Simple Wine Quotes

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.

The ones who are not soul-mated – the ones who have settled – are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect, they say – they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation – yes, honey, okay, honey – is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and ‘playfully’ scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only… and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes. So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn’t make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I’m the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart – perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I’m in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man – the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.

Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.

I understand addiction now. I never did before, you know. How could a man (or a woman) do something so self-destructive, knowing that they’re hurting not only themselves, but the people they love? It seemed that it would be so incredibly easy for them to just not take that next drink. Just stop. It’s so simple, really. But as so often happens with me, my arrogance kept me from seeing the truth of the matter. I see it now though. Every day, I tell myself it will be the last. Every night, as I’m falling asleep in his bed, I tell myself that tomorrow I’ll book a flight to Paris, or Hawaii, or maybe New York. It doesn’t matter where I go, as long as it’s not here. I need to get away from Phoenix—away from him—before this goes even one step further. And then he touches me again, and my convictions disappear like smoke in the wind. This cannot end well. That’s the crux of the matter, Sweets. I’ve been down this road before—you know I have—and there’s only heartache at the end. There’s no happy ending waiting for me like there was for you and Matt. If I stay here with him, I will become restless and angry. It’s happening already, and I cannot stop it. I’m becoming bitter and terribly resentful. Before long, I will be intolerable, and eventually, he’ll leave me. But if I do what I have to do, what my very nature compels me to do, and move on, the end is no better. One way or another, he’ll be gone. Is it not wiser to end it now, Sweets, before it gets to that point? Is it not better to accept that this happiness I have is destined to self-destruct? Tomorrow I will leave. Tomorrow I will stop delaying the inevitable. Tomorrow I will quit lying to myself, and to him. Tomorrow. What about today, you ask? Today it’s already too late. He’ll be home soon, and I have dinner on the stove, and wine chilling in the fridge. And he will smile at me when he comes through the door, and I will pretend like this fragile, dangerous thing we have created between us can last forever. Just one last time, Sweets. Just one last fix. That’s all I need. And that is why I now understand addiction.

First, he says, you have to go out into the world. This is not a simple matter of going outside one's door. No, that is simply going out. That's what one does when one is on the way to the store to buy a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine. When one goes out into the world, one is shedding preconceptions of past paths and ideas of past paths, and trying to move freely through an unsubstantiated and new geography.

Branson ate his salad, and left the rest of his fish untouched, while Grace tucked into his steak and kidney pudding with relish. 'I read a while ago,' he told Branson, 'that the French drink more red wine than the English but live longer. The Japanese eat more fish than the English but drink less wine and live longer. The Germans eat more red meat than the English, and drink more beer and they live longer too. You know the moral of this story? 'No' 'It's not what you eat or drink - it's speaking English that kills you.

How do you make someone love you? For the very young, there can be nothing harder in the world. You may try as hard as you like: place yourself beside them, cook their favourite food, bring them wine or sing the love songs that you know will move them. They will not move them. Nothing will move them. You will waste days interpreting the simple banalities of a phone call; months staring at their soft lips as they talk; you will waste years watching a body sitting in a chair and willing every muscle to take you across the room and do a simple thing, say a simple word, make them love you and you will not do it; you will waste long nights wondering how they cannot feel this - the urge to embrace, the snow melt in the heart when you are near them - how they can sit in that chair, or speak with those lips, or make a call and mean nothing by it, hide nothing in their hearts. Or perhaps what they hide is not what you want to see. Because surely they love someone. It simply isn’t you.

He pressed me firmly to him, and I could feel that he was more than ready to get on with the business at hand. With some surprise, I realized that I was ready too. In fact, whether it was the result of the late hour, the wine, his own attractiveness, or simple deprivation, I wanted him quite badly.

Simple game—he’d fill a wineglass with one of his expensive reds and set it on the edge of the table. Then he would fuck me. Hard.” Nora grinned as Wesley flinched. “If I thrashed too much, or fought him and knocked the glass off…then the wine wasn’t the only red that we spilled that night.

Her touch is like doing simple math When she sleeps in the bed, subtracting clothes There is a red ink, like a sparkling red wine, adding colors Dividing body, remembering gods, without multiplying

it was her company he desired. He wanted to put his arms around her and to sit in silence, staring into the fire, drinking wine, smoking the occasional cigarette; that would be enough. Life was made up of simple things; he was weary of all the years he had spent searching for something, though quite what he didn't know.

is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well

Isana stared at Gaius for a moment. Then she said, "How can you live with yourself?" The First Lord stared at her for a moment, his eyes cold. Then he spoke in a very quiet, precise, measured voice. "I look out my window each day. I look out my window at people who live and breathe. At people who have not been devoured by civil war. At people who have not been ravaged by disease. At people who have not starved to death, who have not been hacked apart by enemies of humanity, at people who are free to lie and steal and plot and complain and accuse and behave in all manner of repugnant ways because the Realm stands. Because law and order stands. Because something other than simple violence shapes the course of their lives. And I look, wife of my son, mother of my heir, at a very few decent people who have had the luxury of living their lives without being called upon to make hideous decisions I would not wish upon my worst enemies, and who consequently find such matters morally appalling when they consider them--because they have not had to be the ones who dealt with them." He took a short, hard swallow of wine. "Feh. Aquitaine thinks me his enemy. The fool. If I truly hated him, I'd give him the Crown.

The pleasures of my life here are simple – simple, inexpensive and democratic. A warm hill of Marmande tomatoes on a roadside vendor’s stall. A cold beer on a pavement table of the Café de France – Marie Thérèse inside making me a sandwich au camembert. Munching the knob of a fresh baguette as I wander back from Sainte-Sabine. The farinaceous smell of the white dust raised by a breeze from the driveway. A cuckoo sounding the perfectly silent woods beyond the meadow. A huge grey, cerise, pink, orange and washed-out blue of a sunset seen from my rear terrace. The drilling of the cicadas at noon – the soft dialing-tone of the crickets at dusk slowly gathers. A good book, a hammock and a cold, beaded bottle of blanc sec. A rough red wine and steak frites. The cool, dark, shuttered silence of my bedroom – and, as I go to sleep, the prospect that all this will be available to me again, unchanged, tomorrow.

I’m a girl of simple tastes. I like cheap wine and expensive cheese.

Pieces don’t fit. Wine runs out. Water bottles burst. These are facts of life. But Jesus responds with this invitation: “Bring your problems to me.

This We Have Now This we have now is not imagination. This is not grief or joy. Not a judging state, or an elation, or sadness. Those come and go. This is the presence that doesn't. It's dawn, Husam, here in the splendor of coral, inside the Friend, the simple truth of what Hallaj said. What else could human beings want? When grapes turn to wine they're wanting this. When the nightsky pours by, it's really a crowd of beggars, and they all want some of this! This that we are now created the body, cell by cell, like bees building a honeycomb. The human body and the universe grew from this, not this from the universe and the human body.

America is not a simple place. Its contradictions set me spinning. I’d found myself at Democratic fund-raisers held in vast Manhattan penthouses, sipping wine with wealthy women who would claim to be passionate about education and children’s issues and then lean in conspiratorially to tell me that their Wall Street husbands would never vote for anyone who even thought about raising their taxes.

The Things that Cause a Quiet Life My friend, the things that do attain The happy life be these, I find: The riches left, not got with pain, The fruitful ground; the quiet mind; The equal friend; no grudge, no strife; No charge of rule nor governance; Without disease the healthy life; The household of continuance; The mean diet, no dainty fare; True wisdom joined with simpleness; The night discharged of all care, Where wine the wit may not oppress; The faithful wife, without debate; Such sleeps as may beguile the night: Content thyself with thine estate, Neither wish death, nor fear his might.

Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse. Winter is of a more heroic cast, and addresses the intellect. The severe studies and disciplines come easier in winter. One imposes larger tasks upon himself, and is less tolerant of his own weaknesses...The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread.

A good loaf of bread and a simple bottle of wine can work wonders.

The king drinks wine, and the general eats fat duck all day. And yet, they want me to take money from the woman who pours her being into a simple pot?

Wine is so complex, I mused. Thousands of experts and hundreds of thousands of amateur experts would rhapsodize or vilify the vinification of these seemingly simple bunches of grapes. But in the end, it was just these innocuous clusters, photosynthesis, rain or no rain, cool ocean breezes, alluvial soils, that produced these epiphanies in the bottle hundreds and thousands of miles away.

