trampled grass of the infield you will find old discarded lunch boxes containing the foul remains of peanut butter sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, cracker crumbs, bits of doughnuts, and particles of cheese. In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone home to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribblings, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles,partially gnawed ice cream cones,and the wooden sticks of lollypops. Everywhere is loot for a rat--in tents, in booths, in hay lofts--why, a fair has enough disgusting leftover food to satisfy a whole army of rats."
Templeton's eyes were blazing.
" Is this true?" he asked. "Is this appetizing yarn of yours true? I like high living, and what you say tempts me."
"It is true," said the old sheep. "Go to the Fair Templeton. You will find that the conditions at a fair will surpass your wildest dreams. Buckets with sour mash sticking to them, tin cans containing particles of tuna fish, greasy bags stuffed with rotten..."
"That's enough!" cried Templeton. "Don't tell me anymore I'm going!
”
”
E.B. White (Charlotte’s Web)
“
By the yard it's hard, but inch by inch, anything's a cinch
A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step
In addition, to keep your energy levels at their highest, be careful
about what you eat. Start the day with a high protein, low fat and
low carbohydrate breakfast. Eat saladswith fish or chicken at lunch.
Avoid sugar, salt, white flour products or deserts. Avoid soft drinks
and candy bars or pastries. Feed yourself as you would feed a world
class athlete before a competition, because in many respects, that’s
what you are before starting work each day
”
”
Brian Tracy
“
She cut a small piece of the gravalax and put it on a piece of black bread, daintily spooned a bit of dill sauce onto it, and ate it like it was the last piece of food in the world. I tried to imitate her, eating so slowly, tasting the raw pink fish and the coarse, sour bread, salt and sugar around the rind, flavors and scents like colors on a palette, like the tones in music.
”
”
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
“
Thus, the sweetened breakfast was born, as was a core industry strategy that food processors would deploy forevermore...Just swap out the problem component for another that wasn't, at the moment, as high on the list of concerns.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
Some stories last many centuries,
others only a moment.
All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,
grow distant and more beautiful with salt.
Yet even today, to look at a tree
and ask the story Who are you? is to be transformed.
There is a stage in us where each being, each thing, is a mirror.
Then the bees of self pour from the hive-door,
ravenous to enter the sweetness of flowering nettles and thistle.
Next comes the ringing a stone or violin or empty bucket
gives off --
the immeasurable's continuous singing,
before it goes back into story and feeling.
In Borneo, there are palm trees that walk on their high roots.
Slowly, with effort, they lift one leg then another.
I would like to join that stilted transmigration,
to feel my own skin vertical as theirs:
an ant-road, a highway for beetles.
I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.
To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,
and then keep walking, unimaginably further.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
“
...In addition, there are millions of people in our world who are fortunate to have the availability of almost any food they like. I cannot find any reason for those people to continue consuming survival food (bread, sugar, meat, milk, and salt).
”
”
Victoria Boutenko (12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Addiction to Cooked Food)
“
I turned from my window. Suddenly it seemed odd for my neighbors on both sides to have visitors while I had none. For the first time, I felt lonely at 'Sconset.
"Let's cook," Frannie said energetically. "We will smell so good that they'll all come running." She picked up a bowl, filled it with apples from the barrel, and immediately began to cut them up. I put water to boil, got out cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, lard, flour, sugar, salt, saleratus, vinegar, and all the other things for apple pies. We both laughed happily. How easy it is, we thought, to make a decision, to implement a remedy, to act.
”
”
Sena Jeter Naslund (Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer)
“
If she [Mrs. Homemaker] didn't know how much she needed convenience, it was up to inventors like Clausi to show her the way.
”
”
Michael Moss (Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
“
Here is a soul, accepting nothing.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (Given Sugar, Given Salt)
“
Saviour had not styled us the sugar but the salt of the earth,
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (The Complete Works of Saint Augustine: The Confessions, On Grace and Free Will, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, Expositions on the Book Of Psalms, ... (50 Books With Active Table of Contents))
“
She loved him so much that it hurt. Maybe that was how love worked. If you could handle the pain, you’d find the sweetness.
”
”
Susan Wiggs (Sugar and Salt (Bella Vista Chronicles, #4))
“
They are me, these women. They are the ones who taught me to see; I taught me to see. They, we, are the ones healing the Ginen story, fighting to destroy that cancerous trade in shiploads of African bodies that ever demands to be fed more sugar, more rum, more Nubian gold.
”
”
Nalo Hopkinson (The Salt Roads)
“
GREEK STRAPATSADA EGGS In heated olive oil reduce peeled, chopped tomatoes, onions, sugar, salt, and pepper to a thick sauce. Add beaten eggs to the tomatoes and stir vigorously until eggs set into a small, fine curd. Serve with grilled country bread drizzled with olive oil.
”
”
Jason Matthews (Red Sparrow (Red Sparrow Trilogy #1))
“
Addiction to sugar may even be more intense than addiction to other drugs of abuse. Studies have found that when rats are addicted to cocaine, if they’re given a choice between cocaine and sugar, they will opt for the sugar instead, likely because the reward from sugar surpasses that of even cocaine.
