Secret Sauce Quotes

Helping others is the secret sauce to a happy life.

Look, without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. What I mean by that is: if it wasn't for race, X-Men doesn't sense. If it wasn't for the history of breeding human beings in the New World through chattel slavery, Dune doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the extermination of so many Indigenous First Nations, most of what we call science fiction’s contact stories doesn't make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understood that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible, yeah. In the Green Lantern Corps, we are the oath. We are all of these things—erased, and yet without us—we are essential.

All of this was well meaning bullshit. But bullshit is still bullshit and will never be mistaken for McDonald's secret sauce.

She felt so lost and lonely. One last chile in walnut sauce left on the platter after a fancy dinner couldn't feel any worse than she did. How many times had she eaten one of those treats, standing by herself in the kitchen, rather than let it be thrown away. When nobody eats the last chile on the plate, it's usually because none of them wants to look like a glutton, so even though they'd really like to devour it, they don't have the nerve to take it. It was as if they were rejecting that stuffed pepper, which contains every imaginable flavor; sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, with the bit of pepper and the subtlety of walnuts, that marvelous chile in the walnut sauce. Within it lies the secret of love, but it will never be penetrated, and all because it wouldn't feel proper.

Isn't that the secret sauce of seduction? First the snare of mystery, then the distinctly female instinct to rehabilitate.

The duty of the people is to tend to their own affairs. The duty of government is to help them do it. This is the pasta of politics. The inspired leader, the true prince, no matter how great, can only be sauce upon the pasta. --Bombolini

My mom says, "Do you know what the AIDS memorial quilt is all about?" Jump to how much I hate my brother at this moment. I bought this fabric because I thought it would make a nice panel for Shane," Mom says. "We just ran into some problems with what to sew on it." Give me amnesia. Flash. Give me new parents. Flash. Your mother didn't want to step on any toes," Dad says. He twists a drumstick off and starts scraping the meat onto a plate. "With gay stuff you have to be so careful since everything means something in secret code. I mean, we didn't want to give people the wrong idea." My Mom leans over to scoop yams onto my plate, and says, "Your father wanted a black border, but black on a field of blue would mean Shane was excited by leather sex, you know, bondage and discipline, sado and masochism." She says, "Really, those panels are to help the people left behind." Strangers are going to see us and see Shane's name," my dad says. "We didn't want them thinking things." The dishes all start their slow clockwise march around the table. The stuffing. The olives. The cranberry sauce. "I wanted pink triangles but all the panels have pink triangles," my mom says. "It's the Nazi symbol for homosexuals." She says,"Your father suggested black triangles, but that would mean Shane was a lesbian. It looks like female pubic hair. The black triangle does." My father says, "Then I wanted a green border, but it turns out that would mean Shane was a male prostitute." My mom says, "We almost chose a red border, but that would mean fisting. Brown would mean either scat or rimming, we couldn't figure which." Yellow," my father says, "means watersports." A lighter shade of blue," Mom says, "would mean just regular oral sex." Regular white," my father says, "would mean anal. White could also mean Shane was excited by men wearing underwear." He says, "I can't remember which." My mother passes me the quilted chicken with the rolls still warm inside. We're supposed to sit and eat with Shane dead all over the table in front of us. Finally we just gave up," my mom says, "and I made a nice tablecloth out of the material." Between the yams and the stuffing, Dad looks down at his plate and says, "Do you know about rimming?" I know it isn't table talk. And fisting?" my mom asks. I say, I know. I don't mention Manus and his vocational porno magazines. We sit there, all of us around a blue shroud with the turkey more like a big dead baked animal than ever, the stuffing chock full of organs you can still recognize, the heart and gizzard and liver, the gravy thick with cooked fat and blood. The flower centerpiece could be a casket spray. Would you pass the butter, please?" my mother says. To my father she says, "Do you know what felching is?

You just say it. That’s how you say something that’s hard. You put one foot in front of the other. You take it step by step. You say the words. There is no magic formula. There is no secret sauce. But there are words,” she says emphatically, as if she’s delivering an impassioned speech.

While cooking demands your entire attention, it also rewards you with endlessly sensual pleasures... The seductive softness of chocolate beginning to melt from solid to liquid. The tug of sauce against the spoon when it thickens in teh pan, and the lovely lightness of Parmesan drifting from the grater in gossamer flakes. Time slows down in teh kitchen, offering up an entire universe of small satisfactions.

Denial is the secret sauce in this town,” he said. “It’s the flavor that holds all the other ingredients together. Here’s what I tell the newly elected: the truth is gonna get out—it always does—but it’s gonna blend in with all the lies.” The Senator twirled a hand in the air. “You have to deny each lie and every truth with the same vinegar. Let those websites and blowhards who bitch about cover-ups confuse the public for you.

We share our secrets when we're ready and not a minute before.

I conducted an off-site consisting of 25 parents in the Seattle area with an income of $200K+ and whose children are entering kindergarten. The headline is that Galer Street is considered a second-tier school, a fallback option for those who don’t get accepted to their first-choice school. Our objective is to move the needle on Galer Street and kick it up into the First-Choice Cluster (FCC) for Seattle’s elite. How do we achieve this? What is the secret sauce?

They made a profound impression on me. I sensed that they knew about some sort of “secret sauce,” a way to be deeply happy regardless of conditions. And I sensed that they would willingly share it with me but would never force it upon me. I would have to take the initiative if I wanted to experience it for myself.

There is no “secret sauce,” but there is a lot of hard work, dedication, and drive.

1. Building Trust & Rapport. Trust and rapport are the heartbeat of business, the backbone of high performing teams, and the secret sauce for healthy relationships.

The truly good listeners of the world do more than just listen. They listen, seek to understand, and then validate. That third point is the secret sauce—the magic ingredient.

has long been known that effort can be the secret sauce that makes things better. One of the classic findings in psychology is that the more effort you put into something, the more you value it. This is the logic of Benjamin Franklin’s classic advice on how to turn a rival into a friend—ask him or her to do you a favor. Having worked to help you, they’ll like you more.

The challenge, however, is that Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon do not publish their algorithms. In fact, the methods they use to filter the information you see are deeply proprietary and the “secret sauce” that drives each company’s profitability. The problem with this invisible “black box” algorithmic approach to information is that we do not know what has been edited out for us and what we are not seeing. As a result, our digital lives, mediated through a sea of screens, are being actively manipulated and filtered on a daily basis in ways that are both opaque and indecipherable.

You may think that being chic has nothing to do with the most insignificant and mundane moments of the day. Moments like preparing your meals, emptying the dishwasher, and paying bills. But the secret is: those moments aren’t insignificant. Au contraire. They are very significant. That’s right—if you can change your attitude about making the pasta sauce, choosing your clothes for the day, folding the laundry, setting the table, or dealing with the incoming mail, you can completely change your life.

Well.” I look down at the nightgown, then back at Douglas. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to look up how to get tomato sauce stains out of fabric.” He stares at me for another moment, then thankfully nods in approval. “Good. You do that.” But I don’t need to google anything. I already know how to get blood stains out of fabric.

For most humans, transformation does not seem achievable from the distant shores of another person’s life. From far away, transformation looks like a miracle, or the result of magical powers possessed by the transformed person. Transformation is not magic. It’s hard work. But it is also doable work. When we can see another person’s labor toward their transformation, we know it is not some secret sauce but instead a daily commitment to a new way of life.

I’m rushing ahead of myself, and I don’t mean to. So let me start with a little history. My name is Evangeline Benson Vesey—Mrs. Vernon Vesey, to be exact, having been married now for two whole months to the sheriff of Summit View, Colorado.

Denial is the secret sauce in this town,’ he said. ‘It’s the flavor that holds all the other ingredients together. Here’s what I tell the newly elected: the truth is going to get out – it always does – but it’s going to blend in with all the lies.

People get educated in different ways; some at home, some in the wilderness, some in playgrounds, some during tragedies, some by the stories of their grandparents, and some at school. It's unfortunate that we only use the tag of 'educated' for those who enrol in factory-like institutions.

Happiness comes from solving problems. The keyword here is “solving.” If you’re avoiding your problems or feel like you don’t have any problems, then you’re going to make yourself miserable. If you feel like you have problems that you can’t solve, you will likewise make yourself miserable. The secret sauce is in the solving of the problems,

Let you use up all my hot water. Cooked my secret recipe Alfredo sauce. This is A-game, panty-melting shit right here, Cupcake.