Fonny had found something that he could do, that he wanted to do, and this saved him from the death that was waiting to overtake the children of our age. Though the death took many forms, though people died early in many different ways, the death itself was very simple and the cause was simple, too: as simple as a plague: the kids had been told that they weren't worth shit and everything they saw around them proved it. They struggled, they struggled, but they fell, like flies, and they congregated on the garbage heaps of their lives, like flies. And perhaps I clung to Fonny, perhaps Fonny saved me because he was just about the only boy I knew who wasn't fooling around with the needles or drinking cheap wine or mugging people or holding up stores - and he never got his hair conked: it just stayed nappy. He started working as a short-order cook in a barbecue joint, so he could eat, and he found a basement where he could work on his wood and he was at our house more often than he was at his own house.

Yes. Kissing. Overrated." "I could change your mind," Zach said, surprising the hell out of them both. Why would he take something as simple as this banter as a challenge? "I don't know that I want to, but I feel right sure I could." "How arrogant. How typically male." "I suppose." He shrugged and reached for the wine bottle. "More?" She nodded, frowning now. "How do you know you could change my mind? It's been a long time since you... well—" "Over two years." The pain was there, an ache in his chest he imagined he would feel every time he thought of Hannah. And he thought of her every day. Dreamed of her about as often. But lately, maybe only in the past week, he'd begun to realize that his life had not ended with his wife's. He either had to die or start living again.

On February 22, 1899, the New York Times ran an article headlined “Americanizing Puerto Rico,” describing Puerto Ricans as “uneducated, simple-minded and harmless people who are only interested in wine, women, music and dancing.

Because memory…is everything. Physically speaking, a memory is nothing but a specific combination of neurons firing together—a symphony of neural activity. But in actuality, it’s the filter between us and reality. You think you’re tasting this wine, hearing the words I’m saying, in the present, but there’s no such thing. The neural impulses from your taste buds and your ears get transmitted to your brain, which processes them and dumps them into working memory—so by the time you know you’re experiencing something, it’s already in the past. Already a memory.” Helena leans forward, snaps her fingers. “Just what your brain does to interpret a simple stimulus like that is incredible. The visual and auditory information arrive at your eyes and ears at different speeds, and then are processed by your brain at different speeds. Your brain waits for the slowest bit of stimulus to be processed, then reorders the neural inputs correctly, and lets you experience them together, as a simultaneous event—about half a second after what actually happened. We think we’re perceiving the world directly and immediately, but everything we experience is this carefully edited, tape-delayed reconstruction.

The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine -- cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle -- that is to say, a violation of nature -- that is to say, a falsehood. No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of a miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of, nature.

Not taking a drink was easy. Just a matter of muscle movement, the simple refusal to put alcohol to my lips. The impossible part was everything else. How could I talk to people? Who would I be? What would intimacy look like, if it weren’t coaxed out by the glug-glug of a bottle of wine or a pint of beer? Would I have to join AA? Become one of those frightening 12-step people? How the fuck could I write? My livelihood, my identity, my purpose, my light—all extinguished with the tightening of a screw cap.

Magic carpet rides, rune magic, Ali Baba and visions of the Holy Mother, astral travel and the future in the dregs of a glass of red wine. Buddha. Frodo's journey into Mordor. The transubstantiation of the sacrament. Dorothy and Toto. The Easter Bunny. Space aliens. The Thing in the closet. The Resur-rection and the Life at the turn of a card ... I've believed them all at one time or another. Or pretended to. Or pretended not to. And now? What do I believe right now? 'I believe that being happy is the only important thing,' I told him at last. Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the hear. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.

You can't have a simple life with a heart like yours. The simple life is a mirage. It's like a perfectly clean and polished wine glass. But the second you want that pristine chailise, the second you reach out and pick it up, it's covered in your fingerprints. It's only clean until it's yours, then it's dirty. That's the simple life. It's simple until you show up and start using it.

This We Have Now This we have no is not imagination. This is not grief or joy. Not a judging state, or an elation, or sadness. Those come and go. This is the presence that doesn't. It's dawn, Husam, here in the splendor of coral, inside the Friend, the simple truth of what Hallaj said. What else could human beings want? When grapes turn to wine they're wanting this. When the nightsky pours by, it's really a crowd of beggars, and they all want some of this! This that we are now created the body, cell by cell, like bees building a honeycomb. The human body and the universe grew from this, not this from the universe and the human body.

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter...to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring— these are some of the rewards of the simple life. The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your hand and taking it.

Without Al, Mary Frances discovered what she did alone. She liked to cook for herself, to assemble a meal of things he would never consider worth a mealtime- shad roe and toast, soft-set eggs, hearts of celery and palm with a quick yellow mayonnaise, a glass of wine, an open book in her lap, and the radio on. The elements that mattered most were the simple ones: butter, salt, a thick plate of white china and a delicate glass, the music faint, the feel of paper in her hand, and the knowledge that there was more, always more book to read, more wine if she liked it, some cold fruit in the refrigerator when she was hungry again, and the hours upon hours to satisfy herself.

Christ's Last Supper was simple fare with bread and wine

Alcohol is liquid sugar. It’s more depleting than restorative. To feel your best, you shouldn’t be having alcohol every day, even red wine.

One doesn’t come to Italy for niceness,” was the retort; “one comes for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!” bowing right and left. “Look at that adorable wine-cart! How the driver stares at us, dear, simple soul!

The work of praying is prerequisite to all other work in the kingdom of God, for the simple reason that it is by prayer that we couple the powers of heaven to our helplessness, the powers which can turn water into wine and remove mountains in our own life and in the lives of others, the powers which can awaken those who sleep in sin and raise up the dead, the powers which can capture strongholds and make the impossible possible.

I’m dedicated to the gospel of the good things in life. Simply because I deeply believe that the most simple of pleasures—good food, good wine, good friends—are the only ones that can genuinely sustain us, both as individuals and as a society.

And she’d fallen in love. It couldn’t be that fast. It couldn’t be that simple. It couldn’t be. But it was. She didn’t have to have felt it all before to know what tripped and stumbled inside her. She breathed in, breathed out, took a good glug of wine.

robber steak”—bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple style of the London cat’s-meat. The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable.

Let's get it over with, so I can stop wondering. How many have there been?" Lauren stared at him."How many what?" "Lovers," he clarified bitterly. She could hardly believe her ears. After treating her as if her standards of morality were childish, after acting as if promiscuity was a virtue, after telling her how man preferred experienced women, he was jealous. Because now he cared. Lauren didn't know whether to hit him, burst out laughing or hug him. Instead she decided to exact just a tiny bit of revenge for all the misery and uncertainty he had put her through. Turning,she walked over to the bar and reached for a bottle of white wine. "Why should the number make any difference?" she asked innocently. "You told me in Harbor Springs that men don't prize virginity anymore, that they don't expect or want a woman to be inexperienced.Right?" "Right," he said grimly, glowering at the ice cubes in his glass. "You also said," she continued, biting back a smile, "that women have the same physical desires men have,and that we have the right to satisfy them with whomever we wish.You were very emphatic about that-" "Lauren," he warned in a low voice, "I asked you a simple question. I don't care what the answer is, I just want an answer so I can stop wondering. Tell me how many there were. Tell me if you liked the, if you didn't give a damn abou them,or if you did it to get even with me.Just tell me.I won't hold it against you." Like hell you wouldn't! Lauren thought happily as she struggled to uncork the bottle of wine. "Of course you won't hold it against me," she said lightly. "You specifically said-" "I know what I said," he snapped tersely. "Now,how many?" She flicked a glance in his direction, implying that she was bewildered by his tone. "Only one." Angry regret flared in his eyes,and his body tensed as if he had just felt a physical blow. "Did you...care about him?" "I thought I loved him at the time," Lauren said brightly, twisting the corkscrew deeper into the cork. "All right.Let's forget him," Nick said curtly. He finally noticed her efforts with the wine bottle and walked over to help her. "Are you going to be able to forget him?" Lauren asked, admiring the ease with which he managed the stubborn cork. "I will...after a while." "What do you mean,after a while? You said there was nothing promiscuous about a woman satisfying her biological-" "I know what I said,dammit!" "Then why do you look so angry? You didn't lie to me,did you?" "I didn't lie," he said, slamming the bottle onto the bar and reaching for a glass from the cabinet. "I believed it at the time." "Why?" she goaded. "Because it was convenient to believe it," he bit out. "I was not in love with you then." Lauren loved him more at that moment than ever. "Would you like me to tell you about him?" "No," he said coldly. Her eyes twinkled, but she backed a cautious step out of his reach. "You would have approved of him. He was tall, dark, and handsome, like you. Very elegant,sophisticated and experienced. He wore down my resistence in two days,and-" "Dammit, stop it!" Nick grated in genuine fury. "His name is John." Nick braced both hands on the liguor cabinet,his back to her. "I do not want to hear this!" "John Nicholas Sinclair," Lauren clarified.

