Sayings Recipe Quotes

It was hidden inside another book. One Valentine was unlikely to ever open." Magnus smiled crookedly. "Simple Recipes for Housewives. No one can say your mother didn't have a sense of humor.

While clothes do not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and fine feathers do not make fine birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe.

I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and say to myself "well, that's not going to happen

I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.

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

We don't do spells," she said. She sounded a little disappointed to admit it. "We'll do recipes sometimes. But no spells or cantrips. Gran doesn't hold with none of that. She says it's common.

She makes tea by hand. Nettles, slippery elm, turmeric, cinnamon - my mother is a recipe for warm throats and belly laughs. Once she fell off a ladder when I was three. She says all she was worried about was my face as I watched her fall.

If you want to know what cram is, I can only say that I don’t know the recipe; but it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely, is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining, being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing exercise.

I mostly want to remind her of the recipes of healing, and give her my own made-on-the spot remedy for the easing of her pain. I tell her, “Get a pen. Stop crying so you can write this down and start working on it tonight.” My remedy is long. But the last item on the list says: “When you wake up and find yourself living someplace where there is nobody you love and trust, no community, it is time to leave town – to pack up and go (you can even go tonight). And where you need to go is any place where there are arms that can hold you, that will not let you go.

Most people would say they love animals, but the reality is, if your using animals for food, clothing, or entertainment, you're only considering the lives of certain animals, typically those of cats and dogs.

When she set Shane’s glass of Coke down in front of him, she did it with probably a little too much emphasis; he glanced up at her with a question-mark expression.[...] ‘‘What?’’ Shane asked her, and took a drink. ‘‘Did I forget to say thanks? Because, thanks. Best Coke ever. Did you make it yourself? Special recipe?

Fourth time's the charm," she says to people who ask her what the secret of a happy marriage is, but that's not the way she feels about it. She knows now that when you don't lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that's one recipe that can't be tampered with.

Life is not a recipe. Recipes are just descriptions of one person’s take on one moment in time. They’re not rules. People think they are. They look as if they are. They say, “Do this, not this. Add this, not that.” But, really, recipes are just suggestions that got written down.

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

All this is to say that it’s not your fault that you’re fucked up. It’s your fault if you stay fucked up, but the foundation of your fuckedupedness is something that’s been passed down through generations of your family, like a coat of arms or a killer cornbread recipe, or in my case, equating confrontation with heart failure. When

What I like about cooking is that, so long as you follow the recipe exactly, everything always turns out perfect. It’s too bad there’s no recipe for happiness. Happiness is more like pastry—which is to say that you can take pains to keep cool and not overwork the dough, but if you don’t have that certain light touch, your best efforts still fall flat. The work-around is to buy what you need. I’m talking about pastry, not happiness, although money does make things easier all around.

Converting a complaint into a positive need requires a mental transformation from what is wrong with one’s partner to what one’s partner can do that would work. It may be helpful here to review my belief that within every negative feeling there is a longing, a wish, and, because of that, there is a recipe for success. It is the speaker’s job to discover that recipe. The speaker is really saying “Here’s what I feel, and here’s what I need from you.” Or, in processing a negative event that has already happened, the speaker is saying, “Here’s what I felt, and here’s what I needed from you.

Rex?” He freezes and when he looks at me I can see the uncertainty he’s trying to cover up with his motions. “I think you’re perfect. I mean, shit, that sounded sappy, but, I mean perfect in my opinion.” Ugh, how do I explain what I mean? That all those things that he is came together like the perfect recipe. “For you?” he says. “Hmm?” “Perfect for you, maybe?” He looks shy and pleased. All I can do is nod. He hoists me up onto the counter and kisses me silly.

The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day, just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep. They could see how love might control you, from your head to your toes, not to mention every single part of you in between. A woman could want a man so much she might vomit in the kitchen sink or cry so fiercly blood would form in the corners of her eyes. She put her hand to her throat as though someone were strangling her, but really she was choking on all that love she thought she’d needed so badly. What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for it’s sake. She refused to believe in superstition, she wouldn’t; yet it was claiming her. Some fates are guaranteed, no matter who tries to intervene. After all I’ve done for you is lodged somewhere in her brain, and far worse, it’s in her heart as well. She was bad luck, ill-fated and unfortunate as the plague. She is not worth his devotion. She wishes he would evaporate into thin air. Maybe then she wouldn’t have this feeling deep inside, a feeling she can deny all she wants, but that won’t stop it from being desire. Love is worth the sum of itself and nothing more. But that’s what happens when you’re a liar, especially when you’re telling the worst of these lies to yourself. He has stumbled into love, and now he’s stuck there. He’s fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he’s dealt with it, yet he can’t help but wonder if that’s only because he didn’t want anything so badly. It’s music, it’s a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won’t pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts’ house that most things men say are lies. Don’t listen, she tells herself. None if it’s true and none of it matters, because he’s whispering that he’s been looking for her forever. She can’t believe it. She can’t listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can’t think, because if she did she might just think she’d better stop. What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She’d have to feel so much, and she’s not that kind. The greatest portion of grief is the one you dish out for yourself. She preferred cats to human beings and turned down every offer from the men who fell in love with her. They told her how sticks and stones could break bones, but taunting and name-calling were only for fools. — & now here she is, all used up. Although she’d never believe it, those lines in *’s face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she’s gone through and what she’s survived and who exactly she is, deep inside. She’s gotten back some of what she’s lost. Attraction, she now understands, is a state of mind. If there’s one thing * is now certain of, it’s house you can amaze yourself by the things you’re willing to do. You really don’t know? That heart-attack thing you’ve been having? It’s love, that’s what it feels like. She knows now that when you don’t lose yourself in the bargain, you find you have double the love you started with, and that’s one recipe that can’t be tampered with. Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

My hope is that you’ll add to this someday, create more Riley family recipes with the woman who holds your heart in the palm of her hand, just as you hold hers. With every bit of my love, Mom.

This recipe book is for you, my sweet Noah, and inside, you will find me in memory. My heart is so full, as I hope that one day your wife and children’s bellies will be as you turn the page and create for them all the meals I created for you. And just like that, you’ll find I’m forever with you, alive in aromas that shall one day fill your home as they filled ours.

You know that dejection that comes upon you when you realize that the person you're talking to might as well be from Jupiter, for all the chance you have of making them get what you're saying? I hate that.

Kate: I wish there was a cookbook for life, you know? Recipes telling us exactly what to do. I know, I know, you're gonna say "How else will you learn, Kate." Therapist: mm. No, actually I wasn't going to say that. You want to guess again? Kate: No, no, go ahead. Therapist: Well what I was going to say was, you know better than anyone, it's the recipes that you create yourself that are the best.

I never intended to disappoint you. You created a one sided promise I never agreed to. Note to self: A request is not an obligation. A one-side promise is the recipe for resentment.

What I’m finding is that when I’m hungry, lots of times what I really want more than food is an external voice to say, “You’ve done enough. It’s OK to be tired. You can take a break. I’ll take care of you. I see how hard you’re trying.” There is, though, no voice that can say that except the voice of God. The work I’m doing now is to let those words fall deeply on me, to give myself permission to be tired, to be weak, to need.

More often than not, expecting to lose weight without first losing the diet that made the weight loss necessary is like expecting a pig to be spotless after hosing it down while it was still rolling in mud.

When we first come here in 1973, two men came to restaurant and say, ‘Go back to China and take your filthy, foreign food with you.’ I say, ‘You are angry. Anger comes from stomach. Sit. I bring you soup. For free. It will make you feel better.’ They ate my wonton soup. Recipe from my grandmother. They have been customers of restaurant for forty years. Meet force with softness. Recipe for life. Now you understand.” And, strangely, he did.

