Spicy Love Quotes

Warm, aquamarine eyes stared into him—providing a lifeline to shore. And he wondered if she was really the one who needed saving . . .

You look all frail and breakable, but you're really a violent little thing, aren't you?

Their lips met in a slow, languid kiss. Salt from her tears mixed with her natural sweetness. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed closer. Her softness, her scent, she filled and overran his senses. He mouthed another kiss against her lips. Heat flared inside his abdomen when she opened her mouth, and kissed him back with firmer lips.  He sank into her embrace, the heated connection she offered. A kinetic warmth surged through him, lighting, igniting dormant pieces inside—like someone returning home . . . A soft groan, hushed breaths. Their mouths parted and found each other again. He slid his hand behind her neck as he deepened the kiss.

My love affair with nature is so deep that I am not satisfied with being a mere onlooker, or nature tourist. I crave a more real and meaningful relationship. The spicy teas and tasty delicacies I prepare from wild ingredients are the bread and wine in which I have communion and fellowship with nature, and with the Author of that nature.

This,” He started, giving a sudden twinge of his hips so that Ariana could feel the intensity of his throbbing within her. “And you, are mine.

The Queen gave no reply. A calmness had come over here. One born from being pushed beyond the Queen’s limit. No punishment, no act of vengeance, no war, no amount of blood, and no retribution that the realm had already seen, would hold a candle to what she would bring

What a face this girl possessed!—could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born. Her face, at once innocent and feral, soft and wild! Her mouth voluptuous. Eyes deep as oceans, her eyes as wide as planets. I likened her to the slender Psyché and judged that the perfection of her face ennobled everything unclean around her: the dusty hems of her bunched-up skirt, the worn straps of her nightshirt; the blackened soles of her tiny bare feet, the coal-stained balcony bricks upon which she sat, and that dusty wrought-ironwork that framed her perch. All this and the pungent air!—almost foul, with so many odors. Ô, that and the spicy night! …Pungency, spice, filth and night, dust and light; all things dark did blossom in sight; flower and bloom, the night has its pearl too—the moon! And once a month it will make the face of this tender girl bloom.

If he kept looking at her like that, she might just fall in love with him.

He had altered his method of matching books to readers. He often asked, "How would you like to feel when you go to sleep?" Most of his customers wanted to feel light and safe. He asked others to tell him about their favorite things. Cooks loved their knives. Estate agents loved the jangle made by a bunch of keys. Dentists loved the flicker of fear in their patients' eyes; Perdu had guessed as much. Most often he asked, "How should the book taste? Of ice cream? Spicy, meaty? Or like a chilled rose?" Food and books were closely related. He discovered this in Sanary, and it earned him the nickname "the book epicure.

You touch me and I burn

Love Rocks The De La Cruz's World

Kamu tahu apa yang sulit, Ran? Hidup. Untuk mempertahankan hidup adalah sebuah perjuangan yang besar, sedangkan kematian, adalah hal yang paling mudah yang bisa dilakukan oleh manusia. Langkah tanpa otak. Kalau bisa, buktikan kalau kamu mampu bangkit dan bertahan.

And not wretched sausages half full of bread and soya bean either, but real meaty, spicy ones, fat and piping hot and burst and just the tiniest bit burnt. And great mugs of frothy chocolate, and roast potatoes and roast chestnuts, and baked apples with raisins stuck in where the cores had been, and then ices just to freshen you up after all the hot things.

You look so f---- good right now, with your tits out,” he said, gripping my hair to pull me back for better access to my neck. “I wanna do so many nasty things to you.” I smiled shyly. “What kind of things?

The night was aromatic with the smell of autumn and the steely fragrance of freshly dampened blacktop. How she loved the smell of road: asphalt baking and soft in July, dirt roads with their dust-and-pollen perfume in June, country lanes spicy with the odor of crushed leaves in sober October, the sand-and-salt smell of the highway, so like an estuary, in February.

… I’d procured a small collection of mismatching teeth from each male that had violated her. One day, I would present my little treasure trove of teeth as a gift to her… A token of my undying love and readiness to f*cking murder anyone who dared to wrong her...