Sal and Henry return with a gust of warm garden air and I settle down to create miniature roses from sugarpaste using tiny ivory spatulas and crimpers. I will have no antique tester bed crowning my cake, only a posy of flowers: symbols of beauty and growth, each year new-blossoming. I let Henry paint the broken pieces with spinach juice, while I tint my flowers with cochineal and yellow gum. As a pretty device I paint a ladybird on a rose, and think it finer than Sèvres porcelain. At ten o'clock tomorrow, I will marry John Francis at St. Mark's Church, across the square. As Sal and I rehearse our plans for the day, pleasurable anticipation bubbles inside me like fizzing wine. We will return from church for this bride cake in the parlor, then take a simple wedding breakfast of hot buttered rolls, ham, cold chicken, and fruit, on the silver in the dining room. Nan has sent me a Yorkshire Game Pie, so crusted with wedding figures of wheatsheafs and blossoms it truly looks too good to eat. We have invited few guests, for I want no great show, and instead will have bread and beef sent to feed the poor. And at two o'clock, we will leave with Henry for a much anticipated holiday by the sea, at Sandhills, on the southern coast. John Francis has promised Henry he might try sea-bathing, while I have bought stocks of cerulean blue and burnt umber to attempt to catch the sea and sky in watercolor.

Hands cling to hands and eyes linger on eyes: thus begins the record of our hearts. It is the moonlit night of March; the sweet smell of henna is in the air; my flute lies on the earth neglected and your garland of flowers in unfinished. This love between you and me is simple as a song. Your veil of the saffron colour makes my eyes drunk. The jasmine wreath that you wove me thrills to my heart like praise. It is a game of giving and withholding, revealing and screening again; some smiles and some little shyness, and some sweet useless struggles. This love between you and me is simple as a song. No mystery beyond the present; no striving for the impossible; no shadow behind the charm; no groping in the depth of the dark. This love between you and me is simple as a song. We do not stray out of all words into the ever silent; we do not raise our hands to the void for things beyond hope. It is enough what we give and we get. We have not crushed the joy to the utmost to wring from it the wine of pain. This love between you and me is simple as a song.

Other than involving yourself with ungrateful vegetable matter, colour, vigour and fascination can be imparted into a small outdoor space by several other methods. In the 18th century, the inclusion of a hermit on one's estate was regarded as the epitome of country house style. There is absolutely no reason why today's dandy should not avail himself of the same privilege. It's a straightforward enough matter to entice a hopelessly drunk vagrant back to your premises using the simple lure of an opened bottle of wine. Once there, dress him in a bed sheet, wreathe his head in foliage and invite him to take up residence in an old barrel with the promise of unlimited alcohol, tobacco and scraps from your table in return for a sterling display of relentless solitude. Such a move not only provides the disadvantaged with ideal employment opportunities, but also enhances your reputation for stylish romanticism. Watch your friends gape in wonderment at the picturesque spectacle as your hermit sporadically peers out the top of the barrel and matters a few enigmatic words of wisdom.

No one is born pompous. To attain that state requires a certain amount of planning and effort. Presumably you could achieve it by a variety of means, but one sure way is to attend an old prep school that’s a little past its prime; while there, exhibit some facility in a field sport that you will never have cause to play again; room with a fellow whose name is over the library door; and along the way, gain familiarity with a pastime that requires travel and specialized apparel—such as duck hunting or downhill skiing. Follow these simple steps and you are sure to gain the necessary self-assurance to expound authoritatively on wine, politics, and the lives of the less fortunate—and to generally go on and on about anything else.

She turned to put the basket of bread on the table and saw Brian, and the clutch of mums and zinnias he held in his hand. "It seemed to call for them," he said. She stared at the cheerful fall bloossoms, then up into his face. "You picked me flowers." The sheer disbelief in her voice had him moving his shoulders restlessly. "Well,you made me dinner, with wine and candles and the whole of it. Bedsides, they're your flowers anyway." "No,they're not." Drowning in love she set the basket down, waited. "Until you give them to me." "I'll never understand why women are so sensitive over posies." He held them out. "Thank you." She closed her eyes, buried her face in them. She wanted to remember the exact fragrance, the exact texture. Then lowering them again, she lifted her mouth to his for a kiss. Rubbed her cheek against his. His arms came around her so suddenly, so tightly, she gasped. "Brian? What is it?" That gesture,the simple and sweet gesture of cheek against cheek nearly destroyed him. "It's nothing. I just like the way you feel against me when I hold you." "Hold me any tighter,I'll be through you.

You can't have a simple life with a heart like yours. The simple life is a mirage. It's like a perfectly clean and polished wine glass. But the second you want that pristine chalise, the second you reach out and pick it up, it's covered in your fingerprints. It's only clean until it's yours, then it's dirty. That's the simple life. It's simple until you show up and start using it.

If you had any ingredients at your disposal, what would you make?" "You said it was a small dinner?" "Yes," he affirmed. "In that case, I would begin with a gustatio of salad with peppers and cucumbers, melon with mint, whole-meal bread, soft cheese, and honey cake." I tried to draw on my memory of one of the last meals I'd made for Maximus. Apicius licked his lips. "Yes, yes, go on." "Then pomegranate ice to cleanse the palate, followed by a cena prima of saffron chickpeas, Parthian chicken, peppered morels in wine, mussels, and oysters. If I had more time, I would also serve a stuffed suckling pig. And to close, a pear patina, along with deep-fried honey fritters, snails, olives, and, if you have it on hand, some wine from Chios or Puglia." "Perfect. Simple and the flavors would blend nicely at the beginning of the meal.

Wine appreciation is not a simple sum of its parts any more than poetry appreciation is an arithmetic notation of its similes, alliterations, or rhythmic style. Most complex flavor perceptions are cerebral creations. They start from the detection of separate sensations, but it is their combined interactions that generate odor memories. Only the unique combinations of multiple sensations generate the typical fragrance of an object, be it wine, coffee, lilacs, or fried bacon.

I suppose like others I have come through fire and sword, love gone wrong, head-on crashes, drunk at sea, and I have listened to the simple sound of water running in tubs and wished to drown but simply couldn't bear the others carrying my body down three flights of stairs to the round mouths of curious biddies... the world has been darker than lights out in a closet full of hungry bats, and the whiskey and wine entered our veins when blood was too weak to carry on; and it will happen to others...

I kissed you," Finlay said roughly. "for the very simple reason that you are irresistible." "I think that is what is known as serendipity," Isabella replied, "for it's the very same reason I kissed you back." "Serendipity," Finlay said, sliding his arm around her waist. "I've always wondered what it tasted like." "Strawberries, and lavender, and vintage wine, I believe is how you described it." "No," he said decidedly. "It tastes of nothing other than essence of you. The most intoxicating and delicious taste imaginable.

So I came back to philosophy, but differently; feeling it in myself, and in those I met in talk, a fever of the blood. I had come to it as a boy from wonder at the visible world; to know the causes of things; and to feel the sinews of my mind, as one feels one’s muscles in the palaestra. But now we searched the nature of the universe, and our own souls, more like physicians in time of sickness. It was not that we were in love with the past. We were of an age to feel the present our own, and to suppose it would never outstrip us. In painting and sculpture and verse, the names we grew passionate over looked to us as big as those of Perikles’ day, and it still half surprises me when I find them unknown to my sons. But we seldom stood to enjoy good work, as one stands before a fine view or a flower, in simple gladness that it is. As we hailed each new artist we grew angry with the former ones, as with false guides we had caught out; we hastened, though we knew not where. To freedom, we said; the sculptors no longer proportioned their forms by the Golden Number of Pythagoras, as Pheidias and Polykleitos did; and art would do great things, we said, now it had cast off its chains.

41. The Means to attain Happy Life MARTIAL, the things that do attain The happy life be these, I find: The richesse left, not got with pain; The fruitful ground, the quiet mind: The equal friend; no grudge, no strife; No charge of rule, nor governance; Without disease, the healthful life; The household of continuance: The mean diet, no delicate fare; True wisdom join'd with simpleness; The night discharged of all care, Where wine the wit may not oppress. The faithful wife, without debate; Such sleeps as may beguile the night; Contented with thine own estate Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.

Lena?" He glanced at the dictionary. "Are you 'pleased, contented, joyful, delighted'? Do you feel 'Lucky, fortunate'? Are things 'clever and fitting,' 'successful and suitable' for you?" Lena stopped slicing vegetables and closed her eyes. "Read me the list again, please," she said. He shut the book. "What have I done, you got to stop and think an hour before you can tell me. All I ask is a simple yes or no! You're not contented, delighted, joyful?" "Cows are contented, babies and old people in second childhood are delighted, God help them," she said. "As for 'joyful,' Lee? Look how I laugh scrubbing out the sink . . ." He peered closely at her and his face relaxed. "Lena, it's true. A man doesn't appreciate. Next month, maybe, we'll get away." "I'm not complaining!" she cried. "I'm not the one comes in with a list saying/stick out your tongue. Lee, do you ask what makes your heart beat all night? No! Next will you ask, What's marriage? Who knows, Lee? Don't ask. A man who thinks like that, how it runs, how things work, falls off the trapeze in the circus, chokes wondering how the muscles work in the throat. Eat, sleep, breathe, Lee, and stop staring at me like I'm something new in the house!