Whenever I hurt myself, my mother says it is the universe’s way of telling me to slow down. She also tells me to put some coconut oil on it. It doesn’t matter what it is. She often hides stones underneath my pillow when I come home for the weekend. The stones are a formula for sweet dreams and clarity. I dig them out from the streets, she tells me what each one is for. My throat hurts, so she grinds black pepper into a spoonful of honey, makes me eat the entire thing. My mother knows how to tie knots like a ship captain, but doesn’t know how I got that sailor mouth. She falls asleep in front of the TV only until I turn it off, shouts, I was watching that! The sourdough she bakes on Friday is older than I am. She sneaks it back and forth across the country when she flies by putting the starter in small containers next to a bag of carrots. They think it’s ranch dressing, she giggles. She makes tea by hand. Nettles, slippery elm, turmeric, cinnamon- my mother is a recipe for warm throats and belly laughs. Once she fell off of a ladder when I was three. She says all she was worried about was my face as I watched her fall.

Success for you is a RECIPE that ONLY YOU KNOW the ingredients for.So to you I say ,COOK UP the success that ONLY YOU know how to make and allow the world to see YOUR CREATION!

Say what you want, princess. You are a recipe for premature ejaculation, if I’ve ever seen one.

Life goes by so fast—in one blink of God’s eye, as your grandmother likes to say—so make sure you have no regrets. Do what makes you happy.

I’d like to think that when I invite friends to my house, they know what I’m really saying is, “I love you; come for dinner.

Can we believe that the real God, if there is one, ever ordered a man to be killed simply for making hair oil, or ointment? We are told in the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, that the Lord commanded Moses to take myrrh, cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia, and olive oil, and make a holy ointment for the purpose of anointing the tabernacle, tables, candlesticks and other utensils, as well as Aaron and his sons; saying, at the same time, that whosoever compounded any like it, or whoever put any of it on a stranger, should be put to death. In the same chapter, the Lord furnishes Moses with a recipe for making a perfume, saying, that whoever should make any which smelled like it, should be cut off from his people. This, to me, sounds so unreasonable that I cannot believe it. Why should an infinite God care whether mankind made ointments and perfumes like his or not? Why should the Creator of all things threaten to kill a priest who approached his altar without having washed his hands and feet? These commandments and these penalties would disgrace the vainest tyrant that ever sat, by chance, upon a throne.

One thing he'd say about her- she blushed like no one else he'd ever met. Her gorgeous skin went from warm brown to an almost fiery pink. It didn't help that Rico knew she was blushing with her entire body right now. He had loved to chase that blush across her skin.

Here’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage might work: Because you wear pink but write poems about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol, gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming. You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents of what you packed were written inside the boxes. Because you think swans are overrated. Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence. Because you underline everything you read, and circle the things you think are important, and put stars next to the things you think I should think are important, and write notes in the margins about all the people you’re mad at and my name almost never appears there. Because you make that pork recipe you found in the Frida Khalo Cookbook. Because when you read that essay about Rilke, you underlined the whole thing except the part where Rilke says love means to deny the self and to be consumed in flames. Because when the lights are off, the curtains drawn, and an additional sheet is nailed over the windows, you still believe someone outside can see you. And one day five summers ago, when you couldn’t put gas in your car, when your fridge was so empty—not even leftovers or condiments— there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew, which you paid for with your last damn dime because you once overheard me say that I liked it.

You want me to be your spy in a game of restaurant espionage? Will I need a code name?" "It's nothing morally reprehensible or anything, " Wes hastened to assure her. "Just curiosity." "I think your code name should be Tiberius," she said decisively. "I'll be Uhura." "Tiberius? As in James Tiberius Kirk?" Wes blinked, then grinned. "Oh my God, this is your version of flirting. How do you say 'I fancy you' in Klingon?

Why can’t I find a single human being that I connect with? My standards are not impossible. I want someone who makes me laugh. Who cares about what I do and what I say and what I think. I want to sit on the couch with someone in blissful, perfect, comfortable silence—pizza on the coffee table and my feet tucked under their thigh. I want someone to hand me the recipe section of the local paper while they read the headlines. I want to share all of my small, silly, silent moments. I want someone to give me butterflies.

While clothes do not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and the feathers do not make the birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe.

You can have some, but not all. Wanting to have it all is a sure recipe for disaster

The recipe says 'stir until the dough holds together'. You'll have a better chance of finding the fountain of youth than stirring this batter.

NOTE-Always remove the brown hull from the peanuts even though the recipe does not say so.

The recipe for becoming a good novelist, for example is easy to give but to carry it out presupposes qualities one is accustomed to overlook when one says 'I do not have enough talent'. One has only to make a hundred or so sketches for novels, none longer than two pages but of such distinctness that every word in them is necessary; one should write down anecdotes each day until one has learned how to give them the most pregnant and effective form; one should be tireless in collecting and describing human types and characters; one should above all relate things to others and listen to others relate, keeping one's eyes and ears open for the effect produced on those present, one should travel like a landscape painter or costume designer; one should excerpt for oneself out of the individual sciences everything that will produce an artistic effect when it is well described, one should, finally, reflect on the motives of human actions, disdain no signpost to instruction about them and be a collector of these things by day and night. One should continue in this many-sided exercise some ten years: what is then created in the work­shop, however, will be fit to go out into the world. - What, however, do most people do? They begin, not with the parts, but with the whole. Per­haps they chance to strike a right note, excite attention and from then on strike worse and worse notes, for good, natural reasons.

Witches just aren’t like that,” said Magrat. “We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead." The other two looked at her with a certain amount of surprised admiration. She blushed, although not greenly, and looked at her knees. “Goodie Whemper did a recipe,” she confessed. “It’s quite easy. What you do is, you get some lead, and you—” “I don’t think that would be appropriate,” said Granny carefully, after a certain amount of internal struggle. “It could give people the wrong idea.” “But not for long,” said Nanny wistfully.

Many cooks and food writers have nothing but negative things to say about people who have dietary restrictions or preferences. Quite often it's suggested that you just make what you want to make, and everyone can find something to eat, most likely. But if feeding people around your table is about connecting with them more than it is about showing off your menu or skills, isn't it important to cook in such a way that their preferences or restrictions are honored?

Tenways showed his rotten teeth. ‘Fucking make me.’ ‘I’ll give it a try.’ A man came strolling out of the dark, just his sharp jaw showing in the shadows of his hood, boots crunching heedless through the corner of the fire and sending a flurry of sparks up around his legs. Very tall, very lean and he looked like he was carved out of wood. He was chewing meat from a chicken bone in one greasy hand and in the other, held loose under the crosspiece, he had the biggest sword Beck had ever seen, shoulder-high maybe from point to pommel, its sheath scuffed as a beggar’s boot but the wire on its hilt glinting with the colours of the fire-pit. He sucked the last shred of meat off his bone with a noisy slurp, and he poked at all the drawn steel with the pommel of his sword, long grip clattering against all those blades. ‘Tell me you lot weren’t working up to a fight without me. You know how much I love killing folk. I shouldn’t, but a man has to stick to what he’s good at. So how’s this for a recipe…’ He worked the bone around between finger and thumb, then flicked it at Tenways so it bounced off his chain mail coat. ‘You go back to fucking sheep and I’ll fill the graves.’ Tenways licked his bloody top lip. ‘My fight ain’t with you, Whirrun.’ And it all came together. Beck had heard songs enough about Whirrun of Bligh, and even hummed a few himself as he fought his way through the logpile. Cracknut Whirrun. How he’d been given the Father of Swords. How he’d killed his five brothers. How he’d hunted the Shimbul Wolf in the endless winter of the utmost North, held a pass against the countless Shanka with only two boys and a woman for company, bested the sorcerer Daroum-ap-Yaught in a battle of wits and bound him to a rock for the eagles. How he’d done all the tasks worthy of a hero in the valleys, and so come south to seek his destiny on the battlefield. Songs to make the blood run hot, and cold too. Might be his was the hardest name in the whole North these days, and standing right there in front of Beck, close enough to lay a hand on. Though that probably weren’t a good idea. ‘Your fight ain’t with me?’ Whirrun glanced about like he was looking for who it might be with. ‘You sure? Fights are twisty little bastards, you draw steel it’s always hard to say where they’ll lead you. You drew on Calder, but when you drew on Calder you drew on Curnden Craw, and when you drew on Craw you drew on me, and Jolly Yon Cumber, and Wonderful there, and Flood – though he’s gone for a wee, I think, and also this lad here whose name I’ve forgotten.’ Sticking his thumb over his shoulder at Beck. ‘You should’ve seen it coming. No excuse for it, a proper War Chief fumbling about in the dark like you’ve nothing in your head but shit. So my fight ain’t with you either, Brodd Tenways, but I’ll still kill you if it’s called for, and add your name to my songs, and I’ll still laugh afterwards. So?’ ‘So what?’ ‘So shall I draw?