Without consciousness there can be no experience of matter.

Killing a belief could be worse than killing a human being. When you kill a human, you take their life, but when you take their faith, they are left without hope, without meaning.

When you have nothing, you are open to limitless possibilities. You can be anything. You can do anything.

It's only when we are out in the wild - with nothing on our schedules and nowhere to escape to - do we encounter this bizarre thing that is referred to as the self.

Secrets have a way of breaking free. But when they do, their shame lingers—like the smell of rotten meat sauce.

The magic is in the process. It’s a kind of science. That’s the special sauce. Thats the secret.

Secret kabals of vegetarians habitually gather under the sign to exchange contraband from beyond the Vegetable Barrier. In their pinpoint eyes dances their old dream: the Total Fast. One of them reports a new atrocity published without compassionate comment by the editors of Scientific American: "It has been established that, when pulled from the ground, a radish produces an electronic scream." Not even the triple bill for 65˘ will comfort them tonight. With a mad laugh born of despair, one of them throws himself on a hot-dog stand, disintegrating on the first chew into pathetic withdrawal symptoms. The rest watch him mournfully and then separate into the Montreal entertainment section. The news is more serious than any of them thought. One is ravished by a steak house with sidewalk ventilation. In a restaurant, one argues with the waiter that he ordered "tomato" but then in a suicide of gallantry he agrees to accept the spaghetti, meat sauce mistake.

Young people today no longer have gout, but mope around on diets: noodles without butter, butter without bread, bread without sauce, sauce without meat, meat without truffles, truffles without scent, scent without bouquet, bouquet without wine, wine without drunkenness, drunkenness without gaiety….Saints of Paradise! I would rather have gout than deprive myself of all of life’s charms. ÉDOUARD DE POMIANE, VINGT PLATS QUI DONNENT LA GOUTTE (TWENTY DISHES THAT GIVE YOU GOUT), 1938, TRANSLATED BY JESSICA GREEN

These I have loved: Pork with apple sauce; tea in a heavy mug; The smell of new books, and musty ones; A girl with red coils for curls --Her scream--Her smile; The slap of a blonde dog's tongue Against my face; and an old face--Nana's; A broken fence--a secret pathway between two houses; The sinking into a familiar bed; Sheets white and crispy clean; The return of a woman in a green coat-- Imperfect and human; The sound of poetry; And of pencil lead scuffing the page as I write; Made-up stores; and Truth. These I have loved.

And so the milk ran dry. But first we had the luck of those creams, those spilled-down sauces, that summer of appetite that began with a soufflé cheesecake. There are very few ingredients to the recipe. Butter doesn't make the cake, nor cream. Its secret is ephemerality. Pull it from the oven and it is perfect; the next moment it is cooling, flattening, collapsing beneath the gravity of time. This is a flavor untasted by diners and critics, no record of its existence but for a private memory that lingers on one or two tongues.

Happiness comes from solving problems. The keyword here is “solving.” If you’re avoiding your problems or feel like you don’t have any problems, then you’re going to make yourself miserable. If you feel like you have problems that you can’t solve, you will likewise make yourself miserable. The secret sauce is in the solving of the problems, not in not having problems in the first place. To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action; it’s an activity, not something that is passively bestowed upon you, not something that you magically discover in a top-ten article on the Huffington Post or from any specific guru or teacher. It doesn’t magically appear when you finally make enough money to add on that extra room to the house. You don’t find it waiting for you in a place, an idea, a job—or even a book, for that matter. Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress—the solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

Life is worth living when God throws His Divine dice in your favor. HE has slow-stirred my life with Wisdom and discernment about all manners of people; which is no secret agent in my soul sauce, it brings flavor to the taste buds of God's blessings in my life with extra side orders of favor.

Toyota wasn’t really worried that it would give away its “secret sauce.” Toyota’s competitive advantage rested firmly in its proprietary, complex, and often unspoken processes. In hindsight, Ernie Schaefer, a longtime GM manager who toured the Toyota plant, told NPR’s This American Life that he realized that there were no special secrets to see on the manufacturing floors. “You know, they never prohibited us from walking through the plant, understanding, even asking questions of some of their key people,” Schaefer said. “I’ve often puzzled over that, why they did that. And I think they recognized we were asking the wrong questions. We didn’t understand this bigger picture.” It’s no surprise, really. Processes are often hard to see—they’re a combination of both formal, defined, and documented steps and expectations and informal, habitual routines or ways of working that have evolved over time. But they matter profoundly. As MIT’s Edgar Schein has explored and discussed, processes are a critical part of the unspoken culture of an organization. 1 They enforce “this is what matters most to us.” Processes are intangible; they belong to the company. They emerge from hundreds and hundreds of small decisions about how to solve a problem. They’re critical to strategy, but they also can’t easily be copied. Pixar Animation Studios, too, has openly shared its creative process with the world. Pixar’s longtime president Ed Catmull has literally written the book on how the digital film company fosters collective creativity2—there are fixed processes about how a movie idea is generated, critiqued, improved, and perfected. Yet Pixar’s competitors have yet to equal Pixar’s successes. Like Toyota, Southern New Hampshire University has been open with would-be competitors, regularly offering tours and visits to other educational institutions. As President Paul LeBlanc sees it, competition is always possible from well-financed organizations with more powerful brand recognition. But those assets alone aren’t enough to give them a leg up. SNHU has taken years to craft and integrate the right experiences and processes for its students and they would be exceedingly difficult for a would-be competitor to copy. SNHU did not invent all its tactics for recruiting and serving its online students. It borrowed from some of the best practices of the for-profit educational sector. But what it’s done with laser focus is to ensure that all its processes—hundreds and hundreds of individual “this is how we do it” processes—focus specifically on how to best respond to the job students are hiring it for. “We think we have advantages by ‘owning’ these processes internally,” LeBlanc says, “and some of that is tied to our culture and passion for students.

It was a wake-up call to me to learn that Airbnb was by no means unique: Instagram started as a location-based social network called Burbn (which had an optional photo feature). It attracted a core group of users and more than $500,000 in funding. And yet the founders realized that its users were flocking to only one part of the app—the photos and filters. They had a meeting, which one of the founders recounts like this: “We sat down and said, ‘What are we going to work on next? How are we going to evolve this product into something millions of people will want to use? What is the one thing that makes this product unique and interesting?’”7 The service soon retooled to become Instagram as we know it: a mobile app for posting photos with filters. The result? One hundred thousand users within a week of relaunching. Within eighteen months, the founders sold Instagram to Facebook for $1 billion. I know that seems simple, that the marketing lesson from Instragram is that they made a product that was just awesome. But that’s good news for you—it means there’s no secret sauce, and the second your product gets to be that awesome, you can see similar results. Just look at Snapchat, which essentially followed the same playbook by innovating in the mobile photo app space, blew up with young people, and skyrocketed to a $3.5-billion-dollar valuation with next-to-no marketing.

Bezos had seemingly made up his mind that he was no longer going to indulge in financial maneuvering as a way to escape the rather large hole Amazon had dug for itself, and it wasn’t just through borrowing Sinegal’s business plan. At a two-day management and board offsite later that year, Amazon invited business thinker Jim Collins to present the findings from his soon-to-be-published book Good to Great. Collins had studied the company and led a series of intense discussions at the offsite. “You’ve got to decide what you’re great at,” he told the Amazon executives. Drawing on Collins’s concept of a flywheel, or self-reinforcing loop, Bezos and his lieutenants sketched their own virtuous cycle, which they believed powered their business. It went something like this: Lower prices led to more customer visits. More customers increased the volume of sales and attracted more commission-paying third-party sellers to the site. That allowed Amazon to get more out of fixed costs like the fulfillment centers and the servers needed to run the website. This greater efficiency then enabled it to lower prices further. Feed any part of this flywheel, they reasoned, and it should accelerate the loop. Amazon executives were elated; according to several members of the S Team at the time, they felt that, after five years, they finally understood their own business. But when Warren Jenson asked Bezos if he should put the flywheel in his presentations to analysts, Bezos asked him not to. For now, he considered it the secret sauce.