What, may I ask, does your one truck contain if not gowns?” Inspiration struck, and Elizabeth smiled radiantly. “Something of great value. Priceless value,” she confided. All faces at the table watched her with alert fascination-particularly the greedy Sir Francis. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense, love. What’s in it?” “The mortal remains of Saint Jacob.” Lady Eloise and Lady Mortand screamed in unison, Sir William choked on his wine, and Sir Francis gaped at her in horror, but Elizabeth wasn’t quite finished. She saved the coup de grace until the meal was over. As soon as everyone arose she insisted they sit back down so a proper prayer of gratitude could be said. Raising her hands heavenward, Elizabeth turned a simple grace into a stinging tirade against the sins of lust and promiscuity that rose to crescendo as she called down the vengeance of doomsday on all transgressors and culminated in a terrifyingly lurid description of the terrors that awaited all who strayed down the path of lechery-terrors that combined dragon lore with mythology, a smattering of religion, and a liberal dash of her own vivid imagination. When it was done Elizabeth dropped her eyes, praying in earnest that tonight would loose her from her predicament. There was no more she could do; she’d played out her hand with all her might; she’d given it her all. It was enough. After supper Sir Francis escorted her to her chamber and, with a poor attempt at regret, announced that he greatly feared they wouldn’t suit. Not at all. Elizabeth and Berta departed at dawn the following morning, an hour before Sir Francis’s servants stirred themselves. Clad in a dressing robe, Sir Francis watched from his bedchamber window as Elizabeth’s coachman helped her into her conveyance. He was about to turn away when a sudden gust of wind caught Elizabeth’s black gown, exposing a long and exceptionally shapely leg to Sir Francis’s riveted gaze. He was still staring at the coach as it circled the drive; through its open window he saw Elizabeth laugh and reach up, unpinning her hair. Clouds of golden tresses whipped about the open window, obscuring her face, and Sir Francis thoughtfully wet his lips.

Rincewind agreed moodily. He tried to explain that magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality; this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy required several hours of systematic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears.

His antipasto was the classic Roman fritto misto---tiny morsels of mixed offal, including slivers of poached brains and liver, along with snails, artichokes, apples, pears, and bread dipped in milk, all deep-fried in a crisp egg-and-bread-crumb batter. This was to be followed by a primo of rigatoni alla pajata---pasta served with intestines from a baby calf so young that they were still full of its mother's milk, simmered with onions, white wine, tomatoes, cloves, and garlic. For the secondo they would be having milza in umido--- a stewed lamb's spleen, cooked with sage, anchovies, and pepper. A bitter salad of puntarelle al' acciuga---chicory sprouts with anchovy---would cleanse the palate, to be followed by a simple dolce of fragole in aceto, gorella strawberries in vinegar.

But I have told you, Ariadne, that the other gods are not like me. I have walked among mortals for many years and I know the dizzying joys of humanity: the fragile, ferocious power of human love and the savage force of grief. When I share wine with mortals, we celebrate together and I feel the clustered hopes and yearnings, the pain and fears that you all share. In those sacred rites, as simple and ancient as the world itself, we raise a cup and we drink together, and our souls are freed from the constraints of the everyday. We find what unites us, what we have in common with one another. I have felt the gaping wound and the bruised, ragged edges of grief. I know that human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness, and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze.” He leaned toward me, fastened my hand in his. His eyes

1¼ cups white wine vinegar 1¾ cups water 2½ tablespoons sugar ½ bay leaf 4 thyme sprigs A pinch of dried chile flakes ½ teaspoon coriander seeds 2 whole cloves 4 garlic cloves, halved 1½ teaspoons sea salt Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add small or chopped vegetables to the brine, cooking each type of vegetable separately and removing them when they are cooked but still a little crisp. Remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and set them aside to cool to room temperature. Once all the vegetables are cooked and cooled, allow the brine to cool as well. Stir the vegetables together gently in a large bowl, then transfer to jars or other covered containers, cover with the cooled pickle brine, and refrigerate. You can keep this basic brine in your refrigerator and reheat it to make fresh pickles when you are inspired by a trip to the farmers’ market.

How tragic it is that so much of the popular version of Christianity preaches a secularized message. It keeps God isolated, but popping in from time to time. It has lost the sense of the permeation of matter by divine Grace, the sacramental vision of reality; it insists that the Eucharist is just bread and wine, baptism is just a bath, and the world operates independently of God. It preaches a moralism of being “good,” leading only to obsession with guilt, and then, when that becomes too much, to shamelessness. It preaches that our salvation is acquired by a simple confession, and that it consists of going to “heaven” instead of going to “hell”—not a life lived in cooperation with divine grace, a body, mind, and heart sanctified by the Presence, which, having been “born again by water and the Spirit” in baptism, will continue to live forever, surviving death itself, to be resurrected. The

Seafood, of course, has aphrodisiac qualities. Mollusks, too---like lanarche ajo e ojo, snails in oil and garlic. Perhaps some carciofioni, baby artichokes cooked with mint, pulled apart with the fingers and dipped in soft, melted butter. Wine, obviously. And then, to finish, a burst of sugar, something light but artificial, so that you feel full of energy and happiness---but that's only one side of the story. If you want someone to fall in love with you, you would cook for them something very different, something perfectly simple but intense. Something that shows you understand their soul." "Such as?" "Well, that's the difficulty. It will vary from individual to individual. You'd have to really know the person concerned---their history, their background, whether they are raw or refined, dry or oily. You would have to have tasted them, to know whether their own flesh is sweet or savory, salty or bland. In short, you would have to love them, and even then you might not truly know them well enough to cook a dish that would capture their heart.

The general public, however intelligent, are struck only by that which it takes little trouble to understand. They have been told that the interior of the body is something more or less like the contents of a vessel filled with wine, and that this interior is not injured — that we do not become ill, except when germs, originally created morbid, penetrate into it from without, and then become microbes. “The public do not know whether this is true; they do not even know what a microbe is, but they take it on the word of the master; they believe it because it is simple and easy to understand; they believe and they repeat that the microbe makes us ill without inquiring further, because they have not the leisure — nor, perhaps, the capacity — to probe to the depths that which they are asked to believe. –Preface to La Théorie du Microzyma, as quoted in Béchamp or Pasteur?: A Lost Chapter in the History of Biology By Ethel D. Hume on page 304 [prefaced by Pasteur: Plagiarist, Imposter: The Germ Theory Exploded By R. B. Pearson], ISBN# 978-1-46790-012-6, 2011

Medicine once consisted of the knowledge of a few simples, to stop the flow of blood, or to heal wounds; then by degrees it reached its present stage of complicated variety. No wonder that in early days medicine had less to do! Men's bodies were still sound and strong; their food was light and not spoiled by art and luxury, whereas when they began to seek dishes not for the sake of removing, but of rousing, the appetite, and devised countless sauces to whet their gluttony, – then what before was nourishment to a hungry man became a burden to the full stomach. 16. Thence come paleness, and a trembling of wine-sodden muscles, and a repulsive thinness, due rather to indigestion than to hunger. Thence weak tottering steps, and a reeling gait just like that of drunkenness. Thence dropsy, spreading under the entire skin, and the belly growing to a paunch through an ill habit of taking more than it can hold. Thence yellow jaundice, discoloured countenances, and bodies that rot inwardly, and fingers that grow knotty when the joints stiffen, and muscles that are numbed and without power of feeling, and palpitation of the heart with its ceaseless pounding. 17. Why need I mention dizziness? Or speak of pain in the eye and in the ear, itching and aching[11] in the fevered brain, and internal ulcers throughout the digestive system? Besides these, there are countless kinds of fever, some acute in their malignity, others creeping upon us with subtle damage, and still others which approach us with chills and severe ague. 18. Why should I mention the other innumerable diseases, the tortures that result from high living?   Men used to be free from such ills, because they had not yet slackened their strength by indulgence, because they had control over themselves, and supplied their own needs.[12] They toughened their bodies by work and real toil, tiring themselves out by running or hunting or tilling the earth. They were refreshed by food in which only a hungry man could take pleasure. Hence, there was no need for all our mighty medical paraphernalia, for so many instruments and pill-boxes. For plain reasons they enjoyed plain health;

I first came to Hokkaido for two reasons: miso ramen and uni, the island's most famous foods and two items on my short list for Last Supper constituents. The only thing they share in common, besides a home, is the intense fits of joy they deliver: the former made from an unholy mix of pork-bone broth, thick miso paste, and wok-crisped pork belly (with the optional addition of a slab of melting Hokkaido butter), the latter arguably the sexiest food on earth, yolk-orange tongues of raw sea urchin roe with a habit-forming blend of fat and umami, sweetness and brine. Fall for uni at your own peril; like heroin and high-stakes poker, it's an expensive addiction that's tough to kick. But my dead-simple plan- to binge on both and catch the first flight back to Tokyo- has been upended by a steam locomotive and Whole Foods foliage, and suddenly Hokkaido seems much bigger than an urchin and a bowl of soup. No one told me about the rolling farmlands, the Fuji-like volcanoes, the stunning national parks, one stacked on top of the other. Nobody said there would be wine. And cheese. And bread.