”
”
James DiNicolantonio (The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got it All Wrong and How Eating More Might Save Your Life)
“
This is my heart, says the warm sugar on my lips and the salt and spice on his. This is my heart, says the warm sugar of the vanilla. This is the inside of me, murmurs the cinnamon. This is everything that hurts, confesses the bright edge of chili powder, and everything I miss and everything I hope for. This is everything I do not say but that I hold in me whispers that breath of salt at the end. This is my hidden heart of color and sugar the things you might miss if I did not show you they were there.
”
”
Anna-Marie McLemore (Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love)
“
You can use just about anything to make a magic circle, but salt is often the most practical. It’s a symbol of the earth and of purity, and it doesn’t draw ants. You use sugar to make a circle on the carpet only once. Let me tell you.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Brief Cases (The Dresden Files, #15.1))
“
HOPE CAKES 2 tablespoons butter 8 ounces cream cheese 3 bananas 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups white sugar 2 eggs, refrigerated 3 cups flour ½ teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt Topping 1 tablespoon flour ⅔ cup brown sugar 1 cup butter ½ cup nuts Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a big baking pan with butter. In a large bowl, mix together the butter, cream cheese, bananas, vanilla, and white sugar. Add the eggs. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, mixing all the while. Pour the batter into the pan. To make the topping, in a medium bowl combine flour and brown sugar, then mix in the butter and the nuts. Using a fork, gently lay the topping on the batter. Bake in oven for 40 minutes, or until an impossible thing comes true. Whichever comes first. AUTHORS’ NOTES JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Mad Honey)
“
I will tell you sincerely and without exaggeration that the best part of lunch today at the NASA Ames cafeteria is the urine. It is clear and sweet, though not in the way mountain streams are said to be clear and sweet. More in the way of Karo syrup. The urine has been desalinated by osmotic pressure. Basically it swapped molecules with a concentrated sugar solution. Urine is a salty substance (though less so than the NASA Ames chili), and if you were to drink it in an effort to rehydrate yourself, it would have the opposite effect. But once the salt is taken care of and the distasteful organic molecules have been trapped in an activated charcoal filter, urine is a restorative and surprisingly drinkable lunchtime beverage. I was about to use the word unobjectionable, but that's not accurate. People object. They object a lot.
”
”
Mary Roach (Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void)
“
When you get famous, dinner isn’t food anymore; it’s twenty ounces of protein, ten ounces of carbohydrates, salt-free, fat-free, sugar-free fuel. This is a meal every two hours, six times a day. Eating isn’t about eating anymore. It’s about protein assimilation.
It’s about cellular rejuvenation cream. Washing is about exfoliation. What used to be breathing is respiration.
I’d be the first to congratulate anybody if they could do a better job of faking flawless beauty and delivering vague inspiring messages:
Calm down. Everyone, breathe deep. Life is good. Be just and kind. Be the love.
”
”
Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor)
“
I placed some of the DNA on the ends of my fingers and rubbed them together. The stuff was sticky. It began to dissolve on my skin. 'It's melting -- like cotton candy.'
'Sure. That's the sugar in the DNA,' Smith said.
'Would it taste sweet?'
'No. DNA is an acid, and it's got salts in it. Actually, I've never tasted it.'
Later, I got some dried calf DNA. I placed a bit of the fluff on my tongue. It melted into a gluey ooze that stuck to the roof of my mouth in a blob. The blob felt slippery on my tongue, and the taste of pure DNA appeared. It had a soft taste, unsweet, rather bland, with a touch of acid and a hint of salt. Perhaps like the earth's primordial sea. It faded away.
Page 67, in Richard Preston's biographical essay on Craig Venter, "The Genome Warrior" (originally published in The New Yorker in 2000).
”
”
Timothy Ferris (The Best American Science Writing 2001)
“
ZERO BELLY VINAIGRETTE There’s developing research to suggest vinegar can aid weight loss by keeping our blood sugar steady. One study among pre-diabetics found the addition of 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to a high-carb meal reduced the subsequent rise in blood sugar by 34 percent. Shake up this recipe in a mason jar and you’ll have delicious, additive-free dressing for the week! Yield: 1 cup, about 16 servings ⅓ cup raw apple cider vinegar ⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil 1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard 1½ teaspoons honey ¼ teaspoon salt
”
”
David Zinczenko (Zero Belly Diet: Lose Up to 16 lbs. in 14 Days!)
“
Though we typically turn to sugar to balance out bitter flavors in a sauce or soup, it turns out that salt masks bitterness much more effectively than sugar. See for yourself with a little tonic water, Campari, or grapefruit juice, all of which are both bitter and sweet. Taste a spoonful, then add a pinch of salt and taste again. You’ll be surprised by how much bitterness subsides.