See, the institutions and specialist, experts, you see. Yes, yes, experts, indeed. See, they would have us believe that there is an order to art. An explanation. Humans are odd creatures in that way. Always searching for a formula. Yes, a formula to create an expected norm for unexplainable greatness. A cook book you might say. Yes, a recipe book for life, love, and art. However, my dear, let me tell you. Yes, there is no such thing. Every individual is unique in their own design, as intended by God himself. We classify, yes, always must we classify, for if not, then we would be lost, yes lost now wouldn't we? Classification, order, expectations, but alas, we forget. For what is art, if not the out word expression of an artist. It is the soul of the artisan and if his expectations are met, than who are we to judge whether his work be art or not?

But you won’t abdicate." Of course not. It’s my duty to go on, to maintain the line. I can’t possibly fail in that. It’s as if you and I were throwing a ball back and forth to establish a record, and had been doing so for a millennium. You cannot drop a ball that has remained airborne through good effort for most of a thousand years. You cannot stop an unlikely heart that has been beating for so long. I would rather die than betray continuity, for its own sake if for nothing else. And Britain needs a king, just as it needs motormen and cooks and a prime minister. Just as it needs soldiers who will die for it if they must. It’s my job, or it will be, but you should know that I’ve never wanted it. I was only born to it, as if with a deformity, to which I hope I can respond with grace." Fredericka had been running her finger over the carpet, tracing a pattern in the way children do when they have learnt something overwhelming and are moved, but cannot say so. Freddy expected her to look up, with tears, and that in this moment she might have begun the long and arduous process of becoming a queen. She was so beautiful. To embrace her now, with high emotion flowing from her physical majesty, was all he wanted in the world. Her finger stopped moving, and she turned her eyes to him. Freddy?" Yes?" he answered. What’s raw egg? I read a recipe in She that called for a cup of raw egg. What is that?" After a long silence, Freddy asked, "Which part of the formulation escapes you? Egg? Raw? The link between the two?" The two what?" Fredericka?" Yes, Freddy?" Would you like to go dancing?" Oh, yes Freddy!" Come then. We will.

A French conversation starter is more subtle. Work is considered boring, money is out of the question, politics comes later (and only in like-minded company). Vacation is a safe bet - it's no exaggeration to say that French people are always going on, returning from, or planning a holiday. But more often than not, social class in France is judged by your relationship to culture.

But I took a deep breath, and she sat there listening to me across my dirty coffee table, and we talked about community and family and authenticity. It’s easy to talk about it, and really, really hard sometimes to practice it. This is why the door stays closed for so many of us, literally and figuratively. One friend promises she’ll start having people over when they finally have money to remodel. Another says she’d be too nervous that people wouldn’t eat the food she made, so she never makes the invitation. But it isn’t about perfection, and it isn’t about performance. You’ll miss the richest moments in life—the sacred moments when we feel God’s grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love—if you’re too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know it’s scary, but throw open the door anyway, even though someone might see you in your terribly ugly half-zip.

It's pronounced wee but spelled O-U-I. It's all you'll want to say when you're sitting at one of the thousands of little cafes that line the streets and you're looking at a menu full of foods you just want to eat for days. And then you wake up early, and the sun is rising in shades of pink over the white buildings as you make your way through the sleepy streets until you're upon the fresh markets!

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

What we're doing, or, I should say, what you're doing, since no one has taught me any good words, is dropping recipes into people's brains to cause a neurochemical reaction to knock out the filters. Tie them up just long enough to slip an instruction past. And you do that by speaking a string of words crafted for the person's psychographic segment. Probably words that were crafted decades ago and have been strengthened ever since. And it's a string of words because the brain has layers of defenses, and for the instruction to get through, they all have to be disabled at once.' Jeremy said, 'How do you know this?' 'Do you think I'm smart?' 'I think you're scary,' he said.

I thought you had resolved this year not to make any rash decisions while consuming carbs,” he says. “I’m thinking through it. That means it isn’t rash.” “Deciding to marry someone for a roll recipe is pretty rash,” Mike says. “Mike, I am a nurse. I specialize in rashes.” “I

This is huge. Saying that a gene “decides” when it is transcribed is like saying that a recipe decides when a cake is baked. Thus transcription factors regulate genes. What regulates transcription factors? The answer devastates the concept of genetic determinism: the environment.

Pumpkin compote in a masa shell," she says. "It's a new recipe I'm going to try this week." "So, a pumpkin tamale? You know you can just call it a pumpkin tamale. Nobody's going to be impressed because you used some fancy words." Her mouth turns down. "Thank you for the editorial. Just try it." I take a bite. It's good. Better than I expected. The balance of cinnamon and nutmeg is perfect, a hint of allspice. And some ingredient I can't place. Almost... coppery? But it works.

For some, Life is rich and creamy, made according to an old peasant recipe from nothing but natural products, while Art is a pallid commercial confection, consisting mainly of artificial colourings and flavourings. For others, Art is the truer thing, full, bustling and emotionally satisfying, while Life is worse than the poorest novel: devoid of narrative, peopled by bores and rogues, short on wit, long on unpleasant incidents, and leading to a painfully predictable dénouement. Adherents of the latter view tend to cite Logan Pearsall Smith: ‘People say that life is the thing; but I prefer reading.’ Candidates are advised not to use this quotation in their answers.

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

Here is what I have come to believe: in the end, religion has done more harm than good. For one thing, there’s war, ethnic cleansing, genital mutilation, abused altar boys, the systematic oppression of women—the foundational text of Christianity locates women as the source of all evil, do not forget this when interacting with the faithful—as well as anyone who doesn’t fit into its narrow moral straitjacket. Hierarchy breeds corruption. Patriarchy cultivates debasement. Believing in something—anything—so blindly is corrosive. You follow a recipe instead of inventing your own world. There are certain corners you can’t see into. My mother used to say that raising your son or daughter to believe in God is child abuse. I have repeated this often, to shocked looks, even from my secular friends. I’m sorry: I believe it. Religious belief may be a pleasant distortion, a comfort, for a while, but too much, unexamined, for too long and it eats away at your body, turns you stupid, kills you. Serena was right: the effect is not dissimilar to alcohol.

Let the ravioli simmer for the time it takes to say two Lord's Prayers.

Truly, you understand the reverse art of alchemy, the depreciating of the most valuable things! Try, just for once, another recipe, in order not to realise as hitherto the opposite of what you mean to attain: deny those good things, withdraw from them the applause of the populace and discourage the spread of them, make them once more the concealed chastities of solitary souls, and say: morality is something forbidden! Perhaps you will thus attract to your cause the sort of men who are only of any account, I mean the heroic. But then there must be something formidable in it, and not as hitherto something disgusting!