With Sofiya’s warm body pressed against mine in bed, guilt gnawed atme. Could I really fail this innocent girl? She was like a damsel in distress, a lamb among wolves. Shit. I was supposed to be the wolf she feared.

Brooke stared in surprise. “You brought me lunch?” “I was in the neighborhood.” She checked out the label on the bag. “DMK is twenty minutes from here.” “I was in that neighborhood, and now I’m here,” he said in exasperation. “Seriously, woman, you are impossible to feed.” He strode over and set the bag on her desk. “One cheeseburger with spicy chipotle ketchup and a side of sweet potato fries—chosen specifically for a certain spicy and sweet girl I know—and a green dill pickle for your eyes. So there.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Brooke studied him. “You seem very ornery right now.” “As a matter of fact, I am.” “Why?” “I don’t know,” he huffed. “Just . . . eat your Brooke Burger. Stop asking so many questions. Sometimes a guy just wants to buy a girl lunch. Any objections to that? Good. Enjoy your Sunday, Ms. Parker.” He strode out of her office, gone as quickly as he’d appeared. Brooke stared at the doorway and blinked.

He looked so painfully beautiful. So painfully mine.

I want to know every inch and curve of your body like it belongs to me-and it will. I want to know everything. Where you are. Who you're with. What panties you are wearing right now.

But I want you to know that you can’t hide from me,” he spoke, his voice trembling with anger. “No. I’m going to turn over every little stone until I find you. I’m going to search every damn house in this world. Until I fucking find you.

I thought. I thought of the slow yellow autumn in the swamp and the high honey sun of spring and the eternal silence of the marshes, and the shivering light on them, and the whisper of the spartina and sweet grass in the wind and the little liquid splashes of who-knew-what secret creatures entering that strange old place of blood-warm half earth, half water. I thought of the song of all the birds that I knew, and the soft singsong of the coffee-skinned women who sold their coiled sweet-grass baskets in the market and on Meeting Street. I thought of the glittering sun on the morning harbor and the spicy, somehow oriental smells from the dark old shops, and the rioting flowers everywhere, heavy tropical and exotic. I thought of the clop of horses' feet on cobblestones and the soft, sulking, wallowing surf of Sullivan's Island in August, and the countless small vistas of grace and charm wherever the eye fell; a garden door, a peeling old wall, an entire symmetrical world caught in a windowpane. Charlestone simply could not manage to offend the eye. I thought of the candy colors of the old houses in the sunset, and the dark secret churchyards with their tumbled stones, and the puresweet bells of Saint Michael's in the Sunday morning stillness. I thought of my tottering piles of books in the study at Belleau and the nights before the fire when my father told me of stars and butterflies and voyages, and the silver music of mathematics. I thought of hot, milky sweet coffee in the mornings, and the old kitchen around me, and Aurelia's gold smile and quick hands and eyes rich with love for me.

This spicy historical will steal your breath, and capture your heart. -Susan Sigler, Love Romance Passion

kucintamu selalu... meski waktu tak lagi jadi sekutu, meski hari tak lagi jadi temanku. ku selalu cintamu... hari ini, esok, atau tak tentu waktu. ku kan selalu cintamu...

You look like a fucking Goddess, Sofiya. You’re so beautiful, you look unreal.

She’s so fucking beautiful, it feels like punishment just looking at her.

She’s Dante’s daughter and Vittorio’s granddaughter. Machiavellianism runs in her dirty blood.

I am in love with him. This little bat wrapped his wings around my heart the moment I held my knife on his cock.

So, whether you are an introvert or extrovert, a woman-loving woman, or a man-loving woman, or a God-loving woman, or all of the above: Whether you are possessed of a simple heart or the ambitions of an Amazon, whether you are trying to make it to the top or just make it to tomorrow, whether you be spicy or somber, regal or roughshod - the wild woman belongs to you.

The spicy sweet fragrance of the large full blooms, which rambled over the side and top of an arched metal framework, welcomed them as they walked beneath them. Shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy, dust motes floating languorously in the golden beams that spotlighted clumps of wayward snowdrops growing in the lawn.