”
”
Samin Nosrat (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking)
“
All Carolina folk are crazy for mayonnaise, mayonnaise is as ambrosia to them, the food of their tarheeled gods. Mayonnaise comforts them, causes the vowels to slide more musically along their slow tongues, appeasing their grease-conditioned taste buds while transporting those buds to a place higher than lard could ever hope to fly. Yellow as summer sunlight, soft as young thighs, smooth as a Baptist preacher's rant, falsely innocent as a magician's handkerchief, mayonnaise will cloak a lettuce leaf, some shreds of cabbage, a few hunks of cold potato in the simplest splendor, restyling their dull character, making them lively and attractive again, granting them the capacity to delight the gullet if not the heart. Fried oysters, leftover roast, peanut butter: rare are the rations that fail to become instantly more scintillating from contact with this inanimate seductress, this goopy glory-monger, this alchemist in a jar.
The mystery of mayonnaise-and others besides Dickie Goldwire have surely puzzled over this_is how egg yolks, vegetable oil, vinegar (wine's angry brother), salt, sugar (earth's primal grain-energy), lemon juice, water, and, naturally, a pinch of the ol' calcium disodium EDTA could be combined in such a way as to produce a condiment so versatile, satisfying, and outright majestic that mustard, ketchup, and their ilk must bow down before it (though, a at two bucks a jar, mayonnaise certainly doesn't put on airs)or else slink away in disgrace. Who but the French could have wrought this gastronomic miracle? Mayonnaise is France's gift to the New World's muddled palate, a boon that combines humanity's ancient instinctive craving for the cellular warmth of pure fat with the modern, romantic fondness for complex flavors: mayo (as the lazy call it) may appear mild and prosaic, but behind its creamy veil it fairly seethes with tangy disposition. Cholesterol aside, it projects the luster that we astro-orphans have identified with well-being ever since we fell from the stars.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Villa Incognito)
“
Ox Cart Man
In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar's portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart's floor.
He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hoped by hand at the forge's fire.
He walks by his ox's head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
and the bag that carried potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.
When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year's coin for salt and taxes,
and at home by fire's light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year's ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.
”
”
Donald Hall
“
An artist must regulate his life.
Here is a time-table of my daily acts. I rise at 7.18; am inspired from 10.23 to 11.47. I lunch at 12.11 and leave the table at 12.14. A healthy ride on horse-back round my domain follows from 1.19 pm to 2.53 pm. Another bout of inspiration from 3.12 to 4.7 pm. From 5 to 6.47 pm various occupations (fencing, reflection, immobility, visits, contemplation, dexterity, natation, etc.)
Dinner is served at 7.16 and finished at 7.20 pm. From 8.9 to 9.59 pm symphonic readings (out loud). I go to bed regularly at 10.37 pm. Once a week (on Tuesdays) I awake with a start at 3.14 am.
My only nourishment consists of food that is white: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, veal, salt, coco-nuts, chicken cooked in white water, mouldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish (without their skin). I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with the juice of the Fuschia. I have a good appetite but never talk when eating for fear of strangling myself.
I breathe carefully (a little at a time) and dance very rarely. When walking I hold my ribs and look steadily behind me.
My expression is very serious; when I laugh it is unintentional, and I always apologise very politely.
I sleep with only one eye closed, very profoundly. My bed is round with a hole in it for my head to go through. Every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another.
”
”
Erik Satie
“
You have a choice. You can continue eating the foods manufacturers want you to buy that are making you unhealthy. Or you can return to eating the foods God provided for you, already magnificently packaged in their own skins, rinds, pods and shells. Foods that contain all the human-appropriate vitamins and minerals you need, and the right proportion of sugar, fat, salt and calories. Will you listen to God, or will you continue listening to the marketing and advertising gurus whose agenda has nothing to do with your health?Cukierkorn, Rabbi Celso; Collins, Susan Ford (2012-10-11). The Miracle Diet: Lose Weight, Gain Health... 10 Diet Skills (p. 103).
”
”
Celso Cukierkorn (The Miracle Diet: Lose Weight, Gain Health... 10 Diet Skills)
“
A healthy attitude to eating I am concerned about the current victimisation of food. The apparent need to divide the contents of our plates into heroes and villains. The current villains are sugar and gluten, though it used to be fat, and before that it was salt (and before that it was carbs and . . . oh, I’ve lost track). It is worth remembering that today’s devil will probably be tomorrow’s angel and vice versa. We risk having the life sucked out of our eating by allowing ourselves to be shamed over our food choices. If this escalates, historians may look back on this generation as one in which society’s decision about what to eat was driven by guilt and shame rather than by good taste or pleasure. Well, not on my watch. Yes, I eat cake, and ice cream and meat. I eat biscuits and bread and drink alcohol too. What is more, I eat it all without a shred of guilt. And yet, I like to think my eating is mindful rather than mindless. I care deeply about where my food has come from, its long-term effect on me and the planet. That said, I eat what you might call ‘just enough’ rather than too much. My rule of thumb – just don’t eat too much of any one thing.
”
”
Nigel Slater (A Year of Good Eating: The Kitchen Diaries III)
“
Is she pretty?”
That would be a hell yes. Big soft eyes, full pink lips. Legs and tight skirts. And those damn cowboy boots. And the yoga pants and bra top she wore sailing. Long blond hair—-at least he thought it was long; she always kept it wound up and clipped in a messy bun. He’d dated white girls before, a time or two. But never someone that white, from Texas. Or that young. She was what, fifteen years younger, at least. An itty-bitty thing who could throw a grown man to the ground.