I'm not sure I handled it well," he sais,his face so open,gaze filled with such raw regret,my heart aches on his behalf. "Considering the circumstances, I think you did fine.Besides,it's not like you stood a chance,her mind was make up the moment she saw you." Dace jerks back,his expression slighted,voice unsure when he says, "I don't understand..." I fumble with my lunch sack,wondering why I can never say the right thing around him.Having no way to explain in a way that won't sound completely embarrassing,when Xotichl steps in. "What's not to get? You're hot-Daire's gorgeous-it's a recipe for parental distress if there ever was one.

This was before the importance of set and setting was understood. I was brought to a basement room, given an injection, and left alone.” A recipe for a bad trip, surely, but Richards had precisely the opposite experience. “I felt immersed in this incredibly detailed imagery that looked like Islamic architecture, with Arabic script, about which I knew nothing. And then I somehow became these exquisitely intricate patterns, losing my usual identity. And all I can say is that the eternal brilliance of mystical consciousness manifested itself. My awareness was flooded with love, beauty, and peace beyond anything I ever had known or imagined to be possible. ‘Awe,’ ‘glory,’ and ‘gratitude’ were the only words that remained relevant.” Descriptions of such experiences always sound a little thin, at least when compared with the emotional impact people are trying to convey; for a life-transforming event, the words can seem paltry. When I mentioned this to Richards, he smiled. “You have to imagine a caveman transported into the middle of Manhattan. He sees buses, cell phones, skyscrapers, airplanes. Then zap him back to his cave. What does he say about the experience? ‘It was big, it was impressive, it was loud.’ He doesn’t have the vocabulary for ‘skyscraper,’ ‘elevator,’ ‘cell phone.’ Maybe he has an intuitive sense there was some sort of significance or order to the scene. But there are words we need that don’t yet exist. We’ve got five crayons when we need fifty thousand different shades.” In

She waves her big spoon. “You can get me that orb-weaver spider from the corner over there.” “Yes, ma’am.” “Don’t you kill it! I need it alive.” “Can I have a jar to catch it with?” “No. Use your hands.” “Why?” “The recipe says so.” Jason arches an eyebrow. “Can I see that?” “Who is the witch here? Me.” She swats him on the arm with her wooden spoon. “Okay, okay.” With a sigh, he heads toward a dark corner. She turns on me and raises her spoon.

The writer Lee Smith, who once had a New York copy editor query in the margin of her manuscript “Double-wide what?” tells a perfectly marvelous, spot-on story about Eudora Welty when she came to Hollins College, where Smith was a student. Welty read a short story in which one female character presents another with a marble cake. In the back of the audience Smith noted a group of leather-elbowed, goatee-sporting PhD candidates, all of whom were getting pretty excited. One started waving his hand as soon as she stopped reading and said, “Miz Welty, how did you come up with that powerful symbol of the marble cake, with the feminine and masculine, the yin and the yang, the Freudian and the Jungian all mixed together like that?” Smith reported that Welty looked at him from the lectern without saying anything for a while. Finally she replied mildly, “Well, you see, it’s a recipe that’s been in my family for some time.

Food prepared with a light heart and in a happy frame of mind is often the best food. Preparing the special foods that are favorites of those you love... making just a little effort to garnish the salad with a sprig of parsley, a bit of grated cheese, or a wild strawberry from the nearby meadow. This says "you cared enough to do the little extra things." This makes cooking pleasant and satisfying. Make the food look as pretty as it is good to eat. -Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, revised and enlarged (1956)

It all comes down to Jesus Christ, and what you CHOOSE to believe about Him. Jesus claims He is the Son of God. Jesus claims He died for you and rose from the dead. He claims that the only way to cancel out your sin and spend eternity in heaven is to be believe that He is who He said He was. These are the claims on the table. Bold claims. its will make you wince, won't it? Personally, I think the boldness of the claims makes the choosing a lot easier. Most people who have never actually read the menu probably assume they can order a la carte at the Jesus table or customize their own recipe of faith. But you can't say yes to the historical figure and a few parables but pass on miracles, the resurrection, and the Son-of-God thing. That is not the offering. Christ is a fixed meal. It is all or nothing with His claims. Everyone is invited, but only you can decide if you actually want to eat at His table. For those who do believe in Christ, it means getting real, being hones about your sin, and living your life as if you really mean it.

Why, for example, wasn’t AIG required to reserve capital against them? Why, for that matter, were Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s willing to bless 80 percent of a pool of dicey mortgage loans with the same triple-A rating they bestowed on the debts of the U.S. Treasury? Why didn’t someone, anyone, inside Goldman Sachs stand up and say, “This is obscene. The rating agencies, the ultimate pricers of all these subprime mortgage loans, clearly do not understand the risk, and their idiocy is creating a recipe for catastrophe”?

What will you do when you figure it out?” Kitty asks me, her mouth full of cookie. “Yeah, what’s the point of all this?” Peter says. “I mean, who cares if a chocolate chip cookie is eight percent better? It’s still a chocolate chip cookie.” “I’ll take pleasure in the knowledge that I am in possession of the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I will pass it down to the next generation of Song girls.” “Or boys,” Kitty says. “Or boys,” I agree. To her I say, “Now go upstairs and get a big Mason jar for me to put these cookies in. And a ribbon.” Peter asks, “Will you bring some to school tomorrow?” “We’ll see,” I say, because I want to see him make that pouty face I love so much. He makes the face, and I reach up to pat his cheeks. “You’re such a baby.” “You love it,” he says, snagging another cookie.

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

JOINT CUSTODY Why did I never see it for what it was: abundance? Two families, two different kitchen tables, two sets of rules, two creeks, two highways, two stepparents with their fish tanks or eight-tracks or cigarette smoke or expertise in recipes or reading skills. I cannot reverse it, the record scratched and stopping to that original chaotic track. But let me say, I was taken back and forth on Sundays and it was not easy but I was loved each place. And so I have two brains now. Two entirely different brains. The one that always misses where I’m not, and the one that is so relieved to finally be home.

You know how we men are. If we imprint on you young, you've got us forever. To do with us as you please." She smiled at Zee so sweetly that Rico braced himself for what was coming. "Or you men want us to believe that, so we can never let you go and you can use our dependence to do as you please." Zee looked delighted. "Are you saying men are more manipulative in relationships than women? That would go against the popular opinion, now wouldn't it?" Ashna mirrored his delight. "The popular opinion that men have floated through the years?" "I know a lot of women who agree that women are more manipulative than men." "Just like you've heard women say women gossip more, or pull each other down, or only feel loved when men shower them with material gifts. Patriarchal opinions that centuries of being called 'the weaker sex' and being given only the domestic space and our own bodies to claim our power with have had us internalize?

Women are like goats. It's like . . . Well, reasoning with a woman is like sitting down to a friendly game of dice. Only the woman refuses to acknowledge the basic bloody rules of the game. A man, he'll cheat you - but he'll do it honestly. He'll use loaded dice, so that you think you're losing by chance. And if you aren't clever enough to spot what he's doing, then maybe he deserves to take your coin. And that's that. A woman, though, she'll sit down to that same game and she'll smile, and act like she's going to play. Only when it's her turn to throw, she'll toss a pair of her own dice that are blank on all six sides. Not a single pip showing. She'll inspect the throw, then she'll look up at you and say, 'clearly I just won.' Now, you'll scratch your head and look at the dice. Then you'll look up at her, then down at the dice again 'But there aren't any pips on these dice' you'll say." 'Yes there are,' she'll say. 'And both dice rolled a one.' 'That's exactly the number you need to win,' you'll say. 'What a coincidence,' she'll reply, then begin to scoop up your coins. And you'll sit there, trying to wrap your head 'bout what just happened. And you'll realise something. A pair of ones isn't the winning throw! Not when you threw a six on your turn. That means she needed a pair of twos instead! Excitedly you'll explain what you've discovered. Only then do you know what she'll do?" "No idea, Mat." "Then she'll reach over and rub the blank faces of her dice. And then, with a perfectly straight face, she'll say, 'I'm sorry. There was a spot of dirt on the dice. Clearly you'll see they actually came up as twos!' And she'll believe it. She'll bloody believe it!" "Incredible." "Only that's not the end of it!" "I had presumed it wouldn't be Mat." "She scoops up all of your coins. And then every other wonam in the room will come over and congratulate her on throwing that pair of twos! The more you complain, the more those bloody women will join in the argument. You'll be outnumbered in a moment, and each of those women will explain to you how those dice clearly read twos, and how you really need to stop behaving like a child. Every single flaming one of them will see the twos! even the prudish woman who has hated your woman from birth - since your woman's granny stole the other woman's granny's honeycake recipe when they were both maids - that woman will side against you." "They're nefarious creatures indeed." "By the time they're done, you'll be left with no coin, several lists worth of errands to run and what clothing to wear and a splitting headache. You'll sit there and stare at the table and begin to wonder, just maybe, if those dice didn't read twos after all. If only to preserve what's left of your sanity. That's what it's like to reason with a woman, I tell you.