He smelled like fall — not like pumpkin and freshly fallen leaves, but like fall in Florida — salty like the beach air, earthy like the palm trees, with a sweet spiciness that reminded me of the honey whiskey my dad always drank after Thanksgiving dinner.

How she loved the smell of road: asphalt baking and soft in high July, dirt roads with their dust-and-pollen perfume in June, country lanes spicy with the odor of crushed leaves in sober October, the sand-and-salt smell of the highway, so like an estuary, in February.

Accepting one's age and mortality is a sign that you've now become an adult. Once you realize you no longer fit in the same jeans you did when you were 30, and the spicy foods you loved when you were younger now like to revisit you at 2 AM, you come to realize that with aging comes adjustment. And, aging isn't a bad thing - it sure beats the alternative!

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a great song about a bridge. And I can relate, because I love spicy food.

Cupid, if you’re watching, you are going to love this next part.

Your absence killed my heart, but the sight of your beautiful face just brought it back to life.

And I can’t wait any longer to taste my queen.

You look like a perfect queen, and if we didn’t have an event to attend, I’d show you just how perfect you are in more than one ways.

I don’t need anyone to tell me he will protect me. I already know, my body, my heart and my soul are safe with the man the world calls the king of the underworld.

Your daughter has my soul.

I can conquer anything. But I’m the failure who lost his most sacred conquest—my muse’s heart.

Obsession is what remains when love forgets its soul and decays into fixation, when every heartbeat becomes an echo of theirs.

The most dangerous weapon I ever created… was my muse. The woman behind it ruined me.

I had this woman. The devotion in her voice, the worship in those molten brown eyes—I had the world. But then I destroyed it. And now I’ve got nothing but ashes.

She’s always in my head, like an unsolved puzzle. She has always been a mystery. And the more I learn about her, the more confused I become.

So are we clear? You are my slave for the next three months, if that term helps you understand your position better.

Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Bennett, I have zero interest in you.

I’d be an idiot to feel something for him when he’s already taken.

She’s facing the ocean, her black waves dancing in the night breeze, the moonlight brushing against her skin. Muse.

Fucking hell, muse. What are you doing to me?

Damn it. She even smells delicious.

Don’t force me to show you exactly how much of this is my concern.

You look so pretty like this,” he murmurs. “Ruined and untouched, all at once.

I can see your dirty thoughts written all over your face, wife. Keep your focus on the meeting so I can do the same.

Now breathe in,” he murmurs, even more seductively. “Out.” And my damned brain imagines something very not meditation-related.

Is your head spinning better now, dear wife?

Tell me you want me, Abigail.

You have no idea what you are to me.

Run all the way to the middle of the ocean!” he calls behind me. “Let me see who saves you today!

Look at you. Tied up in my favorite tie, dripping for forgiveness you’re not getting.

I murmur, “Don’t call me your wife.” He whispers, “I will. That word tells me you’re mine. My wife. My Abigail. My muse.

He rubs my cheek with his knuckles, his eyes following the movement like a man possessed. “Unreal. Maddening.” His darkened amber eyes lift to mine. “Muse.

I hate you, Alexander.” “Hate me, muse,” he whispers in trembling voice. “Hate me all you want, but come back to me. Hate me. Love me. Fight me. But do it in my arms.

I have everything without you, wife, and it means nothing. I don’t want anything but you.

She is my home, my woman, my salvation. I will show her every day how important, beautiful, and loved she is.

There's nothing exciting about my life," Leyla said. "I mean, you've already seen where I live." I couldn't hide my self-satisfied smile as I looked out at the sun setting between the buildings, fiery orange. "Thanks to my detective skills." "Some people would call that stalking." I thought for a second. "Well, YOU'VE basically assaulted me. Twice." "Let's call it even.

For the first time, I feel her waist, exactly like I imagined. Soft. Supple. Covered in a layer of warmth that clings to my palms like a perfectly worn leather grip on a trusted sidearm.