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s real pretty.
”
”
Susan Wiggs (Sugar and Salt (Bella Vista Chronicles, #4))
“
When the carnivorous animal finds prey, he boldly seizes the prey and greedily laps the jetting blood. On the contrary, the herbivorous animal refuses his natural food, leaving it untouched, if it is sprinkled with a little blood.
In men we find they cannot bear even the sight of [animal] killings. Slaughterhouses are always recommended to be removed far from the towns. Can flesh then be considered the natural food of man, when both his eyes and his nose are so much against it, unless deceived by flavors of spices, salt and sugar?
”
”
Yukteswar Giri (The Holy Science)
“
What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on
its black cord over the house. On the television
was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles
were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his
hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings
like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of
lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes,
salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed
the country. There was a brief commercial in
Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk of how difficult it had become to govern.
The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel
told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the
table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to
bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on
the table. They were like dried peach halves. There
is no other way to say this. He took one of them in
his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a
water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of
fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone,
tell your people they can go f--- themselves. He
swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held
the last of his wine in the air. Something for your
poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor
caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on
the floor were pressed to the ground.
”
”
Carolyn Forché
“
Have You Prayed”
When the wind
turns and asks, in my father’s voice,
Have you prayed?
I know three things. One:
I’m never finished answering to the dead.
Two: A man is four winds and three fires.
And the four winds are his father’s voice,
his mother’s voice . . .
Or maybe he’s seven winds and ten fires.
And the fires are seeing, hearing, touching,
dreaming, thinking . . .
Or is he the breath of God?
When the wind turns traveler
and asks, in my father’s voice, Have you prayed?
I remember three things.
One: A father’s love
is milk and sugar,
two-thirds worry, two-thirds grief, and what’s left over
is trimmed and leavened to make the bread
the dead and the living share.
And patience? That’s to endure
the terrible leavening and kneading.
And wisdom? That’s my father’s face in sleep.
When the wind
asks, Have you prayed?
I know it’s only me
reminding myself
a flower is one station between
earth’s wish and earth’s rapture, and blood
was fire, salt, and breath long before
it quickened any wand or branch, any limb
that woke speaking. It’s just me
in the gowns of the wind,
or my father through me, asking,
Have you found your refuge yet?
asking, Are you happy?
Strange. A troubled father. A happy son.
The wind with a voice. And me talking to no one.
”
”
Li-Young Lee (Behind My Eyes: Poems)
“
Feeling Faint Issue: I’m happy losing weight with a low carbohydrate diet, but I’m always tired, get light headed when I stand up, and if I exercise for more than 10 minutes I feel like I’m going to pass out. Response: Congratulations on your weight loss success, and with just a small adjustment to your diet, you can say goodbye to your weakness and fatigue. The solution is salt…a bit more salt to be specific. This may sound like we’re crazy when many experts argue that we should all eat less salt, however these are the same experts who tell us that eating lots of carbohydrates and sugar is OK. But what they don’t tell you is that your body functions very differently when you are keto-adapted. When you restrict carbs for a week or two, your kidneys switch from retaining salt to rapidly excreting it, along with a fair amount of stored water. This salt and water loss explains why many people experience rapid weight loss in the first couple of weeks on a low carbohydrate diet. Ridding your body of this excess salt and water is a good thing, but only up to a point. After that, if you don’t replace some of the ongoing sodium excretion, the associated water loss can compromise your circulation The end result is lightheadedness when you stand up quickly or fatigue if you exercise enough to get ‘warmed up’. Other common side effects of carbohydrate restriction that go away with a pinch of added salt include headache and constipation; and over the long term it also helps the body maintain its muscles. The best solution is to include 1 or 2 cups of bouillon or broth in your daily schedule. This adds only 1-2 grams of sodium to your daily intake, and your ketoadapted metabolism insures that you pass it right on through within a matter of hours (allaying any fears you might have of salt buildup in your system). This rapid clearance also means that on days that you exercise, take one dose of broth or bouillon within the hour before you start.
”
”
Jeff S. Volek (The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living: An Expert Guide to Making the Life-Saving Benefits of Carbohydrate Restriction Sustainable and Enjoyable)
“
The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead...
...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin.
It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair.
Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus...
...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.
”
”
Rupert Thomson (The Five Gates of Hell)
“
The now-famous yearly Candlebrow Conferences, like the institution itself, were subsidized out of the vast fortune of Mr. Gideon Candlebrow of Grossdale, Illinois, who had made his bundle back during the great Lard Scandal of the '80s, in which, before Congress put an end to the practice, countless adulterated tons of that comestible were exported to Great Britain, compromising further an already debased national cuisine, giving rise throughout the island, for example, to a Christmas-pudding controversy over which to this day families remain divided, often violently so. In the consequent scramble to develop more legal sources of profit, one of Mr. Candlebrow's laboratory hands happened to invent "Smegmo," an artificial substitute for everything in the edible-fat category, including margarine, which many felt wasn't that real to begin with. An eminent Rabbi of world hog capital Cincinnati, Ohio, was moved to declare the product kosher, adding that "the Hebrew people have been waiting four thousand years for this. Smegmo is the Messiah of kitchen fats." [...]