An admonition like "The more complex you make the model, the worse the forecast gets." is equivalent to saying "Never add too much salt to the recipe." How much complexity-how much salt-did you begin with? If you want to get good at forecasting, you'll need to immerse yourself in the craft and trust your own taste buds.

We use the effect of centrifugal forces on matter to offer insight into the rotation rate of extreme cosmic objects. Consider pulsars. With some rotating at upward of a thousand revolutions per second, we know that they cannot be made of household ingredients, or they would spin themselves apart. In fact, if a pulsar rotated any faster, say 4,500 revolutions per second, its equator would be moving at the speed of light, which tells you that this material is unlike any other. To picture a pulsar, imagine the mass of the Sun packed into a ball the size of Manhattan. If that’s hard to do, then maybe it’s easier if you imagine stuffing about a hundred million elephants into a Chapstick casing. To reach this density, you must compress all the empty space that atoms enjoy around their nucleus and among their orbiting electrons. Doing so will crush nearly all (negatively charged) electrons into (positively charged) protons, creating a ball of (neutrally charged) neutrons with a crazy-high surface gravity. Under such conditions, a neutron star’s mountain range needn’t be any taller than the thickness of a sheet of paper for you to exert more energy climbing it than a rock climber on Earth would exert ascending a three-thousand-mile-high cliff. In short, where gravity is high, the high places tend to fall, filling in the low places—a phenomenon that sounds almost biblical, in preparing the way for the Lord: “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain” (Isaiah 40:4). That’s a recipe for a sphere if there ever was one. For all these reasons, we expect pulsars to be the most perfectly shaped spheres in the universe.

To illustrate toaster righteousness, let’s say God decides to use toasters to spread His messages. He incorporates his love into an LLC called God’s Toasters, LLC. Toasters are now the legal and spiritual messengers of God. Different toaster brands are made all over the world. It doesn’t matter where the toasters are introduced in the world, some people support them and others oppose them. It is God’s will to have different toasters made in different countries. Toaster Righteousness comes into play when people start believing that if we do not eat a specific bread recipe and shaped bread, we cannot receive authentic holy toast. Exceptions are made with pita lovers, but everyone else in the world is doomed to live in eternal burnt-toast hell, not golden-brown toast heaven. Throughout history, bread is a staple of peoples’ diets. The introduction of toasters is supposed to support show us how to eat bread better, being grateful for the bread we are given, sharing toast with one’s neighbor, and not killing in the name of bread.

In 1944-1945, Dr Ancel Keys, a specialist in nutrition and the inventor of the K-ration, led a carefully controlled yearlong study of starvation at the University of Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene. It was hoped that the results would help relief workers in rehabilitating war refugees and concentration camp victims. The study participants were thirty-two conscientious objectors eager to contribute humanely to the war effort. By the experiment's end, much of their enthusiasm had vanished. Over a six-month semi-starvation period, they were required to lose an average of twenty-five percent of their body weight." [...] p193 p193-194 "...the men exhibited physical symptoms...their movements slowed, they felt weak and cold, their skin was dry, their hair fell out, they had edema. And the psychological changes were dramatic. "[...] p194 "The men became apathetic and depressed, and frustrated with their inability to concentrate or perform tasks in their usual manner. Six of the thirty-two were eventually diagnosed with severe "character neurosis," two of them bordering on psychosis. Socially, they ceased to care much about others; they grew intensely selfish and self-absorbed. Personal grooming and hygiene deteriorated, and the men were moody and irritable with one another. The lively and cooperative group spirit that had developed in the three-month control phase of the experiment evaporated. Most participants lost interest in group activities or decisions, saying it was too much trouble to deal with the others; some men became scapegoats or targets of aggression for the rest of the group. Food - one's own food - became the only thing that mattered. When the men did talk to one another, it was almost always about eating, hunger, weight loss, foods they dreamt of eating. They grew more obsessed with the subject of food, collecting recipes, studying cookbooks, drawing up menus. As time went on, they stretched their meals out longer and longer, sometimes taking two hours to eat small dinners. Keys's research has often been cited often in recent years for this reason: The behavioral changes in the men mirror the actions of present-day dieters, especially of anorexics.

His mother had always mothered him—she insisted on coming by once a week and ironing for us, and when she was done ironing, she’d say, “I’ll just help tidy,” and after she’d left, I’d look in the fridge and find she’d peeled and sliced his grapefruit for him, put the pieces in a snap-top container, and then I’d open the bread and discover all the crusts had been cut away, each slice returned half naked. I am married to a thirty-four-year-old man who is still offended by bread crusts. But I tried to do the same those first weeks after his mom passed. I snipped the bread crusts, I ironed his T-shirts, I baked a blueberry pie from his mom’s recipe. “I don’t need to be babied, really, Amy,” he said as he stared at the loaf of skinned breads. “I let my mom do it because it made her happy, but I know you don’t like that nurturing stuff.

Words exist. What are they made of? Air under pressure? Ink? Some instances of the word "cat" are made of ink, and some are made of bursts of acoustic energy in the atmosphere, and some are made of patterns of glowing dots on computer screens, and some occur silently in thoughts, and what they have in common is just that they count as "the same" (tokens of the same type, as philosophers say) say in a system of symbols known as a language. Words are such familiar items in our language-drenched world that we tend to think of them as if they were unproblematically tangible things - as real as teacups and raindrops - but they are in fact quite abstract, even more abstract than voices or songs or haircuts or opportunities (and what are they made off?). What are words? Words are basically information packets of some sort, recipes for using one's vocal apparatus and ears (or hands or eyes) - and brains - in quite specific ways. A world is more than a sound or a spelling. For instance, fast sounds the same and is spelled the same in English and German, but has completely different meanings and roles in the two languages. Two different worlds, sharing only some of their surface properties. Words exist. Do memes exist? Yes, because words exist, and words are memes that can be pronounced.

This isn't the first time you two are meeting, is it?" He didn't answer that. That wasn't his to tell. Ashna would tell her family and China in her own time, if at all. He just had to do this. China dropped into a chair, then jumped up again. A whole new wave of understanding suffusing her face. "That's why you asked to be on the show. Oh God, you're Frederick Wentworthing her." He shouldn't know what that meant but he totally did. "I'm half agony, half hope, Ms. Dashwood." He tried to shrug, but she looked in his eyes and her whole face turned into a giant awwww. She pressed her hands into her face. "You can't do that to me. You can't quote Persuasion to me." It was his mother's favorite book. It's where his name had come from. "Listen. I'm not going to force her to do anything. I'm just going to ask, and if she says no, I won't pressure her. I promise." "Why do I get the feeling you're pretty sure she won't say no?" "As I said, half agony, half hope.