There are promises of protection in the Word of Wisdom. The Lord’s word of wisdom commanding abstinence from a worldly “king’s portion” of tobacco, tea and coffee, and alcoholic beverages that are habit-forming, and which counsels the simple diet of fruits, grains, and vegetables in season, with meats used sparingly, has been given you as a revelation of God’s great law of health. It stands today as a challenge to a world surfeited with things condemned as unclean and unfit for the human body. If you have faith as the youthful Daniel and his brethren and purpose in your hearts that you will not defile yourselves with “king’s meat and wine,” even though you may be two thousand miles east of the Suez Canal, your faith will have the reward of hidden treasures of knowledge, of strong bodies that can “run and not be weary and walk and not faint.” If by faith in this great law, you refrain from the use of food and drink harmful to your bodies, you will not become a ready prey to scourges that shall sweep the land, as in the days of the people of Moses in Egypt, bringing death to every household that has not heeded the commandments of God.

she was. Loose and free, her shiny brown hair cascaded past her shoulders. Her face, open and disarming, held not a trace of the passage of time. Could today be any more depressing? Brandy turned to Cole who was eyeing a platter of hamburgers a waiter carried by. She put a hand on his arm to get his attention. While she signed my request, I turned to Jean-Charles. Before I spoke, he held up a hand. "A platter of hamburgers for your friends. I will prepare them myself, if you will excuse me." He gave a stiff little bow and a rueful half grin dialed back from its previous warmth. I watched him work his way through the tables, his practiced façade of charm falling into place, and wondered how to have a relationship with a man who bristled at the first barrier in his path.  Brandy and Cole were deep into a silent conversation, so I sipped my wine and pouted. Just being able to express a simple, albeit juvenile, emotion was so much better than my normal routine of bottling them inside. My job required eating too much crow as it was. I'd be damned if I'd conduct my personal life the same way.  Brandy snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. "Do

That?” cried Charley with astonishment. “A loaf of bread and a flagon of wine? Of course it’s very well painted.” “Yes, you’re right; it’s very well painted; it’s painted with pity and love. It’s not only a loaf of bread and a flagon of wine; it’s the bread of life and the blood of Christ, but not held back from those who starve and thirst for them and doled out by priests on stated occasions; it’s the daily fare of suffering men and women. It’s so humble, so natural, so friendly; it’s the bread and wine of the poor who ask no more than that they should be left in peace, allowed to work and eat their simple food in freedom. It’s the cry of the despised and rejected. It tells you that whatever their sins men at heart are good. That loaf of bread and that flagon of wine are symbols of the joys and sorrows of the meek and lowly. They ask for your mercy and your affection; they tell you that they’re of the same flesh and blood as you. They tell you that life is short and hard and the grave is cold and lonely. It’s not only a loaf of bread and a flagon of wine; it’s the mystery of man’s lot on earth, his craving for a little friendship and a little love, the humility of his resignation when he sees that even they must be denied him.” Lydia

So Beaujolais is like this hybrid---a red that drinks like a white, we even put a chill on it. Maybe that's why it has trouble, it doesn't quite fit. No one takes Gamay seriously---too light, too simple, lacks structure. But..." I swirled the glass and it was so... optimistic. "I like to think it's pure. Fleurie sound like flowers doesn't it?" "Girls love flowers," she said judiciously. "They do." I put her wine down, then moved it two inches closer to her, where I knew the field of her focus began. "None of that means anything. It just speaks to me. I feel invited to enjoy it. I get roses." "Child, what is wrong with you? There's no roses in the damn wine. Wine is wine and it makes you loose and helps you dance. That's it. The way you kids talk, like everything is life or death." "It's not?" "You ain't even learned about living yet!" I thought about buying wine. About how I would scan the different Beaujolais crus at the liquor store---the Morgan, the Côte de Brouilly, the Fleurie would be telling me a story. I would see different flowers when I looked at the labels. I thought about the wild strawberries dropped off from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm just that afternoon and how the cooks laid out paper towels and sheet trays in the kitchen, none of them touching, as if they would disintegrate, their fragrance euphoric.

The last meal aboard the Titanic was remarkable. It was a celebration of cuisine that would have impressed the most jaded palate. There were ten courses in all, beginning with oysters and a choice of Consommé Olga, a beef and port wine broth served with glazed vegetables and julienned gherkins, or Cream of Barley Soup. Then there were plate after plate of main courses- Poached Salmon and Cucumbers with Mousseline Sauce, a hollandaise enriched with whipped cream; Filet Mignon Lili, steaks fried in butter, hen topped with an artichoke bottom, foie gras and truffle and served with a Périgueux sauce, a sauté of Chicken Lyonnaise; Lamb with Mint Sauce; Roast Duckling with Apple Sauce; Roast Squash with Cress and Sirloin Beef. There were also a garden's worth of vegetables, prepared both hot and cold. And several potatoes- Château Potatoes, cut to the shape of olives and cooked gently in clarified butter until golden and Parmentier Potatoes, a pureed potato mash garnished with crouton and chervil. And, of course, pâté de foie gras. To cleanse the palate, there was a sixth course of Punch à la Romaine, dry champagne, simple sugar syrup, the juice of two oranges and two lemons, and a bit of their zest. The mixture was steeped, strained, fortified with rum, frozen, topped with a sweet meringue and served like a sorbet. For dessert there was a choice of Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, Chocolate and Vanilla Èclairs and French ice cream.

OLYMPAS: There is one doubt. When souls attain Such an unimagined gain Shall not others mark them, wise Beyond mere mortal destinies? MARSYAS: Such are not the perfect saints. While the imagination faints Before their truth, they veil it close As amid the utmost snows The tallest peaks most straitly hide With clouds their lofty heads. Divide The planes! Be ever as you can A simple honest gentleman! Body and manners be at ease. Not bloat with blazoned sanctities! Who fights as fights the soldier-saint? And see the artist-adept paint! Weak are those souls that fear the stress Of earth upon their holiness! The fast, they eat fantastic food, They prate of beans and brotherhood, Wear sandals, and long hair, and spats, And think that makes them Arhats! How shall man still his spirit-storm? Rational Dress and Food Reform! OLYMPAS: I know such saints. MARSYAS:                     An easy vice: So wondrous well they advertise! O their mean souls are satisfied With wind of spiritual pride. They're all negation. "Do not eat; What poison to the soul is meat! Drink not; smoke not; deny the will! Wine and tobacco make us ill." Magic is life; the Will to Live Is one supreme Affirmative. These things that flinch from Life are worth No more to Heaven than to Earth. Affirm the everlasting Yes! OLYMPAS: Those saints at least score one success: Perfection of their priggishness! MARSYAS: Enough. The soul is subtlier fed With meditation's wine and bread. Forget their failings and our own; Fix all our thoughts on Love alone!