I strongly believe in the fact that there’s still plenty of money and plenty of private equity capital available around the globe. What are in short supply are great entrepreneurs and great teams. A trading opportunity or a company’s biggest challenge is and has always been the team behind it. There’s enormous change under way in every facet of the world. Some is technology driven, some is market driven. All that change creates unprecedented opportunity, but to take full advantage of such opportunities I mostly focus on the team. The right teams and right people behind those opportunities always win. There is no secret sauce. Trading and investing has, in my experience, boiled down to building relationships and exchanging value. It consists of striking the right balance between backing and interacting with the right teams with the right business model at the right time and with the right amount of money.

MAKES: 2 quarts COOKING METHOD: stove COOKING TIME: 20 minutes This is an all-purpose barbecue sauce, with a distinct garlic and tomato flavor. We have used this recipe to rave reviews at the James Beard Foundation and the American Institute of Wine and Food’s “Best Ribs in America” competition. Use it as a finishing glaze or serve it on the side as a dip for any type of barbecue. 2 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL ¼ CUP CHOPPED ONION 1 TEASPOON FRESH MINCED GARLIC 4 CUPS KETCHUP 1⅓ CUPS DARK BROWN SUGAR 1 CUP VINEGAR 1 CUP APPLE JUICE ¼ CUP HONEY 1½ TABLESPOONS WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE 1½ TABLESPOONS LIQUID SMOKE 1 TEASPOON SALT 1 TEASPOON BLACK PEPPER 1 TEASPOON CAYENNE PEPPER 1 TEASPOON CELERY SEED Heat the olive oil in a large nonreactive saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and lightly sauté. Stir in the remaining ingredients and heat until the sauce bubbles and starts to steam. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature. Transfer to a tightly covered jar or plastic container and store refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

There’s a story about legendary copywriter Gary Halbert, who once asked a room of aspiring writers, “Imagine you’re opening a hamburger stand on the beach—what do you need most to succeed?” Answers included, “secret sauce,” and “great location” and “quality meat.” Halbert replied, “You missed the most important thing—A STARVING CROWD.” Your job is to find that “starving crowd” who can’t live without what it is you have to offer. What we want to do in terms of targeting is to find good, prospective customers for our business that can be reached affordably, that are likely to buy, that are able to buy, and preferably who already know of us, or are likely to trust us. Once you get this down, and you nail exactly who your slam-dunk customer truly is—the person you absolutely want to do business with over and again—then you’ll be able to make your marketing “magnetic” because you’ll be using words and phrases that’ll attract your target audience. This makes your job much easier, because you can talk to them using language they relate to about what it is they really want.

This dish... it's sweet-and-sour pork but with black vinegar. In fact, you could call it "Black Vinegar Pork." The glossy black of the vinegar was used to great effect in the plating, giving the dish a classy and luxuriant appearance. But the moment you put a bite in your mouth... fresh, vibrant green tea explodes in a sea of invigorating green. It is extravagantly delicious. Chef Kuga's Sweet-and-Sour sauce includes not just black vinegar but also balsamic vinegar as well as Chef Mimasaka's smoked soy sauce! It destroys the traditional boundaries of sweet-and-sour pork, creating a dish that's rich, tangy and savory while erasing the pork's thick greasiness to push the taste of the green tea to the forefront! He has completely succeeded in taking the green tea leaves and making them the centerpiece of his dish! But the point most worthy of attention... ... is that this sublime taste experience wasn't created using solely Chinese-cooking techniques. It shows an equally deft use of traditional French techniques!" "What the... French?! But isn't he supposed to be a purely Sichuan-Chinese chef?!" "Yes, yes. I'm gonna explain, so quiet down and listen up, 'kay? See, there's another secret y'all don't know. That sweet-and-sour sauce? I based it on Sauce au Vinaigre Balsamique. That's a balsamic vinegar sauce used in a whole lot of French recipes." "Aha! Now I see. So that's where it came from! French Vinaigre Balsamique sauce is a reduction of balsamic vinegar and Glacé de Viande! It has a light tanginess and thick richness, which must have boosted the deliciousness of the sweet-and-sour pork into the stratosphere!

The secret of French food," I told Neil between bites, "is that nothing goes to waste. After so many wars, the French learned how to cook everything. Which," I noted, loading my fork with sole, "is usually in a large quantity of butter." He chuckled. "Everything is better with butter." "Well, to be technical, there are four mother sauces. But butter goes in most of them. Anyway, the dandelion greens---leave it to a Frenchwoman to decide they make for good eating." "It was a woman who decided that?" "Would a man get adventurous with weeds?" "Good point.

It starts with chicken thigh meat cut into big, thick chunks. They're then set to marinate for the morning in a Nikumi- Original Marinade featuring soy sauce and cayenne pepper. "Breading done." "Thanks!" "Man, the smell of this chicken deep-frying is so good, it's making me hungry!" "Is it done yet? I wanna eat!" After the chicken breast has been fried not once but twice... ... it, along with lettuce leaves and other leafy herbs... ... is all wrapped up in our special, freshly cooked wrap! Some of our "Secret Chili Sauce" (which has a dash of Thai Nam Pla in it for flavor)... ... and a sprinkling of fresh cracked black pepper top it all off!

A dynamo in the kitchen, she was elevating Mexican cuisine to new gastronomic levels. She had opened her restaurant, El Colibrí, two short years ago. At first people thought she was nuts- then they tasted her dishes. Billing her cuisine as "not your mother's tacos," she'd introduced gourmet Mexican food to Los Angeles, and you didn't eat her creations- like the lobster tail served with the pomegranate mango salsa, served on a blue corn tortillas- with your hands, especially with her secret version of a chimichurri sauce. A hint: truffle oil along with olive oil. The girl genius was an alchemist in the kitchen, creating elixirs and blending ingredients like a mad culinary scientist.

The proper balance of sugar and salt was the key to perfect barbecue sauce. Of course, when it came to barbecue sauce, everybody had an opinion about the combination of acid, aromatics, fruit, and flavorings---the ineffable umami---that made each bite so satisfying. But Margot Salton knew with utter certainty that it all started with sugar and salt. She'd even named her signature product after it: sugar+salt. This sauce was her superpower. Her secret. Her stock-in-trade. When she'd had nothing---no home, no education, no family, no means of support---she had created the powerful alchemy of flavors that made grown men moan with pleasure, cautious women ignore their diets, and skeptical foodies beg for more.

Each bite is a tidal wave of savory, fatty eel juices... ... made fresh and tangy by the complementary flavors of olive oil and tomato! ...! It's perfect! This dish has beautifully encapsulated the superbness of Capitone Eel!" "Capitone specifically means 'Large Female Eel'! It's exactly this kind of eel that is served during Natale season from Christmas to New Year's. Compared to normal eels, the Capitone is large, thick and juicy! In fact, it's considered a delicacy!" "Yes, I've heard of them! The Capitone is supposed to be significantly meatier than the standard Anguilla." *Anguilla is the Italian word for regular eels.* "Okay. So the Capitone is special. But is it special enough to make a dish so delicious the judges swoon?" "No. The secret to the Capitone's refined deliciousness in this dish lies with the tomatoes. You used San Marzanos, correct?" "Ha Ragione! (Exactly!) I specifically chose San Marzano tomatoes as the core of my dish!" Of the hundreds of varieties of tomato, the San Marzano Plum Tomato is one of the least juicy. Less juice means it makes a less watery and runny sauce when stewed! "Thanks to the San Marzano tomatoes, this dish's sauce remained thick and rich with a marvelously full-bodied taste. The blend of spices he used to season the sauce has done a splendid job of highlighting the eel's natural flavors as well." "You can't forget the wondrous polenta either. Crispy on the outside and creamy in the middle. There's no greater garnish for this dish." *Polenta is boiled cornmeal that is typically served as porridge or baked into cakes.* "Ah. I see. Every ingredient of his dish is intimately connected to the eel. Garlic to increase the fragrance, onion for condensed sweetness... ... and low-juice tomatoes. Those are the key ingredients.