So the rules for attunement were that while the listener has responsibilities, so does the speaker. In turning toward, the speaker cannot begin with blaming or criticism. Instead, it is the responsibility of the speaker to state his or her feelings as neutrally as possible, and then convert any complaint about the partner into a positive need (i.e., something one does need, not what one does not need). This requires a mental transformation from what is wrong with one’s partner to what one’s partner can do that would work. It is the speaker’s job to discover that recipe. The speaker is really saying, “Here’s what I feel, and here’s what I need from you.” Or, in processing a negative event that has already happened, the speaker is saying, “Here’s what I felt, and here’s what I needed from you.” How do couples find that positive need? How do they convert “Here’s what’s wrong with you, and here’s what I want you to stop doing” into, “Here’s what I feel (or felt) and here’s the positive thing I need (or needed) from you”? I think that the answer is that there is a longing or a wish, and therefore a recipe, within every negative emotion. In general, in sadness something is missing. In anger there is a frustrated goal. In disappointment there is a hope, and expectation. In loneliness there is a desire for connection. In a similar way, each negative emotion is a GPS for guiding us toward a longing, a wish, and a hope. The expression of the positive need eliminates the blame and the reproach.

The Pyrenean ibex, an extinct form of wild mountain goat, was brought back to life in 2009 through cloning of dna taken from skin samples. This was followed in June of 2010 by researchers at Jeju National University in Korea cloning a bull that had been dead for two years. Cloning methods are also being studied for use in bringing back Tasmanian tigers, woolly mammoths, and other extinct creatures, and in the March/April 2010 edition of the respected Archaeology magazine, a feature article by Zah Zorich (“Should We Clone Neanderthals?”) called for the resurrection via cloning of what some consider to be man’s closest extinct relative, the Neanderthals. National Geographic confirmed this possibility in its May 2009 special report, “Recipe for a Resurrection,” quoting Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University, an authority on ancient dna who served as a scientific consultant for the movie Jurassic Park, saying: “I laughed when Steven Spielberg said that cloning extinct animals was inevitable. But I’m not laughing anymore.… This is going to happen.

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

Needless to say, cooking for a man with such a delicate palate can be challenging and every once in a while I like to make something that isn't served with a glass of milk and a side of applesauce. This can be difficult with a husband with such discriminating taste buds. Difficult, but not impossible, if you're willing to lie. Which I am.   During the winter months I love to make soups and one of my favorites is taco soup. It has all of the basic food groups in one bowl; meat, veggies, beans, and Fritos. It's perfection. I've been warming bodies and cleaning colons with this recipe for years. However, when I met my husband he advised he didn't like beans, so he couldn't eat taco soup. This was not the response I hoped for.   I decided to make it for him anyway. The first time I did I debated whether to add beans. I knew he wouldn't eat it if I did, but I also knew the beans were what gave it the strong flavor. I decided the only way to maintain the integrity of the soup was to sacrifice mine. I lied to him about the ingredients. Because my husband is not only picky but also observant, I knew I couldn't just dump the beans into the soup undetected. Rather, I had to go incognito. For that, I implored the use of the food processor, who was happy to accommodate after sitting in the cabinet untouched for years.   I dumped the cans of beans in the processor and pureed them into a paste. I then dumped the paste into the taco soup mixture, returning the food processor to the cabinet where it would sit untouched for another six months.   When it came time to eat, I dished out a heaping bowl of soup and handed it to my husband. We sat down to eat and I anxiously awaited his verdict, knowing he was eating a heaping bowl of deceit.   “This is delicious. What's in it?” he asked, in between mouthfuls of soup.   “It's just a mixture of taco ingredients,” I innocently replied, focusing on the layer of Fritos covering my bowl.   “Whatever it is, it's amazing,” he responded, quickly devouring each bite.   At that moment I wanted nothing more than to slap the spoon out of his hand and yell “That's beans, bitch!” However, I refrained because I'm classy (and because I didn't want to clean up the mess).

You never told me how everyone liked the sirupskake." "It was splendid!" she said, her smile returning. "Your fa- my husband asked that you bake another one soon for me to bring him." Freya was always tripping over her words like that. Anna did the same thing herself. She chalked it up to wanting to say so much in a short amount of time. She was like a pot of melting chocolate: the words bubbled over. "Did he like the candied oranges I placed on top?" "Yes! He said he'd never seen it done that way before." Anna shrugged. "I love to put my own spin on recipes. I like to be unique, if you haven't noticed." "I have." Freya smiled. "I think my husband would enjoy meeting you. You and I have a similar joyful spirit, while he"- she sighed- "carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, I'm afraid. Much like my daughter." Freya talked about her daughter a lot but unfortunately never brought her along for visits. From what Anna knew, the girl seemed whip smart and serious. Anna wished she could meet her so she could shake her up a bit. Everyone needed to let their hair down sometimes. Plus it would be nice to have a friend close to her own age.

My mom's Busy Day Cake," Nellie said, lifting the carrier slightly. "With lemon frosting and some violets from the garden I sugared." Her mother had often made the cake for social gatherings, telling Nellie everyone appreciated a simple cake. "It's only when you try to get too fancy do you find trouble," Elsie was fond of saying, letting Nellie lick the buttercream icing from the beaters as she did. Some might consider sugaring flowers "too fancy," but not Elsie Swann- every cake she made carried some sort of beautiful flower or herb from her garden, whether it was candied rose petals or pansies, or fresh mint or lavender sugar. Elsie, a firm believer in the language of flowers, spent much time carefully matching her gifted blooms and plants to their recipients. Gardenia revealed a secret love; white hyacinth, a good choice for those who needed prayers; peony celebrated a happy marriage and home; chamomile provided patience; and a vibrant bunch of fresh basil brought with it good wishes. Violets showcased admiration- something Nellie did not have for the exhausting Kitty Goldman but certainly did for the simple deliciousness of her mother's Busy Day Cake.

I can't tell you how many times in my life I have been told that I have “control issues”. Historically, this statement has brought me annoyance—the kind of irritation that can only be described as a self-protective reaction to having my behaviours labelled for exactly what they were. Needless to say, these accusations would make me defensive. I'd pull my armour tighter and get out my weapons—anything to protect myself from the truth. I realized, one day, that there were only a few things I could control, and a whole lot of things that I couldn't. I realized that trying to control everything around me was a recipe for failure, because it simply wasn't possible. I wish I could tell you that I "let go" then—that it was a lovely, beautiful spiritual moment, and now I'm all better. But that isn't true. Because, for me, seeking to control things which can't be controlled isn't a random tick or flaw. It's a stage of communication in the language of my own mind. If I don't listen to the first whispers that tell me I've repressed some emotion or neglected to process some event—then, stage two starts. Every piece of dirt on the floor, every chewing noise, every unexpected obstacle... they all become intolerable. So, I have two choices when this happens. I can allow my desire to control the outside world to turn into trying to control it. Or, I can allow myself to hear what is being said to me—to interpret this strange language that I speak to myself in and respond with compassion. Do I consistently do the wise thing first? No. I forget. And then I remember, somewhere in the middle of neurotically scrubbing a wall. But I remember faster now than I did before, and sometimes I really am able to respond quickly. It's a journey. I'm not perfect. But I am doing the right thing, and I get better at it every time I have the chance to practice. That's what learning and letting go really is—a practice. It's never over. And it never is, and never will be, perfect.