If loneliness or sadness or happiness could be expressed through food, loneliness would be basil. It’s not good for your stomach, dims your eyes, and turns your mind murky. If you pound basil and place a stone over it, scorpions swarm toward it. Happiness is saffron, from the crocus that blooms in the spring. Even if you add just a pinch to a dish, it adds an intense taste and a lingering scent. You can find it anywhere but you can’t get it at any time of the year. It’s good for your heart, and if you drop a little bit in your wine, you instantly become drunk from its heady perfume. The best saffron crumbles at the touch and instantaneously emits its fragrance. Sadness is a knobby cucumber, whose aroma you can detect from far away. It’s tough and hard to digest and makes you fall ill with a high fever. It’s porous, excellent at absorption, and sponges up spices, guaranteeing a lengthy period of preservation. Pickles are the best food you can make from cucumbers. You boil vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, then season with salt and pepper. You enclose them in a sterilized glass jar, seal it, and store it in a dark and dry place. WON’S KITCHEN. I take off the sign hanging by the first-floor entryway. He designed it by hand and silk-screened it onto a metal plate. Early in the morning on the day of the opening party for the cooking school, he had me hang the sign myself. I was meaning to give it a really special name, he said, grinning, flashing his white teeth, but I thought Jeong Ji-won was the most special name in the world. He called my name again: Hey, Ji-won. He walked around the house calling my name over and over, mischievously — as if he were an Eskimo who believed that the soul became imprinted in the name when it was called — while I fried an egg, cautiously sprinkling grated Emmentaler, salt, pepper, taking care not to pop the yolk. I spread the white sun-dried tablecloth on the coffee table and set it with the fried egg, unsalted butter, blueberry jam, and a baguette I’d toasted in the oven. It was our favorite breakfast: simple, warm, sweet. As was his habit, he spread a thick layer of butter and jam on his baguette and dunked it into his coffee, and I plunked into my cup the teaspoon laced with jam, waiting for the sticky sweetness to melt into the hot, dark coffee. I still remember the sugary jam infusing the last drop of coffee and the moist crumbs of the baguette lingering at the roof of my mouth. And also his words, informing me that he wanted to design a new house that would contain the cooking school, his office, and our bedroom. Instead of replying, I picked up a firm red radish, sparkling with droplets of water, dabbed a little butter on it, dipped it in salt, and stuck it into my mouth. A crunch resonated from my mouth. Hoping the crunch sounded like, Yes, someday, I continued to eat it. Was that the reason I equated a fresh red radish with sprouting green tops, as small as a miniature apple, with the taste of love? But if I cut into it crosswise like an apple, I wouldn't find the constellation of seeds.

Pasta with Garlic Scapes and Fresh Tomatoes In Italy, you can find a garden anywhere there is a patch of soil, and in many areas, the growing season is nearly year round. It’s common to find an abundant tomato vine twining up the wall near someone’s front stoop, or a collection of herbs and greens adorning a window box. Other staples of an Italian kitchen garden include aubergine, summer squash varieties and peppers of all sorts. Perhaps that’s why the best dishes are so very simple. Gather the fresh ingredients from your garden or local farmers’ market, toss everything together with some hot pasta and serve. In the early summer and mid-autumn, look for garlic scapes, prized for their mild flavor and slight sweetness. Scapes are the willowy green stems and unopened flower buds of hardneck garlic varieties. Roasting garlic scapes with tomatoes and red onion brings out their sweet, rich flavor for a delightful summer meal. 2 swirls of olive oil 10 garlic scapes 1 pint multicolored cherry tomatoes 1 red onion, thinly sliced Sea salt and red pepper flakes, to taste ½ lb. pasta—fettuccine, tubini or spaghetti are good choices 1 cup baby spinach, arugula or fresh basil leaves, or a combination 1 lemon, zested and juiced Toasted pine nuts for garnish Heat oven to 400 ° F. Toss together olive oil, garlic scapes, tomatoes, onion, salt and pepper flakes and spread in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 12–15 minutes, until tomatoes are just beginning to burst. If you have other garden vegetables, such as peppers, zucchini or aubergine, feel free to add that. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions. Toss everything together with the greens, lemon zest and juice. Garnish with pine nuts. Serve immediately with a nice Barolo wine.

So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn't make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I'm the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart - perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I'm in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn't that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn't that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man - the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you've made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine. And then you run into Nick Dunne on Seventh Avenue as you're buying diced cantaloupe, and pow, you are known, you are recognised, the both of you. You both find the exact same things worth remembering. (Just one olive, though). You have the same rhythm. Click. You just know each other. All of a sudden you see reading in bed and waffles on Sunday and laughing at nothing and his mouth on yours. And it's so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine. That fast. You think: Oh, here is the rest of my life. It's finally arrived.

The Princeton economist and wine lover Orley Ashenfelter has offered a compelling demonstration of the power of simple statistics to outdo world-renowned experts. Ashenfelter wanted to predict the future value of fine Bordeaux wines from information available in the year they are made. The question is important because fine wines take years to reach their peak quality, and the prices of mature wines from the same vineyard vary dramatically across different vintages; bottles filled only twelve months apart can differ in value by a factor of 10 or more. An ability to forecast future prices is of substantial value, because investors buy wine, like art, in the anticipation that its value will appreciate. It is generally agreed that the effect of vintage can be due only to variations in the weather during the grape-growing season. The best wines are produced when the summer is warm and dry, which makes the Bordeaux wine industry a likely beneficiary of global warming. The industry is also helped by wet springs, which increase quantity without much effect on quality. Ashenfelter converted that conventional knowledge into a statistical formula that predicts the price of a wine—for a particular property and at a particular age—by three features of the weather: the average temperature over the summer growing season, the amount of rain at harvest-time, and the total rainfall during the previous winter. His formula provides accurate price forecasts years and even decades into the future. Indeed, his formula forecasts future prices much more accurately than the current prices of young wines do. This new example of a “Meehl pattern” challenges the abilities of the experts whose opinions help shape the early price. It also challenges economic theory, according to which prices should reflect all the available information, including the weather. Ashenfelter’s formula is extremely accurate—the correlation between his predictions and actual prices is above .90.

Tom carried with him a glass full of wine, which clearly hadn’t been his first of the evening. He swaggered and swayed as he started to speak, and his eyes, while not quite at half mast, were certainly well on their way. “In my mind,” Tom began, “this is what love is all about.” Sounded good. A little slurred, but it was nice and simple. “And…and…and in my mind,” Tom continued, “in my mind, I know this is all about…this is all love here.” Oh dear. Oh no. “And all I can say is that in my mind,” he went on, “it’s just so great to know that true love is possible right now in this time.” Crickets. Tap-tap. Is this thing on? “I’ve known this guy for a long, long time,” he resumed, pointing to Marlboro Man, who was sitting and listening respectfully. “And…in my mind, all I have to say is that’s a long…long time.” Tom was dead serious. This was not a joke toast. This was not a ribbing toast. This was what was “in his mind.” He made that clear over and over. “I just want to finish by saying…that in my mind, love is…love is…everything,” he continued. People around the room began to snicker. At the large table where Marlboro Man and I sat with our friends, people began to crack up. Everyone except Marlboro Man. Instead of snickering and laughing at his friend--whom he’d known since they were boys and who, he knew, had recently gone through a rough couple of years--Marlboro Man quietly motioned to everyone at our table with a tactful “Shhhh,” followed by a quietly whispered “Don’t laugh at him.” Then Marlboro Man did what I should have known he’d do. He stood up, walked up to his friend, who was rapidly entering into embarrassing territory…and gave him a friendly handshake, patting him on the shoulder. And the dinner crowd, rather than bursting into the uproarious laughter that had been imminent moments before, clapped instead. I watched the man I was about to marry, who’d always demonstrated a tenderness and compassion for people--whether in movies or in real life--who were subject to being teased or ridiculed. He’d never shown a spot of discomfort in front of my handicapped brother Mike, for all the times Mike had sat on his lap or begged him for rides to the mall. He’d never mocked or ridiculed another person as long as I’d known him. And while his good friend Tom wasn’t exactly developmentally disabled, he’d just gotten perilously close to being voted Class Clown by a room full of people at our rehearsal dinner. But Marlboro Man had swept in and ensured that didn’t happen. My heart swelled with emotion.

Now, before you invade a foreign city. Here’s the law: Offer the fools a peace treaty. They can remain in their city as your slaves doing forced labor for you. And if they refuse your generosity? Kill every goddamned one of their men. And take their women, children, livestock, and wealth as plunder.” The same guy raised his hand and yelled, “Can we fuck these women, too?” It was a stupid question, but Moses replied patiently, “Of course. Fuck them—use them as footstools, punching bags, scarecrows—who cares? They’re slaves! Do whatever you want with them. “Just remember, all you have to do is obey Yahweh. Then you will have no worries and nothing to fear. He will take care of you. But be careful, because Yahweh will test you. He will send false prophets and phony dream interpreters. “If you encounter one? And his predictions come true? And he wants you to worship another god? Don’t be impressed! Beware! Yahweh sent him to tempt you. “So kill anyone who prophesies in the name of another god. “And kill anyone who pretends to be a prophet and is not! “And if you find a town worshipping another god—kill everyone in it! And kill their livestock! Plunder their homes! Burn that despicable town to the ground and never rebuild it! Make it a perpetual burnt offering to Yahweh. “And whatever you do, for god’s sake, do not imitate the detestable Canaanite religions! Do not incinerate your children, or practice sorcery, or witchcraft. And don’t interpret omens. These practices are detestable to Yahweh. “Above all, DO NOT worship their gods! Don’t worship the sun! Or the moon! Or the stars in the sky! Yahweh gave those to the suckers in other nations as their gods. If you worship just one of them—just one time…” Moses shuddered at the thought. “Well, let’s just say, Yahweh is jealous—real jealous! If he catches you worshipping another god, I have to tell you that the gigs up. He’ll kick your asses out of the Promised Land. And scatter you among the other nations like snake shit scattered about the desert.”   Obey Yahweh and you will live in paradise   “Just obey Yahweh. You hear me? Obey him, and you will live in paradise. He will protect you from your enemies. Send rain for your crops. Nurture your herds. You will have abundant food and wine. Maybe free dance lessons—who knows? There is no limit to Yahweh’s love! Obey him, and your lives will be perfect. Disobey him, and you are fucked! It’s just that simple.” Moses waited for the impact of this essential truth to resister in their brains. Regretfully, it did not. But he concluded, “Anyhow, I’m one-hundred and twenty years old. I cannot lead you into the Promised Land. Joshua will lead you.” He again found Joshua in the crowd. “Joshua, come on up here!” Joshua, startled awake, elbowed his way through the crowd and

Game of Thrones - Feast for Crows. “Ser? My lady?" said Podrick. "Is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less," Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . . "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well.