But your lolas took offense at being called witches. That is an Amerikano term, they scoff, and that they live in the boroughs of an American city makes no difference to their biases. Mangkukulam was what they styled themselves as, a title still spoken of with fear in their motherland, with its suggestions of strange healing and old-world sorcery. Nobody calls their place along Pepper Street Old Manila, either, save for the women and their frequent customers. It was a carinderia, a simple eatery folded into three food stalls; each manned by a mangkukulam, each offering unusual specialties: Lola Teodora served kare-kare, a healthy medley of eggplant, okra, winged beans, chili peppers, oxtail, and tripe, all simmered in a rich peanut sauce and sprinkled generously with chopped crackling pork rinds. Lola Teodora was made of cumin, and her clients tiptoed into her stall, meek as mice and trembling besides, only to stride out half an hour later bursting at the seams with confidence. But bagoong- the fermented-shrimp sauce served alongside the dish- was the real secret; for every pound of sardines you packed into the glass jars you added over three times that weight in salt and magic. In six months, the collected brine would turn reddish and pungent, the proper scent for courage. unlike the other mangkukulam, Lola Teodora's meal had only one regular serving, no specials. No harm in encouraging a little bravery in everyone, she said, and with her careful preparations it would cause little harm, even if clients ate it all day long. Lola Florabel was made of paprika and sold sisig: garlic, onions, chili peppers, and finely chopped vinegar-marinated pork and chicken liver, all served on a sizzling plate with a fried egg on top and calamansi for garnish. Sisig regular was one of the more popular dishes, though a few had blanched upon learning the meat was made from boiled pigs' cheeks and head.

A man will, by fasting, be delivered from the hopelessness of mere gourmandise. The secular, for all its goodness, does not defend itself very well against mindless and perpetual consumption. It cries out to be offered by abstinence as well as use; to be appreciated, not simply absorbed: Hunger remains the best sauce. Beyond that, though, it cries out to be lifted into a higher offering still. The real secret of fasting is not that it is a simple way to keep one's weight down, but that it is a mysterious way of lifting creation into the Supper of the Lamb. It is not a little excursion into fashionable shape, but a major entrance into the fasting, the agony, the passion by which the Incarnate Word restores all things to the goodness God finds in them. It is as much an act of prayer as prayer itself, and, in an affluent society, it may well be the most meaningful of all the practices of religion - the most likely point at which the salt can find its savor once again. Let a man fast in earnest, therefore. One way or another - here or hereafter - it will give him back his feasts.

... If I am correct... ... the secret to this sauce is honey and balsamic vinegar ." "Got it one, sir! Both ingredients have a mild sweetness that adds a layer of richness to the dish. The tartness of the vinegar ties it all together, ensuring the sweetness isn't too cloying and giving the overall dish a clean, pure aftertaste. The guide told me that Hokkaido bears really love their honey... ... so I tried all kinds of methods to add it to my recipe!" "Is that how he gave his sauce a rich, clean flavor powerful enough to cause the Gifting? Unbelievable! That's our Master Yukihira!" Something doesn't add up. A little honey and vinegar can't be enough to create that level of aftertaste. There has to be something else to it. But what? "...?! I got it! I know what you did! You caramelized the honey!" CARAMELIZATION Sugars oxidize when heated, giving them a golden brown color and a nutty flavor. Any food that contains sugar can be caramelized, making caramelization an important technique in everything from French cooking to dessert making. "I started out by heating the honey until it was good and caramelized. Then I added some balsamic vinegar to stretch it and give it a little thickness. Once that was done, I poured it over some diced onions and garlic that I'd sautéed in another pan, added some schisandra berries and then let it simmer. After it had reduced, I poured bear stock over it and seasoned it with a little salt... The result was a deep, rich sauce perfect for emphasizing the natural punch of my Bear-Meat Menchi Katsu!" "Oho! You musta come up with that idea while I was relaxing with my cup o' chai! Not bad, Yukihira-chin! Not bad at all! Don'tcha think?" "Y-yes, sir..." Plus, there is no debating how well honey pairs well with bear meat. The Chinese have long considered bear paws a great delicacy... ... because of the common belief that the mellow sweetness of the honey soaks into a bear's paw as it sticks it into beehives and licks the honey off of it. What a splendid idea pairing honey with bear meat, each accentuating the other... ... then using caramelization and balsamic vinegar to mellow it to just the right level. It's a masterful example of using both flavor subtraction and enhancement in the same dish!

The salmon is perfectly cooked. The trace amounts of sugar contained in the wheat flour have combined with the butter in a chemical reaction that's creating a wonderful fragrance. It was all fried together for precisely the right amount of time to create a superb Meunière." "The squid liver was quickly sautéed in a dollop of butter as well, taking a bite of that with the Meunière is sublime! The butter's flavor gently wraps around the salty and pleasantly bitter taste of the liver, giving it a beautifully mellow body." "He added pomegranate seeds and tonburi to the soy sauce marinated roe! Those three completely disparate flavors meld into a seamless whole thanks to butter! Not only does it have an amusing texture, the roe doesn't have its typical greasiness either!" *Tonburi, also called land caviar, is the seeds of the summer cypress plant. It's texture is similar to caviar.* He's used mounds of butter in so many different facets of the dish, but it somehow hasn't made the flavor heavy at all. The secret to that lies in the bed of special sushi rice hidden underneath the seafood! "This sushi rice was made not with vinegar but with orange juice and lemon juice!" "So that's why he was squeezing that mountain of oranges!"

It goes without saying that the meat is tender... ... but the generous helping of minced onions on top just whets the appetite further! And this full-bodied flavor... red wine? After searing the steak, he must have added red wine to the remaining meat juices and caramelized the onions in the resulting sauce!" "Not only that, the sauce was beautifully thickened with potato starch! It wraps around both the meat and the rice so perfectly, it's amazing!" "And tying it all together is the flavor of scorched soy sauce! Even char was used as a seasoning to deepen the flavor! He made this special, unforgettable sauce building upon the onions that are so critical to a true Chaliapin Steak!" "Both the meat and the sauce have strong, solid flavors... yet the more I eat, the hungrier I get. In fact, it almost feels like I could eat this bowl endlessly! Why? Is there some other secret hidden in this dish?" "Yep! That trick is in the rice. I added in some handmade pickled-plum mix to it. It's crisp plum-seasoned rice!" "Aha! So that's it! That brisk aftertaste that encourages another bite is pickled plum!" The tender, fragrant steak... the beautifully thickened, perfect sauce... and the fresh, tartly flavored plum-seasoned rice.

Wasanbon sugar, honey and tofu. Together, they make a silky-smooth pastry crust that gently caresses the lips... while the fluffy, sticky white bean paste melts on the tongue. Its mellow and robust flavor wafting up to tickle the nose! And with every bite, the crisp tartness of apples pop like fireworks, glittering brightly and fading, only to sparkle once again. Its sweet deliciousness ripples from the mouth straight up to the brain... a super-heavyweight punch of moist, rich goodness!" "Yeeah!" "Ladies and gentlemen, all the judges have looks on their faces! What on earth could have created a flavor that rapturous?!" "The biggest secret to that flavor is right here, brushed on the underside of the pastry crust... apple butter!" "Apple butter?!" "Hmm..." It's as simple as its name- grated apple, lemon juice and sugar added into melted butter. The distinctive tang of fruit is melded together harmoniously with mellow butter, creating a spread that can add acidity, saltiness and rich body to a dish! "Yet making something like this is no mean feat! Two completely disparate ingredients must be not just mixed but perfectly emulsified together! It's a task akin to perfectly melding oil with water! Even pro chefs have difficulty bringing out the butter's smooth shine without accidentally letting it separate! Managing it all requires mastery of a very specific cooking technique!" "Yes, sir! I did use Monter au Beurre. It's a technique for finishing sauces... ... common in French cooking!

Cendrillon specialized in seafood, so we had four fish stations: one for poaching, one for roasting, one for sautéing, and one for sauce. I was the chef de partie for the latter two, which also included making our restaurant's signature soups. O'Shea planned his menu seasonally- depending on what was available at the market. It was fall, my favorite time of the year, bursting with all the savory ingredients I craved like a culinary hedonist, the ingredients that turned my light on. All those varieties of beautiful squashes and root vegetables- the explosion of colors, the ochre yellows, lush greens, vivid reds, and a kaleidoscope of oranges- were just a few of the ingredients that fueled my cooking fantasies. In the summer, on those hot cooking days and nights in New York with rivulets of thick sweat coating my forehead, I'd fantasize about what we'd create in the fall, closing my eyes and cooking in my head. Soon, the waitstaff would arrive to taste tonight's specials, which would be followed by our family meal. I eyed the board on the wall and licked my lips. The amuse-bouche consisted of a pan-seared foie gras served with caramelized pears; the entrée, a boar carpaccio with eggplant caviar, apples, and ginger; the two plats principaux, a cognac-flambéed seared sea scallop and shrimp plate served with deep-fried goat cheese and garnished with licorice-perfumed fennel leaves, which fell under my responsibility, and the chief's version of a beef Wellington served with a celeriac mash, baby carrots, and thin French green beans.