My mother was the first person you called for a recipe (a cup of onions, garlic, don’t forget the pinch of sugar) and the last one you called at night when you just couldn’t sleep (a cup of hot water with lemon, lavender oil, magnesium pills). She knew the exact ratio of olive oil to garlic in any recipe, and she could whip up dinner from three pantry items, easy. She had all the answers. I, on the other hand, have none of them, and now I no longer have her. “Hi,” I hear Eric say from inside. “Where is everyone?” Eric is my husband, and he is our last guest here today. He shouldn’t be. He should have been with us the entire time, in the hard, low chairs, stuck between noodle casseroles and the ringing phone and the endless lipstick kisses of neighbors and women who call themselves aunties, but instead he is here in the entryway to what is now my father’s house, waiting to be received. I close my eyes. Maybe if I cannot see him, he will stop looking for me. Maybe I will fold into this ostentatious May day, the sun shining like a woman talking loudly on a cell phone at lunch. Who invited you here? I tuck the cigarette into the pocket of my jeans. I cannot yet conceive of a world without her, what that will look like, who I am in her absence. I am incapable of understanding that she will not pick me up for lunch on Tuesdays, parking without a permit on the

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

After that, we don't talk much until she brings out a ginger cake from the larder. "An old family recipe," she says. "I've been experimenting with the quantities of cloves and Jamaica ginger. Tell me what you think." And she pushes a slice toward me. I try not to gobble for it, for I am starving. "The most important thing with this cake is to beat in every ingredient, one by one, with the back of a wooden spoon," she says. "Simply throwing everything in together and then beating produces a most unsuccessful cake. I know because my first attempt was as heavy as a brick---quite indigestible!" She gives a rueful smile and asks if I think it needs more ginger. I feel the crumb, dense and dark, melt on my tongue. My mouth floods with warmth and spice and sweetness. As I swallow, something sharp and clean seems to lift through my nose and throat until my head swims. "I can see you like it." Miss Eliza watches me and smiles. And then I blurt something out. Something I know Reverend Thorpe and his wife would not like. But it's too late, the words jump from my throat of their own accord. "I can taste an African heaven, a forest full of dark earth and heat." The smile on Miss Eliza's face stretches a little wider and her eyes grow brighter. And this gives me the courage to ask a question that's nothing to do with my work. "What is the flavor that cuts through it so keenly, so that it sings a high note on my tongue?" She stares at me with her forget-me-not eyes. "It's the lightly grated rinds of two fresh lemons!

The Names, in fact, is a study in American ignorance; then as now, few Americans knew the difference between Sunni and Shiite, or how to pronounce Iran (“E-ron”). DeLillo’s protagonist, Axton, is a risk analyst for an insurance company that counsels multinational corporations on pressing questions about the world. Which country is risky? Where will the next bomb go off? Who creates the risk? Axton is also, as my Turkish friends liked to imagine I was, an unwitting agent for the CIA, the spy who doesn’t know he’s a spy. “Are they killing Americans?” is his main question. Axton and the Americans abroad can’t make sense of the world, can’t grab onto anything. They are not so much arrogant as confused. They perceive their vulnerability, their noses wrinkling at smells in the air: “Wasn’t there a sense, we Americans felt, in which we had it coming?” A Greek man named Eliades, with the aspect of a grumpy sage, says to the Americans: I think it’s only in a crisis that Americans see other people. It has to be an American crisis, of course. If two countries fight that do not supply the Americans with some precious commodity, then the education of the public does not take place. But when the dictator falls, when the oil is threatened, then you turn on the television and they tell you where the country is, what the language is, how to pronounce the names of the leaders, what the religion is all about, and maybe you can cut out recipes in the newspaper of Persian dishes. I will tell you. The whole world takes an interest in this curious way Americans educate themselves.

Science? The Savage frowned. He knew the word. But what it exactly signified he could not say. Shakespeare and the old men of the pueblo had never mentioned science, and from Linda he had only gathered the vaguest hints: science was something you made helicopters with, some thing that caused you to laugh at the Corn Dances, something that prevented you from being wrinkled and losing your teeth. He made a desperate effort to take the Controller's meaning. "Yes," Mustapha Mond was saying, "that's another item in the cost of stability. It isn't only art that's incompatible with happiness; it's also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled." "What?" said Helmholtz, in astonishment. "But we're always saying that science is everything. It's a hypnopædic platitude." "Three times a week between thirteen and seventeen," put in Bernard. "And all the science propaganda we do at the College …" "Yes; but what sort of science?" asked Mustapha Mond sarcastically. "You've had no scientific training, so you can't judge. I was a pretty good physicist in my time. Too good–good enough to realize that all our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn't be added to except by special permission from the head cook. I'm the head cook now. But I was an inquisitive young scullion once. I started doing a bit of cooking on my own. Unorthodox cooking, illicit cooking. A bit of real science, in fact." He was silent. "What happened?" asked Helmholtz Watson. The Controller sighed. "Very nearly what's going to happen to you young men. I was on the point of being sent to an island.

Then just when I thought I was going to really break down for a good cry, I remembered a large bag of pistachio nuts in the back of the pantry. I don't know what made me think of them. I had hidden them beneath several packages of dried pasta. Sam liked pistachio nuts. I bought them for a cake recipe I had seen in Gourmet. I stood up like a sleepwalker, my hands empty of sheets or shoes. I would take care of all this once the cake was in the oven. The recipe was from several months ago. I didn't remember which issue. I would find it. I would bake a cake. My father liked exotic things. On the rare occasions we went out to dinner together over the years, he always wanted us to go to some little Ethiopian restaurant down a back alley or he would say he had to have Mongolian food. He would like this cake. It was Iranian. There was a full tablespoon of cardamom sifted in with the flour, and I could imagine that it would make the cake taste nearly peppered, which would serve to balance out all the salt. I stood in the kitchen, reading the magazine while the sharp husks of the nuts bit into the pads of my fingers. I rolled the nut meat between my palms until the bright spring green of the pistachios shone in my hands, a fist full of emeralds. I would grind the nuts into powder without letting them turn to paste. I would butter the parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan. It was the steps, the clear and simple rules baking, that soothed me. My father would love this cake, and my mother would find this cake interesting, and Sam wouldn't be crazy about it but he'd be hungry and have a slice anyway. Maybe I could convince Camille it wasn't a cake at all. Maybe I could bring them all together, or at least that's what I dreamed about while I measured out the oil.

Chef Ayden says you have something special. An 'affinity with the things that come from the dirt,' he says. A master of spices. And coming from Ayden that means a lot. He doesn't usually believe in natural inclinations. Only in working hard enough to make the hard work seem effortless. Is it true about you?" I know my eyebrows look about ready to parachute off my face. "You mean the bay-leaf thing?" "No more oil, that's good." She takes the bowl of marinated octopus from my hand, covers it with a red cloth, and puts it in the fridge. "The 'bay-leaf thing' is exactly what I mean. You're new to Spain. From what your teacher tells me, not many of you have had exposure to world cuisines. Yet, you know a variety of herb that looks and smells slightly different when found outside of this region. I'm sure you've probably seen it in other ways. You've probably mixed spices together no one told you would go together. Cut a vegetable in a certain way that you believe will render it more flavorful. You know things that no one has taught you, sí?" I shake my head no at her. 'Buela always said I had magic hands but I've never said it out loud about myself. And I don't know if I believed it was magic as much as I believed I'm a really good cook. But she is right; most of my experimenting is with spices. "My aunt Sarah sends me recipes that I practice with. And I watch a lot on Food Network. Do you have that channel here? It's really good. They have this show called Chopped-" Chef Amadí puts down the rag she was wiping down the counter with and takes my hands in hers. Studies my palms. "Chef Ayden tells me you have a gift. If you don't want to call it magic, fine. You have a gift and it's probably changed the lives of people around you. When you cook, you are giving people a gift. Remember that.

As we walk through Savignio, the copper light of dusk settling over the town's narrow streets, we stop anyone we can find to ask for his or her ragù recipe. A retired policeman says he likes an all-pork sauce with a heavy hit of pancetta, the better for coating the pasta. A gelato maker explains that a touch of milk defuses the acidity of the tomato and ties the whole sauce together. Overhearing our kitchen talk below, an old woman in a navy cardigan pokes her head out of a second-story window to offer her take on the matter: "I only use tomatoes from my garden- fresh when they're in season, preserved when it gets cold." Inspired by the Savignio citizenry, we buy meat from the butcher, vegetables and wine from a small stand in the town's piazza, and head to Alessandro's house to simmer up his version of ragù: two parts chopped skirt steak, one part ground pancetta, the sautéed vegetable trio, a splash of dry white wine, and a few canned San Marzano tomatoes.