Orion threw a grin back at me as headed to the bar, ducking behind it. “What would madam like?” he asked in a formal tone which was a damn good impression of the Acruxes' butler. I giggled hurrying over to take a stool in front of the bar and placing my clutch down, relishing the cool breeze against my burning neck. “Hmm...a Manhattan?” I teased and he cocked his head. “I'm afraid we're fresh out of bullshit, how about a white wine spritzer with a tiny umbrella in it?” I laughed, nodding eagerly as he made up my drink then poured himself a measure of bourbon. He held it out for me and I leaned across the bar to take it. As I took hold of the glass, he didn't let go and I gazed up at him under my lashes questioning why. “Have I told you have exceptionally beautiful you look tonight, Darcy?” Darcy. He'd said my name. For the first time ever. And why did it sound like so much more than a name when he spoke it? It was like he'd fired an arrow and it had punctured a flesh wound in me at the exact same moment. Hell. I needed to get over this guy. Why was I so caught up on him? Unavailable, that's what it was. We always want what we can't have and Professor Orion was off limits. Simple as that. And those muscles. And the beard. And the dark eyes. And the dimple. But that was it. “That's the first I've heard of it, Professor,” I whispered, unable to make my voice rise any louder. “Don't do that,” he grunted, releasing the drink. I eyed him curiously as he walked around the bar with his bourbon in hand. He took the stool beside mine, his arm butting up against me. “Do what?” I asked, swivelling around to face the pool and taking a sip of my spritzer. It fizzed on my tongue and sent a deep kick of heat through my chest. “You know what.” “You're very presumptuous, Orion. You think I'm far more aware of your chaotic way of thinking than I really am.” I sipped my drink again, spying on him from the corner of my eye. He took a swig of his own drink and the familiar waft of bourbon drifted over me, tingling my senses. It was becoming a trigger, like the moment I walked into his office and he uncorked a bottle, it made me want to taste it on his mouth. And then that led to me wondering whether his fangs would brush my tongue when we kissed, and that always led to me mentally undressing him, then me conjuring an image of what those muscles looked like beneath that shirt... “I have something for you,” he said and I turned, blinking out of my dark fantasy. “You do?” He nodded, reaching into his inside pocket and taking out my coil of blue hair. My heart combusted and a choked noise escaped me. I reached for it and he slid it onto my wrist. He kept my hand in his, his eyes downcast as they remained on the band of hair. “I want you to know, I believe you would have gotten this back yourself when you were ready. But I took a lot of pleasure in retrieving it for you all the same.” I stared at him in complete shock, unsure what to say, my tongue tied in knots. “But Fae don't fight battles for other Fae,” I blurted, completely astonished that his actions that day had been to take this back from Seth. For me. And nothing else. He finished his drink and planted the glass on the bar, rising to his feet. He didn't reply to what I'd said and I barely even remembered what it was as he started pulling his clothes off. “Err, what are you doing?” I half laughed as he shed his jacket and kicked off his shoes, pulling off his socks. Oh my god. “I hate parties, but I like swimming.” He started undoing the buttons of his shirt and thought his back was to me, I was still captivated as he dropped it to the floor like a silken sheet. My eyes scraped down his skin to where his muscles etched an upside down v into his lower back, disappearing beneath his waistband. His shoulders were tanned and heavenly broad, making me long to explore all of those muscles with my hands.(Darcy)

About the Author Native San Franciscan Erika Lenkert fled the dot-community to find respite and great food and wine in Napa Valley. When she’s not writing about food, wine, and travel for the likes of Four Seasons Magazine or InStyle, or promoting her book The Last-Minute Party Girl: Fashionable, Fearless, and Foolishly Simple Entertaining, she’s in search of Wine Country pleasures to share with Frommer’s readers. She also remains subservient to her owners—two Siamese cats and most recently, her new daughter Viva. In addition to this guide, Erika authors and co-authors a number of other Frommer’s guides to California, including Frommer’s California and Frommer’s San Francisco

Host one or multiple simple “holiday cheer” gatherings. I found that just one afternoon of baking can go a long way. I make large batches of several types of cookies for Scott to share at work and the kids to offer as teachers’ gifts and to host small get-togethers, such as afternoon cocktails with my girlfriends, a coffee hour with my walking group, a mulled-wine evening with the neighbors, and spiced-cider playdates with the kids’ playmates. A minimal effort for maximum impact. No wasted flour there!

It is a shame that Mama doesn't use the hundreds of other fruits and vegetables and spices available from around the world. If it isn't Indian, according to her, it isn't good. I think she stared so long at the blueberries that they shriveled. The butcher gave me three whole breasts of fresh free-range chicken. All of a sudden I have become very particular about ecological vegetables and free-range chickens. If they've petted the chicken and played with it before cutting it open for my eating pleasure, I'll be happy to purchase its body parts. Even if I have a tough time understanding this ecological nonsense, I feel better for buying carrots that were grown without chemicals, and I can't come up with a good reason to deny myself that happiness. I marinated the chicken breasts in white wine and salt and pepper for a while and then grilled them on the barbecue outside. The blueberry sauce was ridiculously simple. Fry some onions in butter, add the regular green chili, ginger, garlic, and fry a while longer. Add just a touch of tomato paste along with white wine vinegar. In the end add the blueberries. Cook until everything becomes soft. Blend in a blender. Put it in a saucepan and heat it until it bubbles. In the end because G'ma wouldn't shut up about going back right away, I added, in anger and therefore in too much quantity: cayenne pepper. I felt the sauce needed a little bite... but I think I bit off more than the others could swallow. I took the grilled chicken, cut the breasts in long slices, and poured the sauce over them. I made some regularbasmatiwith fried cardamoms and some regular tomato and onion raita.I put too much green chili in the raitaas well.

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

He dipped his fork into the layers of eggplant and cheese. Moments later, it seemed to detonate in his mouth. The pasta, he now realized, had simply been a curtain raiser, carbohydrate to take the edge off his hunger, but this new dish was something else, teasing his appetite awake again, the intensity of the flavors bringing to life taste buds he had never even known existed. The cheese tasted so completely of cheese, the eggplant so rich and earthy, almost smoky; the herbs so full of flavor, requiring only a mouthful of wine to finish them off... He paused reverently and drank, then dug again with his fork. The secondo was followed by a simple dessert of sliced pears baked with honey and rosemary. The flesh of the fruit looked as crisp and white as something Michelangelo might have carved with, but when he touched his spoon to it, it turned out to be as meltingly soft as ice cream. Putting it in his mouth, he was at first aware only of a wonderful, unfamiliar taste, a cascade of flavors which gradually broke itself down into its constituent parts. There was the sweetness of the honey, along with a faint floral scent from the abundant Vesuviani blossom on which the bees had fed. Then came the heady, sunshine-filled fragrance of the herbs, and only after that, the sharp tang of the fruit itself. By the time the pears were eaten, both jugs of wine had been emptied too.

Blue Bottle wanted to help customers find coffee they’d love. But coffee beans all look alike, so photos wouldn’t be helpful. To find useful solutions, the team did Lightning Demos of websites selling everything from clothes to wine, looking for ways to describe sensory details such as flavor, aroma, and texture. In the end, it was a chocolate-bar wrapper that provided the most useful idea. Tcho is a chocolate manufacturer in Berkeley, California. Printed on the wrapper of every Tcho bar is a simple flavor wheel with just six words: Bright, Fruity, Floral, Earthy, Nutty, and Chocolatey. When Blue Bottle looked at that wheel, they got inspired, and when we sketched, someone repurposed the idea as a simple flavor vocabulary for describing Blue Bottle’s coffee beans: In Friday’s test, and later, at the new online store, customers loved the simple descriptions. It’s a prime example of finding inspiration outside your domain (and yet another reason to be grateful for chocolate).