But the one piece of this dish that plays the biggest role of all... is this wrapping around the chicken breast... the Croûte!" Croûte! A base of bread or pie dough seasoned with savory spices, croûte can refer either to the dough itself or a dish wrapped in it. It's a handy addition that can boost the aroma, textures and presentation of a dish without overpowering its distinctive flavors! "You are correct. Therein lies the greatest secret of my dish. Given the sudden measurements to the original plan and my need to create an entirely different dish... ... the Croûte I had intended to use to wrap the chicken breast required two very specific additions. Those two ingredients were... FINELY MINCED SQUID LEGS... ... AND PEANUT BUTTER." "NO WAY! SQUID LEGS AND PEANUT BUTTER?!" "Yes! Squid legs and peanut butter! Appetizer and main dish! There is no greater tie that could bind our two dishes together!" Peanut butter's mild richness adds subtle depth to the natural body of the chicken, making it an excellent secret seasoning. And the moderately salty bitterness of the squid legs is extremely effective in tying the Croûte's flavor together with the meaty juiciness of the chicken! "Even an abominable mash-up that Yukihira has tinkered with for ages... ... can be transformed into elegant gourmet beauty when put in my capable hands. The Jidori chicken breasts and the squid and peanut butter Croûte... those are the two pillars of my dish! To support them, I revised all the seasonings for the sauces and garnishes... ... so that after you tasted Soma Yukihira's dish... ... the deliciousness of my own dish would ring across your tongues as powerfully as possible!

Top Dog" If I could, I would take your grief, dig it up out of the horseradish field and grate it into something red and hot to sauce the shellfish. I would take the lock of hair you put in the locket and carry it in my hand, I would make the light strike everything the way it hit the Bay Bridge, turning the ironwork at sunset into waffles. If I could, I would blow your socks off, they would travel far, always in unison, past the dead men running, past the cranes standing in snow, beyond the roads we rode, so small in our little car, it was like riding in a miner's helmet. If I could I would make everyone vote and call their public servants to say, “No one was meant for this.” I would go back to the afternoon we made love in the tall grass under the full sun not far from the ravine where the old owner had flung hundreds of mink cages. I would memorize gateways to the afterworld, the electric third rail, the blond braid our girl has hanging down her back, the black guppy we killed at our friends’ when we unplugged the bubbler and the fish floated to the top, one eye up at the ceiling, the other at the blue gravel on the bottom of the tank. I would beg an audience with Sister Lucia, the last living of the children visited by Our Lady of Fatima, I would ask her about the weight of secrets, if they let her sleep or if she woke at night with a body on her body, if the body said, “Let's play top dog, first I'll lie on you, then you lie on me.” I would ask how she lived with revelation, the normal state of affairs amplified beyond God, bumped up to the Virgin Mother, who no doubt knew a few things, passed them on, quietly, and I would ask Lucia how she lived with knowing, how she could keep it under her hat, under wraps, button up, zip her lip, play it close to the vest, never telling, never using truth as a weapon.

The moment I put it in my mouth and bit down... ... an exquisite and entirely unexpected flavor exploded in my mouth! It burst across my tongue, rushed up through my nose... ... and rose all the way up to my brain!" "No! It can't be!" "How is that possible?! Anyone with eyes can see there's nothing special to that dish! Its fragrance was entirely inferior to Asahi's dish from the get-go!" "That there. That's what it is. I knew something wasn't right." "Asahi?" "Something felt off the instant the cloche was removed. His dish is fried rice. It uses tons of butter, soy sauce and spices. Yet it hardly had any aroma!" "Good catch. The secret is in one of the five grand cuisine dishes I melded together... A slightly atypical take on the French Oeuf Mayonnaise. ." "Ouef Mayonnaise, or eggs and mayonnaise, is an appetizer you can find in any French bistro. Hard-boiled eggs are sliced, coated with a house-blend mayo and garnished with vegetables. Though, in your dish, I can tell you chose very soft-boiled eggs instead. Hm. Very interesting, Soma Yukihira. He took those soft-boiled eggs and some homemade mayo and blended them into a sauce...... which he then poured over his steamed rice and tossed until each and every grain was coated, its flavor sealed inside! To cook them so that each individual grain is completely covered... ... takes incredibly fast and precise wok handling over extremely high heat! No average chef could manage that feat!" " Whaaa?! Ah! It's so thin I didn't notice it at first glance, but there it is, a very slight glaze! That makes each of these grains of rice a miniature, self-contained Omurice! The moment you bite into them, that eggy coating is broken... ... releasing all the flavors and aromas of the dish onto your palate in one explosive rush!" No wonder! That's what entranced the judges. That sudden, powerful explosion of flavor! "Yep! Even when it's served, my dish still hides its fangs. Only when you bite into it does it bite back with all it's got. I call it my Odorless Fried Rice.

It’s just a devilish odd coincidence. I shared a boat – and a carriage – with Balcourt’s sister and cousin." "I didn’t realise he had a sister." "Well, he does." Richard abruptly pushed away his empty bowl. "What a great stroke of luck! Could you use the acquaintance with the sister to discover more about Balcourt’s activities?" "That," Richard said grimly, "is not an option." Geoff eyed him quizzically. "I realise that any sister of Balcourt’s is most likely repugnant at best, but you don’t need to propose to the girl. Just flirt with her a bit. Take her for a drive, call on her at home, use her as an entrée into the house. You’ve done it before." "Miss Balcourt is not repugnant." Richard twisted in his chair, and stared at the door. "What the devil is keeping supper?" Geoff leant across the table. "Well, if she’s not repugnant, then-what’s the – ah." "Ah? Ah? What the deuce do you mean by ‘ah’? Of all the nonsensical…" "You" – Geoff pointed at him with fiendish glee – "are unsettled not because you find her repugnant, but because you find her not repugnant." Richard was about to deliver a baleful look in lieu of a response, when he was saved by the arrival of the footman bearing a large platter of something covered with sauce. Richard leant forward and speared what looked like it might once have been part of a chicken, as the footman whisked off with his soup dish. "Have some," Richard suggested to Geoff, ever so subtly diverting the conversation to culinary appreciation. "Thank you." Undiverted, Geoff continued, "Tell me about your Miss Balcourt." "Leaving aside the fact that she is by no means my Miss Balcourt" – Richard ignored the sardonic stare coming from across the table – "the girl is as complete an opposite to her brother as you can imagine. She was raised in England, somewhere out in the countryside. She’s read Homer in the original Greek—" "This is serious," murmured Geoff. "Is she comely?" "Comely?" "You know, nice hair, nice eyes, nice…" Geoff made a gesture that Richard would have expected more readily from Miles.

The crispy crunch of the savory parmesan wings. The thick and smooth Ankake sauce. And under those lies the tender and springy chicken meat that floods the mouth with its umami-laden juices with each bite! Even the delicate aftertaste unique to the Satsuma Jidori has been vividly enhanced! You would think by adding powerfully flavored ingredients like cheese and pork jowl that the overall taste would become heavy and cloying, but that isn't the case at all! The answer to that is in the Ankake sauce. I seasoned that Jidori stock with one special secret ingredient. "Yukihira, quit stalling! What the heck is that ingredient? Tell me! Now!" "It's ketchup. I used good ol' tomato ketchup to make that Ankake sauce... ... into a special house-blend sweet n' sour sauce!" "Ketchup?!" Sweet n' sour sauce is used in a lot of dishes, from obvious ones like sweet n' sour pork, to regional varieties ofTenshinhan crab omelet over rice, and even seafood dishes like deep-fried cod! It's especially handy for Chinese cooking, which commonly makes use of a variety of oils. It's perfect for alleviating the thick oiliness of some dishes, giving them a fresh and tangy flavor. So by adding the tart acidity of tomato-based ketchup to make my Ankake sauce... ... it wipes out the cloying greasiness of both the Parmesan cheese and the pork jowl, leaving only their rich flavors behind. Not only that, it also brings out the Satsuma Jidori's renowned delicate aftertaste!" "The base broth of the sauce is from a stock I made from the Jidori's carcass, so of course it will pair well with the wing meat. And to top it all off, Parmesan cheese and tomatoes are a great match for each other!" "Oh... oh, now I see! That's how you managed to keep from smothering the Jidori's unique flavor! Tomatoes are one big lump of the umami component glutamic acid! Add the inosinic acid from the Jidori and the Guanylic acid from the shiitake mushrooms, and you have three umami compounds all magnifying each other! The techniques for emphasizing the unique and delicious flavors of a Jidori... the three-way umami-component magnification effect... the synergy between ketchup and cheese... the texture contrast between the crispy cheese wings and the smooth Ankake sauce... all of those rest squarely on the foundation of the tomato's tart acidity!