North Korea is a famine state. In the fields, you can see people picking up loose grains of rice and kernels of corn, gleaning every scrap. They look pinched and exhausted. In the few, dingy restaurants in the city, and even in the few modern hotels, you can read the Pyongyang Times through the soup, or the tea, or the coffee. Morsels of inexplicable fat or gristle are served as 'duck.' One evening I gave in and tried a bowl of dog stew, which at least tasted hearty and spicy—they wouldn't tell me the breed—but then found my appetite crucially diminished by the realization that I hadn't seen a domestic animal, not even the merest cat, in the whole time I was there.

I’m going to kill you if you bite me." "What if I do this instead?" My hand crawls under her skirt. Fingers touching the wet lace between her thighs. She moans. She is wearing lace. I fucking love lace on her. "What color are you wearing for me tonight?

MG: Question number five: Would you ever consider cowriting something with another author? Personally, I've got a manuscript of a spicy romance novel I'd love to slap your name on. It's called Fifty Shades of Goose. CC: I just threw up a little in the back of my mouth.

gales! Blest be the bard, whom golden Fancy loves,   He strays for ever thro’ her blooming bowers, Amid the rich profusion of her groves,   And wreathes his forehead with her spicy flowers Of sunny radiance; but how blest is he Who feels the genuine force of high Sublimity!  

But in the end we found it impossible to ignore the impassioned pleas of the Lost City of White Male Privilege, a controversial municipality whose very existence is often denied by many (mostly privileged white males). Others state categorically that the walls of the locale have been irreparably breached by hip-hop and Roberto Bolaño’s prose. That the popularity of the spicy tuna roll and a black American president were to white male domination what the smallpox blankets were to Native American existence. Those inclined to believe in free will and the free market argue that the Lost City of White Male Privilege was responsible for its own demise, that the constant stream of contradictory religious and secular edicts from on high confused the highly impressionable white male. Reduced him to a state of such severe social and psychic anxiety that he stopped fucking. Stopped voting. Stopped reading. And, most important, stopped thinking that he was the end-all, be-all, or at least knew enough to pretend not to be so in public. But in any case, it became impossible to walk the streets of the Lost City of White Male Privilege, feeding your ego by reciting mythological truisms like “We built this country!” when all around you brown men were constantly hammering and nailing, cooking world-class French meals, and repairing your cars. You couldn’t shout “America, love it or leave it!” when deep down inside you longed to live in Toronto.

In the course of my life I have had pre-pubescent ballerinas; emaciated duchesses, dolorous and forever tired, melomaniac and morphine-sodden; bankers' wives with eyes hollower than those of suburban streetwalkers; music-hall chorus girls who tip creosote into their Roederer when getting drunk... I have even had the awkward androgynes, the unsexed dishes of the day of the *tables d'hote* of Montmartre. Like any vulgar follower of fashion, like any member of the herd, I have made love to bony and improbably slender little girls, frightened and macabre, spiced with carbolic and peppered with chlorotic make-up. Like an imbecile, I have believed in the mouths of prey and sacrificial victims. Like a simpleton, I have believed in the large lewd eyes of a ragged heap of sickly little creatures: alcoholic and cynical shop girls and whores. The profundity of their eyes and the mystery of their mouths... the jewellers of some and the manicurists of others furnish them with *eaux de toilette*, with soaps and rouges. And Fanny the etheromaniac, rising every morning for a measured dose of cola and coca, does not put ether only on her handkerchief. It is all fakery and self-advertisement - *truquage and battage*, as their vile argot has it. Their phosphorescent rottenness, their emaciated fervour, their Lesbian blight, their shop-sign vices set up to arouse their clients, to excite the perversity of young and old men alike in the sickness of perverse tastes! All of it can sparkle and catch fire only at the hour when the gas is lit in the corridors of the music-halls and the crude nickel-plated decor of the bars. Beneath the cerise three-ply collars of the night-prowlers, as beneath the bulging silks of the cyclist, the whole seductive display of passionate pallor, of knowing depravity, of exhausted and sensual anaemia - all the charm of spicy flowers celebrated in the writings of Paul Bourget and Maurice Barres - is nothing but a role carefully learned and rehearsed a hundred times over. It is a chapter of the MANCHON DE FRANCINE read over and over again, swotted up and acted out by ingenious barnstormers, fully conscious of the squalid salacity of the male of the species, and knowledgeable in the means of starting up the broken-down engines of their customers. To think that I also have loved these maleficent and sick little beasts, these fake Primaveras, these discounted Jocondes, the whole hundred-franc stock-in-trade of Leonardos and Botticellis from the workshops of painters and the drinking-dens of aesthetes, these flowers mounted on a brass thread in Montparnasse and Levallois-Perret! And the odious and tiresome travesty - the corsetted torso slapped on top of heron's legs, painful to behold, the ugly features primed by boulevard boxes, the fake Dresden of Nina Grandiere retouched from a medicine bottle, complaining and spectral at the same time - of Mademoiselle Guilbert and her long black gloves!... Have I now had enough of the horror of this nightmare! How have I been able to tolerate it for so long? The fact is that I was then ignorant even of the nature of my sickness. It was latent in me, like a fire smouldering beneath the ashes. I have cherished it since... perhaps since early childhood, for it must always have been in me, although I did not know it!