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

My mother had a passion for all fruit except oranges, which she refused to allow in the house. She named each one of us, on a seeming whim, after a fruit and a recipe- Cassis, for her thick black-currant cake. Framboise, her raspberry liqueur, and Reinette after the reine-claude greengages that grew against the south wall of the house, thick as grapes, syrupy with wasps in midsummer. At one time we had over a hundred trees (apples, pears, plums, gages, cherries, quinces), not to mention the raspberry canes and the fields of strawberries, gooseberries, currants- the fruits of which were dried, stored, made into jams and liqueurs and wonderful cartwheel tarts on pâte brisée and crème pâtissière and almond paste. My memories are flavored with their scents, their colors, their names. My mother tended them as if they were her favorite children. Smudge pots against the frost, which we base every spring. And in summer, to keep the birds away, we would tie shapes cut out of silver paper onto the ends of the branches that would shiver and flick-flack in the wind, moose blowers of string drawn tightly across empty tin cans to make eerie bird-frightening sounds, windmills of colored paper that would spin wildly, so that the orchard was a carnival of baubles and shining ribbons and shrieking wires, like a Christmas party in midsummer. And the trees all had names. Belle Yvonne, my mother would say as she passed a gnarled pear tree. Rose d'Aquitane. Beurre du Roe Henry. Her voice at these times was soft, almost monotone. I could not tell whether she was speaking to me or to herself. Conference. Williams. Ghislane de Penthièvre. This sweetness.

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this. I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do. I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first. Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, which used to be my go-to plan at Chloe's grandmother's house. One time Chloe even started a food fight to get me out of it. I glance around the table, but Rayna's the only person I'd aim this slop at. Plus, I'd risk getting the stuff on me, which is almost as bad as in me. Galen nudges me with his elbow. "Aren't you hungry? You're not feeling bad again, are you?" This gets the others' attention. The commotion of eating stops. Everyone stares. Rayna, irritated that her gluttony has been interrupted. Toraf smirking like I've done something funny. Galen's mom wearing the same concerned look he is. Can I lie? Should I lie? What if I'm invited over again, and they fix seafood because I lied about it just this once? Telling Galen my head hurts doesn't get me out of future seafood buffets. And telling him I'm not hungry would be pointless since my stomach keeps gurgling like an emptying drain. No, I can't lie. Not if I ever want to come back here. Which I do. I sigh and set the fork down. "I hate seafood," I tell him. Toraf's sudden cough startles me. The sound of him choking reminds me of a cat struggling with a hair ball. I train my eyes on Galen, who has stiffened to a near statue. Jeez, is this all his mom knows how to make? Or have I just shunned the Forza family's prize-winning recipe for grouper? "You...you mean you don't like this kind of fish, Emma?" Galen says diplomatically. I desperately want to nod, to say, "Yes, that's it, not this kind of fish"-but that doesn't get me out of eating the crabmeat-and-scallop mountain on my plate. I shake my head. "No. Not just this kind of fish. I hate it all. I can't eat any of it. Can hardly stand to smell it." Way to go for the jugular there, stupid! Couldn't I just say I don't care for it? Did I have to say I hate it? Hate even the smell of it? And why am I blushing? It's not a crime to gag on seafood. And for God's sakes, I won't eat anything that still has its eyeballs.

Your daughter is delightful!" Sejanus was saying to Aelia. I gripped the edge of the bench and bit my tongue as he spoke. "She is a living testament to the good looks that seem to follow the gens Aelia." Aelia smiled. "Cousin, you flatter me." Sejanus had set the tone for the evening with the clear slight against the Gavia clan. "It's only a shame I share the name through adoption- not blood- or who knows how much more attractive I might have been!" Nearby guests laughed at the joke but to me it seemed the true intent was to point out that Apicius had, at least at one time, found him attractive. Sejanus looked directly at Apicius directly as he spoke, a smile on his face. Apicius gave away nothing. He waved a boy over with a tray. "Have you tried the fried hare livers, Sejanus?" Apicata jumped up and down and smiled at her father. "May I? May I?" Her father smiled. Apicata could always melt his heart. "Only one and don't share with Perseus!" The serving boy lowered the tray so she could reach for the liver but not so low that the jumping puppy could steal treats for himself. She snatched a morsel and popped it into her mouth. I knew what she tasted, a sublime mixture of textures, the crispy breaded exterior and the smooth, sumptuous richness of the liver itself. The combination is unexpected. When I first introduced the recipe, it immediately became a family favorite. Apicata turned to Sejanus. She did not appear to recognize him from the market. "Oh, you must try! These are my favorite!" "If you say so, I must try!" Sejanus reached for the tray. He took a bite of the liver and surprise registered in his eyes. Sejanus reached for another liver. "Where on earth did you find your cook?" "Baiae." Aelia reached for her own sample. "Thrasius's cooking is always exceptional. Wait until you try the hyacinth bulbs!" "Hyacinth bulbs are one of my favorites." Sejanus ran his fingers affectionately through Apicata's hair as he talked. I stared, wondering what his intentions were. My right eye began to twitch. Apicius nodded at Passia to come forward and collect Apicata and her puppy. The girl went begrudgingly and only after Sejanus had planted a kiss on her forehead and promised he would visit again soon.

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

BUTTERSCOTCH BONANZA BARS Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.   ½ cup salted butter (1 stick, 4 ounces, ¼ pound) 2 cups light brown sugar*** (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork) 1 and ½cups flour (scoop it up and level it off with a table knife) 1 cup chopped nuts (optional) 2 cups butterscotch chips (optional) ***- If all you have in the house is dark brown sugar and the roads are icy, it’s below zero, and you really don’t feel like driving to the store, don’t despair. Measure out one cup of dark brown sugar and mix it with one cup regular white granulated sugar. Now you’ve got light brown sugar, just what’s called for in Leslie’s recipe. And remember that you can always make any type of brown sugar by mixing molasses into white granulated sugar until it’s the right color. Hannah’s Note: Leslie says the nuts are optional, but she likes these cookie bars better with nuts. So do I, especially with walnuts. Bertie Straub wants hers with a cup of chopped pecans and 2 cups of butterscotch chips. Mother prefers these bars with 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips and no nuts, Carrie likes them with 2 cups of mini chocolate chips and a cup of chopped pecans, and Lisa prefers to make them with 1 cup of chopped walnuts, 1 cup of white chocolate chips, and 1 cup of butterscotch chips. All this goes to show just how versatile Leslie’s recipe is. Try it first as it’s written with just the nuts. Then try any other versions that you think would be yummy. Grease and flour a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan, or spray it with nonstick baking spray, the kind with flour added. Set it aside while you mix up the batter. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat on the stovetop, or put it in the bottom of a microwave-safe, medium-sized mixing bowl and heat it for 1 minute in the microwave on HIGH. Add the light brown sugar to the mixing bowl with the melted butter and stir it in well. Mix in the baking powder and the salt. Make sure they’re thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the vanilla extract. Mix in the beaten eggs. Add the flour by half-cup increments, stirring in each increment before adding the next. Stir in the nuts, if you decided to use them. Mix in the butterscotch chips if you decided to use them, or any other chips you’ve chosen. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake pan and smooth out the top with a rubber spatula. Bake the Butterscotch Bonanza Bars at 350 degrees F. for 20 to 25 minutes. (Mine took 25 minutes.) When the bars are done, take them out of the oven and cool them completely in the pan on a cold stove burner or a wire rack. When the bars are cool, use a sharp knife to cut them into brownie-sized pieces. Yield: Approximately 40 bars, but that all depends on how large you cut the squares. You may not believe this, but Mother suggested that I make these cookie bars with semi-sweet chocolate chips and then frost them with chocolate fudge frosting. There are times when I think she’d frost a tuna sandwich with chocolate fudge frosting and actually enjoy eating it!