The tofu pocket is soaked with butter, every bite of it drenching the lips... ... sending rich waves gushing through the mouth. Just one taste is enough to seep both tongue and mind in a thick flood of butter! "The tofu pocket is so juicy it's nearly dripping, yet it hasn't drowned the filling at all. The rice is delectably fluffy and delicate, done in true pilaf style, with the grains separate, tender and not remotely sticky. Simmered in fragrant chicken broth, the prawns give it a delightful crunch, while ample salt and pepper boost both its flavor and aroma!" "The whole dish is strongly flavored, but it isn't the least bit heavy or sticky. The deliciousness of every ingredient, wrapped in a cloak of rich butter, wells up with each bite like a gushing, savory spring! How on earth did you manage to create this powerful a flavor?!" "Well, first I sautéed the rice for the pilaf without washing it- one of the major rules of pilafs! If you wash all the starch off the rice, the grains get crumbly and the whole thing can wind up tasting tacky instead of tender. Then I thoroughly rinsed the tofu pockets with hot water to wash off the extra oil so they'd soak up the seasonings better. But the biggest secret to the whole thing... ... was my specially made Mochi White Sauce! Normal white sauce is made with lots of milk, butter and flour, making it really thick and heavy. But I made mine using only soy milk and mochi, so it's still rich and creamy without the slightest hint of greasiness. In addition, I sprinkled a blend of several cheeses on top of everything when I put it in the oven to toast. They added some nice hints of mellow saltiness to the dish without making it too heavy! Basically, I shoved all the tasty things I could think of into my dish... ... pushing the rich, savory flavor as hard as I could until it was just shy of too much... and this is the result!" Some ingredients meld with the butter's richness into mellow deliciousness... ... while others, sautéed in butter, have become beautifully savory and aromatic. Into each of these little inari sushi pockets has gone an immense amount of work across uncountable steps and stages. Undaunted by Mr. Saito's brilliant dish, gleaming with the fierce goodness of seafood... each individual ingredient is loudly and proudly declaring its own unique deliciousness!

Evening Ritual Checklist: [ ] Electronic screens off 90 minutes (minimum) before bed  [ ] Stretch and/or bath or shower [ ] Read some fiction [ ] Brush your teeth [ ] Use the bathroom [ ] Journal [ ] Meditation, prayers, or give gratitude [ ] Lay down in bed to sleep [ ]Time to say goodnight Sleep is the secret sauce.

Knowing this, I have watched with great interest as Kim Barnas and her team at ThedaCare hospitals in Wisconsin worked at transforming their culture by redesigning the system of daily management. After two years of experimentation, discussion, and study, they found a more deliberative approach to leading a lean healthcare system. By changing the expectations of what managers and frontline supervisors actually do each day, Kim and her team pushed the roots of lean deeper into the organization. This encouraged new ways of thinking, which led to new behaviors. Instead of adding continuous improvement to the list of manager’s duties, improvement became the organizing principle of their work. Thus, a new management system emerged and it was clear that this was the secret sauce that so many had been seeking. Kim discovered that changing a leader’s work content changed the leader as well. From frontline supervisors to top executives, new management duties encouraged everyone to become more respectful, improvement focused, and process orientated. Instead of managing by exception—running after today’s unique emergency—they fixed processes. They standardized processes. In doing so, more improvements to clinical processes remained in place. Projects initiated by frontline caregivers were aligned with the hospital’s major initiatives and relevant to the unit or clinic. Continuous improvement became the working method instead of the extra task.

You just say it. That’s how you say something that’s hard. You put one foot in front of the other. You take it step by step. You say the words. There is no magic formula. There is no secret sauce. But there are words,” she says emphatically, as if she’s delivering an impassioned speech. As if she’s saying something that matters deeply to her. “And words are all we have. That’s all there really is between people. At the end of the day, we have our actions, and we have our words. And you simply say them.

So that begs the question: how do you show someone you really hear them? This is where things get interesting. The truly good listeners of the world do more than just listen. They listen, seek to understand, and then validate. That third point is the secret sauce—the magic ingredient.

I hated tête de veau (boiled cow brain), and who wouldn't, but loved escargots in a creamy garlic, butter, and parsley sauce. The word "cerise" was underlined four times, along with the words "Ma petite-fille Sophie, elle aime n'importe quoi avec les cerises." I still loved them. My visits to Champvert always coincided with cherry season, and Grand-mère Odette always made sure a bowl of plump black cherries sat in front of me. When I wasn't tasting one of her wonderful creations, I'd stuff one cherry after another into my meager mouth and spit the pits into a bowl, reveling in the juicy and sweet explosions hitting my tongue. As she whisked the batter for her clafoutis, stating how important it was to keep the pits in the cherries or the dessert would lose its nutty flavor, she'd tell me about some of her other recipes, the ingredients rolling off her tongue like a new exotic language I wanted to learn every word of. Saffron, nutmeg, coriander, paprika, and kumquat- what were these things, I wondered?

L'AMUSE-BOUCHE Chocolate Parmesan Tapioca with a Pan-Seared Scallop L'ENTREE Salad with Chèvre Chaud, Honey, and Mint Dressing OU Roasted Butternut Squash and Cacao Soup OU Oysters with a Mignonette Sauce LE PLAT PRINCIPAL Armagnac-and-Chocolate-Infused Daube de Bœuf à la Gascogne OU Sweet Potato Curry with Mussels OU Chocolate Pasta with a Gorgonzola Cheese Sauce LA SALADE ET LE FROMAGE Moules à la Plancha with Chorizo served over a bed of Arugula Selection of the Château's Cheeses LE DESSERT Mousse au Chocolat spiced with Pimento Chili Peppers and Chocolate Flakes, garnished with Mint I spun around on one heel, excited to get prepping. Unbeknownst to me, the rest of the kitchen staff had arrived, their jaws agape as they stared at the menu. As usual, Phillipa was the first to speak up. "That menu looks wicked incredible." "I don't know about adding hot peppers to the mousse au chocolat," said Jane, and the granny brigade nodded in agreement. I was so sick of her know-it-all attitude. I knew a thing or two and I was going to stand by my decision. "The combination has Aztec roots. To honor the fertility goddess they drank xocolāt, a chocolate concoction spiced with chili pepper and vanilla. It's delicious and unexpected." Jane rolled her eyes. "You're the chef." "I am," I said, wanting to challenge her. "And this is the menu.

L'AMUSE-BOUCHE Strawberry Gazpacho served in Chinese Spoons, garnished with Deep-Fried Goat Cheese and Basil L'ENTRÉE Zucchini Cakes with Lemon Prawns and Braised Wild Asparagus, garnished with Edible Flowers OU Cream of Wild Asparagus Soup OU Roasted Cauliflower and Beets with Capers, served over Spinach in a White Wine Lemon Sauce LE PLAT PRINCIPAL Drunk Shrimp, Flambéed in Cognac, served over a Terrine of Tomatoes, Avocado, Strawberries, and Creamy Lemon Risotto OU Confit du Canard, served with Roasted Baby Carrots and Sweet Sautéed Radishes OU Bœuf en Croute with Foie Gras and Mushrooms, served with Grilled Wild Asparagus and Sweet Sautéed Radishes LA SALADE ET LE FROMAGE Strawberries and Wild Asparagus, served over Arugula with a White Wine Vinaigrette Selection of the Château's Cheeses LE DESSERT Crème Brûlée with a Trio of Strawberries and Cognac

The poissonnier is delivering some of his beautiful daurades and scallops." I let out a sigh of relief. "Perfect. If there's anything I can handle, it's sea bream, lovely and light," I said, nodding my head. I needed to do this. "It's winter. Fennel is in season, yes?" I asked, thinking about what would plate well with the duck, and she nodded. "Pomegranate? And hazelnuts?" "Of course," said Philippa, rubbing her hands together. "I can't wait to see what you've got up your sleeve." That would make two of us. What was I going to do with the daurade? Something simple like daurade with almonds and a romesco sauce? Did the kitchen even have almonds? The more I thought about this recipe, the more boring it sounded. Roasted daurade with lemon and herbs? Again, typical. I had an opportunity to create something special, something out of this world, on my own terms. I wanted to get creative and do something colorful, playing with the colors of winter and whatever was in season. My imagination raced with all of the possibilities- a slideshow in my mind presenting delicious temptations. A crate of oranges caught my eye. I licked my lips- a light sweet potato purée infused with orange. Braised cabbage. Seared daurade filets. Saffron. The colors, ingredients, and plating came together in my mind.