Sitting in Atlantic St. grill downing early morning cup of prison-like coffee stale rolls of cinnamon while up above freeways headed for suburban slums Gold Coast dwellers/ruling class sass Goodwill truckdrivers for talkin’ simple talk. No comment on the front page news. Through painful hurt sought desperately the obit page in rage to see if was really true, ‘bout you. Winter come-togethers fill my every thought Billie sings the blues communication complete, Cable (spool) table replete w/french bread apples cheese rhineskeller wine imported elegant tabacco, discussion of ideas politculture peoples lit & art, marxist aesthetics, how best to serve. Now, savoring on Neruda’s notes i think of you & Jimmie/son savoring favorite chocolate M & M’s. Them’s the thoughts i had of you today. No lavish praise no mournful elegy, just one last Vashon Island ferry ride to pray and cast an orchid into Puget Sound to see you safely on your journey to the other side.

Just like a wine glass breaking, or a car rusting, the entropy of a closed system will always increase with time.

But there was a danger that he was slipping into a bad habit described in the media as ‘middle-class drinking’5 in which a glass of wine or beer was no longer an occasional treat, but part of the daily routine

Meat loaf. Of all the things to eat, why would somebody want to eat meat loaf? Give me a nice piece of yellowfin tuna or a simple breast of chicken in a white wine reduction- but meat loaf? Oh, well. Maybe some people would consider my food choices equally odd.

For the tradition of the elders themselves, which they pretended to observe from the law, was contrary to the law given by Moses. Wherefore also Esaias declares: “Thy dealers mix the wine with water,” showing that the elders were in the habit of mingling a watered tradition with the simple command of God; that is, they set up a spurious law, and one contrary to the [true] law; as also the Lord made plain, when He said to them, “Why do ye transgress the commandment of God, for the sake of your tradition?” For not only by actual transgression did they set the law of God at nought, mingling the wine with water; but they also set up their own law in opposition to it, which is termed, even to the present day, the pharisaical. In this [law] they suppress certain things, add others, and interpret others, again, as they think proper, which their teachers use, each one in particular; and desiring to uphold these traditions, they were unwilling to be subject to the law of God, which prepares them for the coming of Christ. But they did even blame the Lord for healing on the Sabbath-days, which, as I have already observed, the law did not prohibit. For

My grandfather always had a little framed picture by his bed that simply said: There is always music in the garden, but our hearts have to be still enough to hear it. So every once in a while, take out your backpack and head off for a night under canvas. Even if it’s only for one night, and even if it’s only in your garden. Nature and the outdoors are a universal and deep-rooted language that we can all pick up once we get immersed. Once you have learnt to tie a bowline or cook a simple meal over a fire that you’ve built yourself, you’ll never forget it. I mean, who doesn’t want to learn how to make fire without matches? It is one of the greatest and oldest of human achievements. These skills and experiences are so deep-rooted in our subconscious that it is no surprise that they calm us. It is about being true to who we all are. And to remind ourselves of this, every now and again, is always going to better our lives. So camp out, enjoy some stories, watch a bit of nature’s TV (that’s a fire, by the way), eat simple food with your fingers, drink some wine and chat to those you love, and then lie back and soak in some quiet time under the night sky: it is restorative. You don’t need to be in Fiji to get restored! The only thing I would add to all this is once a year to watch a sunrise. It is good for the mind, body and spiritual health: to get up early and watch the sun appear quietly over the horizon, with no fuss, no fanfare - a gentle, warming, calm reminder that the world, at its heart, is wonderful, and that life is truly a gift. Never underestimate the power of simple pleasures like this to restore and inspire you. It is part of how we are made.

Red Wine Pot Roast I cracked the pot roast code years and years ago, and I’m so very, very glad I did. Once you master the (very simple but initially elusive) steps to the perfect pot roast, a whole world of comfort and goodness opens up. I have a standby pot roast that has never left my side since I first started making it, and this is its crazy, full-of-life, drunk-on-red-wine first cousin. (A first cousin who brings along a jar of orange marmalade and a bag of root vegetables whenever he visits, by the way. You’ll see what I mean here in a second.) This is a tremendously rich and delightful pot roast, and you’ll make it again and again.

We decided that the clergy would dine on wild boar, cooked in wine, rose vinegar, and sugar, with the snout and ears sliced thinly and served with a choice of mustard or onion sauce. It was one of Bartolomeo's favorite simple dishes.

• Curcumin (from turmeric root) • Diindolylmethane, from cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, watercress, and broccoli) • Quercetin, from apples, onions, strawberries, apricots, and many other fruits • Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), from green and black tea • Resveratrol, from grapes and red wine • Rosemary • Chicory root and dandelion • Rooibos and honeybush tea The simple act of eating these whole foods and ingredients regularly means that you’re doing a “detox” all the time.

I find it comforting to know that this simple act of eating bread and drinking wine has persisted through religious wars, cultural upheaval, and global catastrophes. It persists because the story of a God who chose to identify with us in death is simply too beautiful to ignore.

In Marseille you could walk down to the docks in the mornings. They had urchins, still alive. An offhand exchange, a few francs for this delicacy. The rocks are littered with debris, empty shells opened with a knife, rinsed by salt water, and sucked dry on the spot. Men taking lunch with bottles of their hard house wine, watching the boats move in and out. It's the ovaries---the coral ovaries. They are supposed to transfer a great power when you consume them. Absolutely voluptuous, the texture, absolutely permanent, the taste. It stays with you for the rest of your life." She went toward the door, pulling her hair back. She looked at me thoughtfully. "There are so many things to be blasé about your youth, your health, your employment. But real food---gifts from the ocean, no less---is not one of them. It's one of the only things that can immerse you safely in pleasure in this degraded, miserable place.

The Sun Also Rises takes place mostly in Paris and a little in Spain. Tons of wine, Pernod, villagers' wine... but the food is spare like the writing: a suckling pig, a roasted chicken, shrimp, bread and olive oil. Simple food, uncomplicated tastes." I chewed my lip. "That's it. Let's stay with simple food. Hemingway loved Spain, so let's drift toward those flavors, but no spice. And we can make them mix and match like tapas. Tyler will have flexibility." It felt good to collaborate with Jane. We listed fruits and vegetables that we could blend into smoothies. We then listed different flours to give the meals more taste, texture, and nutrients, like the coconut and almond flours I'd used for Jane's potpies and Peter's cake. We decided to alter the egg dishes and quiches that I'd been making for her into cleaner, simpler hashes and scrambles. We developed vegetable dishes----poached, roasted, fresh and lightly seasoned.

Janna is a materialistic and sensual paradise. It exists to satisfy the Muslim’s physical desires. ~ Delicious food, exquisite wines, beautiful huris[7], and servants are the source of pleasure in Janna. ~ Women are separated from each other in Janna.  Each lives in a separate “corner of a pearl,” many miles away from the others. ~ Allah’s attribute of beauty will be seen by Muslims in Janna, but he will be unapproachable and unknowable.

SAUSAGE PAPPARDELLE FENNEL SEEDS, CHIANTI, GARLIC, TOMATO & PARSLEY SERVES 1 | TOTAL 14 MINUTES 4½ oz fresh lasagne sheets 1 clove of garlic ½ a bunch of Italian parsley (½ oz) 1 pork or veggie sausage 1 teaspoon fennel seeds Chianti or other Italian red wine ¾ cup passata (strained tomatoes) Parmesan cheese, for grating Boil the kettle. Cut the lasagne sheets lengthways into 1¼-inch strips to make pappardelle. Peel and finely slice the garlic. Finely chop the top leafy half of the parsley, then the stalks, keeping them separate. Put an 11-inch frying pan on a high heat. Once hot, put a little drizzle of olive oil into the pan, then squeeze the sausagemeat out of the skin into the pan, breaking it up with your spoon (if using a veggie sausage, crumble or slice). Fry and stir for 2 minutes, then add the garlic, parsley stalks and fennel seeds. Once lightly golden, add a good splash of red wine, let it cook away, then add the passata and scatter the pasta into the pan. Carefully pour in enough boiling kettle water to just cover the pasta – about 1¼ cups. Let it bubble away for 4 minutes, or until the pasta has absorbed most of the water and you’ve got a nice rich sauce, stirring regularly and loosening with an extra splash of water, if needed. Turn the heat off, stir in the parsley leaves, then season to perfection. Finish with a grating of Parmesan and a kiss of extra virgin olive oil, if you like.