Miles, locating the patriotically colored Smegmo crock among the salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, steak sauce, sugar and molasses, opened and sniffed quizzically at the contents. "Say, what is this stuff?"
"Goes with everything!" advised a student at a nearby table. "Stir it in your soup, spread it on your bread, mash it into your turnips! My doormates comb their hair with it! There's a million uses for Smegmo!
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Against the Day)
“
Dink, my boy, I'll be a millionaire in ten years. You know what I'm figuring out all this time? I'm going at this scientifically. I'm figuring out the number of fools there are on the top of this globe, classifying 'em, looking out what they want to be fooled on. I'm making an exact science of it."
"Go on," said Dink, amused and perplexed, for he was trying to distinguish the serious and the humorous.
"What's the principle of a patent medicine?—advertise first, then concoct your medicine. All the science of Foolology is: first, find something all the fools love and enjoy, tell them it's wrong, hammer it into them, give them a substitute and sit back, chuckle, and shovel away the ducats. Bread's wrong, coffee's wrong, beer's wrong. Why, Dink, in the next twenty years all the fools will be feeding on substitutes for everything they want; no salt—denatured sugar—anti-tea—oiloline—peanut butter—whale's milk—et cetera, et ceteray, and blessing the name of the fool-master who fooled them.
”
”
Owen Johnson (Stover at Yale)
“
There is a visitor, Countess.”
“A visitor?” Mother looks toward the rain-drenched windows. “Who would be out in this mess? Has their car given out?”
“No, My Lady. The young woman says her name is Nancy Herald. She apologized for not making an appointment and provided her card. It seems to be a business proposition.”
My mother makes a sweeping motion with the back of her hand.
“I have no interest or time for business propositions. Send her on her way, please.”
Stanhope places a business card on the table, bows, and leaves the room.
Penny picks it up as she sips her drink, looks it over—and then spits her brandy all over the carpet.
“Penelope!” mother yells.
My sister stands up, waving the card over her head like Veruca Salt after she got her hands on the golden ticket to the chocolate factory.
“Stanhope!” she screams. “Don’t let her leave! She a television producer!”
Penny turns to me and in a quieter but urgent voice says, “She’s a television producer.”
As if I didn’t hear her the first time.
Then she sprints from the room. Or . . . tries to. Halfway to the door, her heel catches on the carpet and she falls flat on her face with an “Ooof.”
“Are you all right, Pen?”
She pulls herself up, waving her hands. “I’m fine! Or I will be, as long as she doesn’t leave!”
The second try’s the charm, and Penelope scurries out of the room as fast as her four-inch heels will take her.
My mother shakes her head at my sister’s retreating form.
“Too much sugar, that one.”
Then she drains her glass.
”
”
Emma Chase (Royally Matched (Royally, #2))
“
Jaclyn’s Snickerdoodle Recipe Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cup BUTTER, softened 1 teaspoon pure vanilla 2 eggs 2-3/4 cups flour 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon AND a secret ingredient! 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (cookies are good without the nutmeg, but sooo good with it) Instructions: Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine first four ingredients and mix well In separate bowl combine flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda. Then mix into creamed mixture. Blend well to avoid flour clumps! Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Combine the 2 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Roll each dough ball in the sugar mixture and place on a cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake approximately 10 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet immediately and allow to cool. ENJOY warm or allow to cool. Serve with cold milk or hot beverage of your choice. These keep best in the refrigerator if they last more than a few minutes!!
”
”
Cindy Caldwell (Snickerdoodle Secrets (River's End Ranch, #25))
“
The danger of speaking about life exclusively in terms of problem and solution is that we are thus tempted to overlook the limitations of this detective game and the very existence of the initial arbitrary rules that makes the playing of it possible. The rule is to exclude from the terms of the problem everything that the solution cannot solve. It is diverting and useful to know that, for the chemist, a man is made up of a few pennyworth of salt, sugar, iron, and what not, together with an intolerable deal of water. But we must not assert that ‘man is, in fact, nothing but’ these things, or suppose that the solution of the pennyworths in the water will produce a complete and final solution of man. . . .
It was said by Kronecker, the mathematician: ‘God made the integers; all else is the work of man.’ Man can table the integers and arrange them into problems that he can solve in the terms in which they are set. But before the inscrutable mystery of the integers themselves he is helpless, unless he calls upon that tri-unity in himself that is made in the image of God, and can include and create the integers.