He'd plated one of the desserts in a beautiful glass bowl, complete with what he said was the homemade vanilla bean ice cream he'd made the previous night, and garnished the pear with the sauce, a cinnamon stick, sprigs of thyme, vanilla bean pods, and pomegranate seeds. "The sauce?" I asked, dipping in my spoon. "Vanilla bean seeds, red wine, sugar, and nutmeg," he said. "If there's anything I know, it's how to make sauces with wine." I dipped my spoon in and tasted it. Oh my God, heaven on my tongue. I eyed him warily. "You really do know sauces. I's simply delicious," I said. "But I taste a few more ingredients? Orange? Star anise? A dash or two of pastis, maybe?" "Your palate is just like your grandmother's. I can never get anything past her either.

The fish vendor had delivered a sea of heavenly delights. Les gambas, large shrimp, were the size of my hand. Once cooked, they'd be lovely and pink. The oysters were enormous and beautiful, the briny scent conjuring up the sea. I couldn't remember the last time I'd swum in open water. Six years ago on a Sunday trip to the Hamptons with Eric? Oh God, I didn't want to think about him. Besides the work of shucking more than three hundred of them, oysters were easy. They'd be served raw with a mignonette sauce and lemons, along with crayfish, crab, and shrimp, accompanied by a saffron-infused aioli dipping sauce. I lifted the top of another crate, and fifty or so lobsters with spiny backs greeted me- beautiful and big, and the top portion freckled by the sea. I loved working with lobster, the way their color changed from mottled brown and orange to a fiery red when cooked. I'd use the tails for le plat principal, flambéed in cognac and simmered in a spicy tomato- my version of my grandmother's recipe for langouste à la armoricaine. The garnish? A sprig of fresh rosemary. The other crates were filled with lovely mussels, scallops, whelks, and smoked salmon filets, along with another surprise- escargots. Save for the snails, this meal would be a true seafood extravaganza.

CHRISTMAS EVE MENU Foie Gras with Caramelized Apples Salmon with Lemon, Cucumber, and Dill, served on Small Rounds of Toasted Bread Escargots de Bourgogne Oysters with a Mignonette Sauce Oysters with Pimento Peppers and Apple Cider Vinegar Oysters Rockefeller, deglazed with Pernod, served with Spinach, Pimento Peppers, and Lardons Sophie's Spiced Langouste (Spiny Lobster) à l'Armoricaine Crayfish, Crab, and Shrimp with a Saffron-Infused Aioli Dipping Sauce Moules à la Plancha with Chorizo Selection of the Château's Cheeses Three Varieties of Bûche de Noël The kitchen staff walked in as I threw the chalk on the counter. Phillipa snuck up behind me. "Oh my God. That menu looks wicked incredible. I'm already drooling." Clothilde nodded her head in approval. "It's perfect. You've made your grandmother proud." "How many bûches do you think we'll need?" asked Gustave, referring to the celebrated and traditional log cakes served in every French restaurant and household sometime during the holiday season. "Twenty?" I answered. "Good thing I started on them a few days ago," he said. "Pineapple and mango, chocolate and praline, and vanilla and chestnut." "No alcohol?" I asked. "Maybe just a pinch of Armagnac." He held up his forefinger and thumb. Looked like more than a pinch.

This is spinach ohitashi." "Ha! Here it is! And the red part of the root has been finely chopped and placed upon the leaves and stem...!" "The redness of the root looks so pretty on the green leaves and stem." "Hmm. Roots are crunchy, but they don't have any bad texture to them. It's been boiled to perfection, and the dashi... Hmm, it's got something in it... Dashi made katsuobushi with soy sauce, and there's a very slight secret flavor added to it... the plum..." "Yes. A very slight amount of the umezu I got from making the umeboshi. You sure do have a keen sense of taste, Kyōgoku-san... Grilled young taro. It's a little early for them, but I love the refreshing taste of these small taro. The skin has been grilled, so you can peel it off very easily. They taste good with just salt... ...but they're irresistible with salted sea urchin." "Ooh! The refreshing taste of the small taro and the rich flavor of the sea urchin matches perfectly!

It has such a warm and gentle flavor." "The rice has soaked up the rich flavor of the scallops. Could you teach me how to make it?" "Of course. You mix soy sauce with sake and boil it, then place the scallops in it and cook it for about a minute. After that, you take the scallops out, place them on a different plate, and start cooking the rice. And when cooking the rice, you pour the broth you used to cook the scallop into the rice. You won't get the full flavor if you don't cook the black area called the midgut gland together with the scallop. Once the rice is cooked, you put it on a plate and place the scallops on top. That's when you take the midgut gland off." "Keep the midgut gland on when cooking the scallops, and take it off when mixing them into the rice. That must be the secret.

Preparation is the secret sauce of champions.

So what is the “secret sauce” of long-term healthy running? • Slow down! • Run for joy • Recover • Do not run too hard • Finish each run as if you could do it again • Keep fast and agile with short sprints and drills • Keep mobile, especially in the ankles and hips • Keep your foundation strong—this is your foot. Wear flat shoes shaped like your foot to stand, walk, run, and play. • Go barefoot as often as you can. • Learn the skill of running and keep trying to master this. A tool like TrueForm motor-less treadmill helps. • Do simple strength training with Kettle Bells and Burpees • Be your own body sensor and coach • Don’t sit • Eat real food • Do not put pain into your body • And pass it forward—we all continue to learn by teaching and sharing with others.

The figure of 50 million was nearly twice the number of users whose data was stolen, and was what Cambridge had used to model some 240 million Americans. With that single, prodigious harvest, and personality profiling, Cambridge had been able to categorize, through predictive algorithms and the other data it had purchased, every single American over the age of eighteen according to many different models, including OCEAN scoring; that’s how it knew which individual Americans were “open,” “conscientious,” “neurotic,” and so on. And that’s what had made its microtargeting so precise and effective. It was one of the main ingredients in Cambridge’s secret sauce.

He genuinely liked the noodles and mandu we'd brought. "Do you have any secret ingredients or something? How is this so good? And your mandu sauce---those were so good that there isn't any left!" This has got me thinking. If the church congregation and Daniel liked them, maybe other people would like my sauces too. Aside from staples you could find in any grocery store, such as soy sauce, ginger, sugar, and garlic, most Korean dishes had a base of the same key ingredients, like sesame oil and chili paste. Red chili flakes, rice vinegar, fish sauce, and toasted sesame seeds were also nice-to-haves.

I have for you braised and fried chicken feet, served with buffalo sauce, a salad of cauliflower rubble and grated celery, and a blue cheese mascarpone cream." Luke's face lit up as he saw the chicken feet, the exact opposite expressions of Lenore and Maz, who looked very much as if they were at an actual graveyard and had seen an actual claw shoot up from the grave. "It reminds me of dakbal," he breathed, and he sounded for a moment as if it were just the two of us sitting side by side in that Korean speakeasy, shoulder touching shoulder. Unconsciously, I took a step toward him. "My halmoni used to make dakbal as a snack when we visited her in Korea. She'd steam them first, then panfry them until they were charred, and then there was the secret sauce she made, all garlicky and gingery and tingling with gochugaru..." As he trailed off, I could almost taste his grandmother's chicken feet. The chew of the meat after the crisp of the char. The caramelization of the sugars on the skin, and the nose-running spiciness of the sauce. "I didn't know you were Korean," said Maz. That broke the mood. I stepped back, clearing my throat. Meanwhile, Lenore Smith was crunching away. "I was worried about eating these fried chicken feet right after that deep-fried noodle kugel, but this bracing, vinegary salad underneath really cuts through the fat and the richness," she said, swallowing. "I love the chicken feet, but I almost love this salad more. Is that crazy?" "Yes," Luke said. "The chicken feet are delicious. Cooked so that they're tender and also crunchy on the outside, and that sauce is the perfect amount of spicy and vinegary.