”
”
Dorothy L. Sayers (Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine)
“
Soba noodles with eggplant and mango This dish has become my mother’s ultimate cook-to-impress fare. And she is not the only one, as I have been informed by many readers. It is the refreshing nature of the cold buckwheat noodles the sweet sharpness of the dressing and the muskiness of mango that make it so pleasing. Serve this as a substantial starter or turn it into a light main course by adding some fried firm tofu. Serves 6 1/2 cup rice vinegar 3 tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1/2 fresh red chile, finely chopped 1 tsp toasted sesame oil grated zest and juice of 1 lime 1 cup sunflower oil 2 eggplants, cut into 3/4-inch dice 8 to 9 oz soba noodles 1 large ripe mango, cut into 3/8-inch dice or into 1/4-inch-thick strips 12/3 cup basil leaves, chopped (if you can get some use Thai basil, but much less of it) 21/2 cups cilantro leaves, chopped 1/2 red onion, very thinly sliced In a small saucepan gently warm the vinegar, sugar and salt for up to 1 minute, just until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and add the garlic, chile and sesame oil. Allow to cool, then add the lime zest and juice. Heat up the sunflower oil in a large pan and shallow-fry the eggplant in three or four batches. Once golden brown remove to a colander, sprinkle liberally with salt and leave there to drain. Cook the noodles in plenty of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally. They should take 5 to 8 minutes to become tender but still al dente. Drain and rinse well under running cold water. Shake off as much of the excess water as possible, then leave to dry on a dish towel. In a mixing bowl toss the noodles with the dressing, mango, eggplant, half of the herbs and the onion. You can now leave this aside for 1 to 2 hours. When ready to serve add the rest of the herbs and mix well, then pile on a plate or in a bowl.
”
”
Yotam Ottolenghi (Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi)
“
A primary goal of food science is to create products that are more attractive to consumers. Nearly every food in a bag, box, or jar has been enhanced in some way, if only with additional flavoring. Companies spend millions of dollars to discover the most satisfying level of crunch in a potato chip or the perfect amount of fizz in a soda. Entire departments are dedicated to optimizing how a product feels in your mouth—a quality known as orosensation. French fries, for example, are a potent combination—golden brown and crunchy on the outside, light and smooth on the inside. Other processed foods enhance dynamic contrast, which refers to items with a combination of sensations, like crunchy and creamy. Imagine the gooeyness of melted cheese on top of a crispy pizza crust, or the crunch of an Oreo cookie combined with its smooth center. With natural, unprocessed foods, you tend to experience the same sensations over and over—how’s that seventeenth bite of kale taste? After a few minutes, your brain loses interest and you begin to feel full. But foods that are high in dynamic contrast keep the experience novel and interesting, encouraging you to eat more. Ultimately, such strategies enable food scientists to find the “bliss point” for each product—the precise combination of salt, sugar, and fat that excites your brain and keeps you coming back for more. The result, of course, is that you overeat because hyperpalatable foods are more attractive to the human brain. As Stephan Guyenet, a neuroscientist who specializes in eating behavior and obesity, says, “We’ve gotten too good at pushing our own buttons.” The modern food industry, and the overeating habits it has spawned, is just one example of the 2nd Law of Behavior Change: Make it attractive. The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.
”
”
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
“
1 cup of ordinary white flour a pinch of salt 2 eggs 2½ cups of milk and water (1½ cups of milk and 1 cup of water mixed) 1 tablespoon of either vegetable oil or melted butter (You’ll also need some granulated sugar and a couple of lemons to put on the pancakes, along with other things like jams and possibly even maple syrup because you’re American.) Put the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Crack the eggs in and whisk/fork the egg into the flour. Slowly add the milk/water mixture, stirring as you go, until there are no lumps and you have a liquid the consistency of a not-too-thick cream. Then put the mixture in the fridge overnight. Grease or butter or oil a nonstick frying pan. Heat it until it’s really hot (375 degrees according to one website, but basically, it has to be hot for the pancake to become a pancake. And these are crepes, French style, not thick American round pancakes). Stir the mixture you just took from the fridge thoroughly because the flour will all be at the bottom. Get an even consistency. Then ladle some mixture into the pan, thinly covering the bottom of the pan. When the underside of the pancake is golden, flip it (or, if you are brave, toss it). Cook another 30 seconds on the other side. For reasons I do not quite understand (although pan heat is probably the reason), the first one is always a bit disappointing. Often it’s a burnt, sludgy, weird thing, always, in my family, eaten by the cook (which was me). Just keep going, and the rest will be fine. Sprinkle sugar in the middle. And then squeeze some lemon juice on, preferably from a lemon. Then wrap it like a cigar and feed it to a child. (You can experiment with other things in the middle, like Nutella or jam or even maple syrup—but remember that these pancakes are not syrup-absorbent like American-style pancakes.) This is a very peculiar interview, Joe. Let me know how the pancakes come out.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane)
“
I go to one of my favorite Instagram profiles, the.korean.vegan, and I watch her last video, in which she makes peach-topped tteok. The Korean vegan, Joanne, cooks while talking about various things in her life. As she splits open a peach, she explains why she gave up meat. As she adds lemon juice, brown sugar, nutmeg, a pinch of salt, cinnamon, almond extract, maple syrup, then vegan butter and vegan milk and sifted almond and rice flour, she talks about how she worried about whitewashing her diet, about denying herself a fundamental part of her culture, and then about how others don't see her as authentically Korean since she is a vegan. I watch other videos by Joanne, soothed by her voice into feeling human myself, and into craving the experiences of love she talks of and the food she cooks as she does.