Luckily, we always had chicken legs in the fridge and plenty of soy sauce and brown sugar. But what else was in it? The salty sweetness was the dominant flavor, but it was more well-rounded than that. There was a depth and brightness. Calamansi! My eyes alit on the bottle of citrus juice we kept on hand when we couldn't find the fresh fruit. That must've been what she used. And what else... I closed my eyes, picturing myself at this kitchen table, the fragrant chicken piled on top of a steaming bowl of white rice, a tiny dribble of dark sauce squiggled across. I smiled and opened my eyes. Garlic. Of course.

For enlightened incumbents, ecosystem carryover is the “secret sauce” for creating new market space. For startups, once they are established, ecosystem carryover can be a powerful accelerator of growth and expansion. Carryover is a delicate process, as you work to convince partners to follow your vision into a yet-to-be established ecosystem.

Every couple has their own secret sauce of love

Happiness comes from solving problems. The keyword here is “solving.” If you’re avoiding your problems or feel like you don’t have any problems, then you’re going to make yourself miserable. If you feel like you have problems that you can’t solve, you will likewise make yourself miserable. The secret sauce is in the solving of the problems, not in not having problems in the first place

Happiness comes from solving problems. The keyword here is "solving". If you're avoiding your problems or feel like you don't have any problems, then you're going to make yourself miserable. If you feel like you have problems that you can't solve, you will likewise make yourself miserable. The secret sauce here is in the solving of the problems, not in not having problems in the first place. Happiness is a constant work in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work in-progress - the solutions to today's problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow's problems and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

Human nature is overwhelmingly helpful and good, but those people generally aren’t the ones in power. There is some secret sauce to power, whether there is a flaw in those who seek it, or once in power, their dark side takes over. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, or so they say. I think human frailty cannot withstand the positive reinforcement that comes from being in charge. It’s an addiction, but there’s no world police to keep the leaders on the straight and narrow.

My meal from Honey and Hickory came with a side of dysentery straight out of Oregon Trail.’” Finn now spat out the quote against the echo of Simone’s accusation, reciting from memory a review he’d found on a late-night, liquor-fueled deep dive into all things Honey and Hickory. “That’s a direct quote from a one-star review I found for Simone’s historic family restaurant online.” Simone strode forward and claimed center stage. “Written by a disgruntled cook who was fired for never showing up to work. It hardly classifies as empirical evidence.” “Look, Ms. Blake,” he said, leaning heavy on the honorific like she had, gratified when her eyes narrowed. “Beyond Honey and Hickory’s subpar reviews, your generic flavors can’t match the nuance of Finn’s Secret Sauce. You’re a mom-and-pop barbecue joint with no soul, stuck in the past.” Directing his next words to the investors, he said, “Whereas I’m all heart, focused on the future of barbecue. Sustainable, organic, outside-the-box flavor blends.” Simone clicked her tongue. “Organic? Wow, super cutting edge. If this was 1999.” Hands on her hips, she angled away from him, toward the crowd. “Honey and Hickory was farm to table long before it was fashionable, and we cook with locally sourced meat and home-grown produce.” “Like you had anything to do with that? Your grandfather probably set up those contacts while you were in diapers.” He turned his focus on the audience; two could play at that game. “Don’t let Ms. Blake fool you. She’s been at the helm of the restaurant for less than a year, yet she’s trying to convince you she played a role in Honey and Hickory’s decades of success.

When nobody eats the last chile on the plate, it's usually because none of them wants to look like a glutton, so even though they'd really like to devour it, they don't have the nerve to take it. It was as if they were rejecting that stuffed pepper, which contains every imaginable flavour; sweet as candied citron, juicy as a pomegranate, with the bit of pepper and the subtlety of walnuts, that marvellous chile in walnut sauce. Within it lies the secret of love, but it will never be penetrated, and all because it wouldn't be proper.

Daddies Sauce.

Ask for Feedback After an entire chapter on the importance of giving feedback to your reports, surely this comes as no surprise: if there is a secret sauce to self-improvement, it’s to ask for feedback from other people all the time. The only hurdle you need to overcome is yourself—can you remember to ask frequently enough? Can you be humble and self-aware enough to hear it openly and then respond with real change? Remember to ask for both task-specific and behavioral feedback. The more concrete you are about what you want to know, the better. If you lead with, “Hey, how do you think my presentation went?” you’ll probably hear responses like “I think it went well,” which aren’t particularly helpful. Instead, probe at the specifics and make it easy for someone to tell you something actionable. “I’m working on making sure my point is clear in the first three minutes. Did that come across? How can I make it clearer next time?” Always thank people for feedback. Even if you don’t agree with what’s said, receive it graciously and recognize that it took effort to give. If others find you defensive, you’ll get less feedback in the future, which will only hurt your growth.

The appeal to identity is capitalism’s secret sauce.

The ability to maintain an alignment between you, your values, and your efforts is the secret sauce of productivity.

The secret sauce is in the solving of the problems, not in not having problems in the first place.

That’s because they came up with an elegant classification—the periodic table of chemical elements. This allowed them to distinguish the basic building blocks. This in turn revealed that a relatively small set of elements can explain the enormously diverse range of substances and chemical properties. This basic strategy of analyzing complex phenomena into simpler elements is part of the “secret sauce” that makes science so powerful.

Chestnuts have always been an ingredient that goes well with gamy meats. And in French cuisine, chestnuts are often seen in combination with venison. But the mildly sweet flavor and tender texture of these sweet chestnuts makes them melt in the mouth! That flavor combined with the smoky aroma of the charcoal grilling, makes the juicy meatiness of the venison stand out in stark contrast! This flavor isn't something that could be created with regular chestnuts. It's a deliciousness made possible precisely because he chose to use sweet chestnuts! "He minced some of them and added them to the sauce as well! Doing that spread their mild sweetness throughout the whole dish!" Soma's Chestnut Sauce Starting with a base of Fond de Veau (a brown stock usually made with veal), he added a cinnamon stick, orange zest and minced sweet chestnuts and then set the sauce to simmer. "Wait a minute. How odd! Charcoal grilling usually adds a unique and very distinctly bitter taste to ingredients. A taste that is decidedly outside the canon of French flavors! Yet this dish has taken that bitter taste and somehow made it fit seamlessly! Is there some secret to it?!" "That would be the coffee." "What?!" "Coffee?" "Yep! You guessed it! That's the Divine Tongue for you. One of the things I learned at Master Shinomiya's restaurant is that cacao goes really well with game meats. I've never used cacao much, though, to be honest... So instead I grabbed some instant coffee! The bitterness of coffee is similar enough to pure cacao that it paired up nicely with both the charcoal grilling and the gamy venison... ... resulting in a deeply rich and astringent flavor that's perfect for a truly French sauce. I added both coffee and chestnuts as secret ingredients to my sauce! This is a Yukihira Original and a brand-new French dish. I call it... ... Charcoal-Grilled Venison Thigh with Chestnut Sauce." In formal Japanese cooking bowl dishes, such as soups and rice bowls, are constructed from four elements: the main ingredient, the supporting ingredients, the stock and the accents. Similarly, the French dishes are constructed from three different parts balanced in harmony: the main ingredient, the sauce and the garnishes. But this dish... this is eccentric and novel and entirely unconventional while still remaining undeniably French! It's almost as if it's a nugget of flavor found only by cracking and peeling away the shell of common sense...

the real secret sauce to personal style is to ensure that your confidence and body image align with your clothes.

packing a missile but delivering an asparagus stalk that had been boiled to within an inch of its life.

If you’re not ready in ten minutes, I’m leaving without you.” “Is that a threat? It doesn’t sound like one to me.

I smile, because it's a rare and quiet weekday night where I can be alone with Chef Sakamoto. It's nights like these when he whistles to me-a Japanese tune? A Japanese rhyme?-because it's nothing I recognise from my own childhood. It's nights like these when he takes his time with me, picking on the leftovers from my belly that are still good, then turning me upside down to scrub me with warm water and soap. It's after hours, and there is no urgency, no high turnover, no unreasonable demands, and most importantly, no one here but us. Chef Sakamoto caresses me with those long fingers, fingers that have bled under the sushi knife, fingers that can withstand pan-seared beef, fingers that have been dipped into Kumi's secret sauce (which is just butter, mayonnaise and a bit of mustard) before touching his mouth.