I go to another profile, and watch a person's hands delicately handle little knots of shirataki noodles and wash them in cold water, before placing them in a clear oden soup that is already filled with stock-boiled eggs, daikon, and pure white triangles of hanpen. Next, they place a cube of rice cake in a little deep-fried tofu pouch, and seal the pouch with a toothpick so it looks like a tiny drawstring bag; they place the bag in with the other ingredients. "Every winter my mum made this dish for me," a voice says over the video, "just like how every winter my grandma made it for my mum when she was a child." The person in the video is half Japanese like me, and her name is Mei; she appears on the screen, rosy cheeked, chopsticks in her hand, and sits down with her dish and eats it, facing the camera.
Food means so much in Japan. Soya beans thrown out of temples in February to tempt out demons before the coming of spring bring the eater prosperity and luck; sushi rolls eaten facing a specific direction decided each year bring luck and fortune to the eater; soba noodles consumed at New Year help time progress, connecting one year to the next; when the noodles snap, the eater can move on from bad events from the last year. In China too, long noodles consumed at New Year grant the eater a long life. In Korea, when rice-cake soup is eaten at New Year, every Korean ages a year, together, in unison. All these things feel crucial to East Asian identity, no matter which country you are from.
”
”
Claire Kohda (Woman, Eating)
“
Because this tea kaiseki would be served so soon after breakfast, it would be considerably smaller than a traditional one. As a result, Stephen had decided to serve each mini tea kaiseki in a round stacking bento box, which looked like two miso soup bowls whose rims had been glued together. After lifting off the top dome-shaped cover the women would behold a little round tray sporting a tangle of raw squid strips and blanched scallions bound in a tahini-miso sauce pepped up with mustard. Underneath this seafood "salad" they would find a slightly deeper "tray" packed with pearly white rice garnished with a pink salted cherry blossom. Finally, under the rice would be their soup bowl containing the wanmori, the apex of the tea kaiseki. Inside the dashi base we had placed a large ball of fu (wheat gluten) shaped and colored to resemble a peach. Spongy and soft, it had a savory center of ground duck and sweet lily bulb. A cluster of fresh spinach leaves, to symbolize the budding of spring, accented the "peach," along with a shiitake mushroom cap simmered in mirin, sake, and soy.
When the women had finished their meals, we served them tiny pink azuki bean paste sweets. David whipped them a bowl of thick green tea. For the dry sweets eaten before his thin tea, we served them flower-shaped refined sugar candies tinted pink.
After all the women had left, Stephen, his helper, Mark, and I sat down to enjoy our own "Girl's Day" meal. And even though I was sitting in the corner of Stephen's dish-strewn kitchen in my T-shirt and rumpled khakis, that soft peach dumpling really did taste feminine and delicate.
”
”
Victoria Abbott Riccardi (Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto)
“
Now alongside Scovell, John eased preserved peaches out of galliot pots of syrup and picked husked walnuts from puncheons of salt. He clarified butter and poured it into rye-paste coffins. From the Master Cook, John learned to set creams with calves' feet, then isinglass, then hartshorn, pouring decoctions into egg-molds to set and be placed in nests of shredded lemon peel. To make cabbage cream he let the thick liquid clot, lifted off the top layer, folded it then repeated the process until the cabbage was sprinkled with rose water and dusted with sugar, ginger and nutmeg. He carved apples into animals and birds. The birds themselves he roasted, minced and folded into beaten egg whites in a foaming forcemeat of fowls.
John boiled, coddled, simmered and warmed. He roasted, seared, fried and braised. He poached stock-fish and minced the meats of smoked herrings while Scovell's pans steamed with ancient sauces: black chawdron and bukkenade, sweet and sour egredouce, camelade and peppery gauncil. For the feasts above he cut castellations into pie-coffins and filled them with meats dyed in the colors of Sir William's titled guests. He fashioned palaces from wafers of spiced batter and paste royale, glazing their walls with panes of sugar. For the Bishop of Carrboro they concocted a cathedral.
'Sprinkle salt on the syrup,' Scovell told him, bent over the chafing dish in his chamber. A golden liquor swirled in the pan. 'Very slowly.'
'It will taint the sugar,' John objected.
But Scovell shook his head. A day later they lifted off the cold clear crust and John split off a sharp-edged shard. 'Salt,' he said as it slid over his tongue. But little by little the crisp flake sweetened on his tongue. Sugary juices trickled down his throat. He turned to the Master Cook with a puzzled look.
'Brine floats,' Scovell said. 'Syrup sinks.' The Master Cook smiled. 'Patience, remember? Now, to the glaze...
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Lawrence Norfolk (John Saturnall's Feast)
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Reality is everything that exists. That sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? Actually, it isn’t. There are various problems. What about dinosaurs, which once existed but exist no longer? What about stars, which are so far away that, by the time their light reaches us and we can see them, they may have fizzled out?
We’ll come to dinosaurs and stars in a moment. But in any case, how do we know things exist, even in the present? Well, our five senses — sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste — do a pretty good job of convincing us that many things are real: rocks and camels, newly mown grass and freshly ground coffee, sandpaper and velvet, waterfalls and doorbells, sugar and salt. But are we only going to call something ‘real’ if we can detect it directly with one of our five senses?
What about a distant galaxy, too far away to be seen with the naked eye? What about a bacterium, too small to be seen without a powerful microscope? Must we say that these do not exist because we can’t see them? No. Obviously we can enhance our senses through the use of special instruments: telescopes for the galaxy, microscopes for bacteria. Because we understand telescopes and microscopes, and how they work, we can use them to extend the reach of our senses — in this case, the sense of sight — and what they enable us to see convinces us that galaxies and bacteria exist.
How about radio waves? Do they exist? Our eyes can’t detect them, nor can our ears, but again special instruments — television sets, for example — convert them into signals that we can see and hear. So, although we can’t see or hear radio waves, we know they are a part of reality. As with telescopes and microscopes, we understand how radios and televisions work. So they help our senses to build a picture of what exists: the real world — reality. Radio telescopes (and X-ray telescopes) show us stars and galaxies through what seem like different eyes: another way to expand our view of reality.
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Richard Dawkins (The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True)
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PORK AND BEANS BREAD Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position. 15-ounce can of pork and beans (I used Van Camp’s) 4 eggs, beaten (just whip them up in a glass with a fork) 1 cup vegetable oil (not canola, not olive—use vegetable oil) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups white (granulated) sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 1 and ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (measure after chopping—I used pecans) 3 cups all-purpose flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) Prepare your pans. Spray two 9-inch by 5-inch by 3-inch-deep loaf pans with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray. Don’t drain the pork and beans. Pour them into a food processor or a blender, juice and all, and process them until they’re pureed smooth with no lumps. Place the beaten eggs in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the pureed pork and beans and mix them in well. Add the vegetable oil and the vanilla extract. Mix well. Add the sugar and mix it in. Then mix in the baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir until everything is incorporated. Stir in the chopped nuts. Add the flour in one-cup increments, stirring after each addition. Spoon half of the batter into one loaf pan and the other half of the batter into the second loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 50 to 60 minutes. Test the bread with a long food pick inserted in the center. If it comes out sticky, the bread needs to bake a bit more. If it comes out dry, remove the pans from the oven and place them on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Run the sharp blade of a knife around inside of all four sides of the pan to loosen the bread, and then tip it out onto the wire rack. Cool the bread completely, and then wrap it in plastic wrap. At this point the bread can be frozen in a freezer bag for up to 3 months. Hannah and Lisa’s Note: If you don’t tell anyone the name of this bread, they probably won’t ever guess it’s made with pork and beans.
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Joanne Fluke (Plum Pudding Murder (Hannah Swensen, #12))
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JUMBO GINGERBREAD NUT MUFFINS Once you try these jumbo-size, nut- and oil-rich muffins, you will appreciate how filling they are. They are made with eggs, coconut oil, almonds, and other nuts and seeds, so they are also very healthy. You can also add a schmear of cream cheese or a bit of unsweetened fruit butter for extra flavor. To fill out a lunch, add a chunk of cheese, some fresh berries or sliced fruit, or an avocado. While walnuts and pumpkin seeds are called for in the recipe to add crunch, you can substitute your choice of nut or seed, such as pecans, pistachios, or sunflower seeds. A jumbo muffin pan is used in this recipe, but a smaller muffin pan can be substituted. If a smaller pan is used, reduce baking time by about 5 minutes, though always assess doneness by inserting a wooden pick into the center of a muffin and making sure it comes out clean. If you make the smaller size, pack 2 muffins for lunch. Makes 6 4 cups almond meal/flour 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut ½ cup chopped walnuts ½ cup pumpkin seeds Sweetener equivalent to ¾ cup sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 tablespoon ground ginger 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg ½ teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspoon sea salt 3 eggs ½ cup coconut oil, melted 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ cup water Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place paper liners in a 6-cup jumbo muffin pan or grease the cups with coconut or other oil. In a large bowl, combine the almond meal/flour, coconut, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sweetener, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Mix well. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs. Stir in the coconut oil, vanilla, and water. Pour the egg mixture into the almond meal mixture and combine thoroughly. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Per serving (1 muffin): 893 calories, 25 g protein, 26 g carbohydrates, 82 g total fat, 30 g saturated fat, 12 g fiber, 333 mg sodium BRATWURST WITH BELL PEPPERS AND SAUERKRAUT Living in Milwaukee has turned me on to the flavors of German-style bratwurst, but any spicy sausage (such as Italian, chorizo, or andouille) will do just fine in this recipe. The quality of the brat or sausage makes the dish, so choose your favorite. The spices used in various sausages will vary, so I kept the spices and flavors of the sauerkraut mixture light. However, this makes the choice of bratwurst or sausage the crucial component of this dish. You can also add ground coriander, nutmeg, and
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William Davis (Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox: Reprogram Your Body for Rapid Weight Loss and Amazing Health)