you're the fly on the wall hearing all, seeing all ears of a wall hearing all the secrets perhaps you're the vines creeping over the old abandoned mansion walls dusty, soulless and dead bringing a certain curious life to rubble and I think you're the jewel-eyed gecko sneaking around the warm summer walls between jasmine and olive branches sticky pad toes, clinging to the walls peeking in at lonely summer spicy love-making through silk curtains from the bright orient breathing in incense and tasting decadence climbing the sharply barbed walls the smooth cemented white-washed walls because walls breathe too

My rules adjust according to the submissive. No two are the same and a relationship between a Dom and a sub should be personal. For example, one sub might agree to being bound and publicly humiliated...and another might not. I will hear your Rules and questions and concerns first before I decide where to go from here.

Like the good girl that you are, you have other plans, don’t you?""I am a good girl, I am finishing what I started." I caress his neck tattoo with my lips. A soft, sweeping lick, and my fingers eagerly explore beneath his shirt. Every single muscle."Mmm." It’s the only thing he can say before I put my mouth on his again.

The chicken kebab is moist and fragrant; the chicken chunks fall apart when I bite into them, and the aromas of turmeric and parsley flood my senses. I have to close my eyes to take in all the flavors- spicy, salty, meaty. The doogh is equally delicious; I swear I've never drunk something so creamy, so minty, so refreshing.

For all their weirdness, I LOVE the penis people. I don't understand them. I can't imagine I'll ever learn their language of grunting and scratching, but I'm going to try. If I have to devote my life to learning, I will do it. I can't explain the compulsion that is me thinking about Stephen now. Or just watching a boy walk by and wondering what is going on inside his head. To have him want to play with my hair and take me exciting places. To touch his amazingly fabulous butt and not be arrested for assault. Don't they have a distinct smell? When do they start producing that spicy, manly, different-from-me scent? I don't mean the sweaty, take-a-shower odor, but the yummy soap and a hint of cologne. The kind of scent that makes me want to inhale in their general vicinity just because I can. I get fluttery and gooey and cease to function at higher levels. Like I shut down except for feeling things; like the hot rays of Stephen's manliness and the solid rock of femur and muscle under his denim cargo pants.

Love was no delusion. You didn’t have to have your head in the clouds to believe in it. It wasn’t invalid because someone was hopelessly romantic, nor was negated because someone viewed the world with a more critical eye. Love was about being safe with someone, knowing you could count on them for anything. Big or small. Heavy. Or featherlight.

I’m not supposed to act on the thoughts that cross my mind. Obviously. Even if I wanted to act on them, I can’t. How can I act on the thought of touching his jaw to know how his stubble feels? Or the thought of licking his lips to see if they carry the scent of tobacco? Or the thought of tracing his abs just to know if they’re as hard as his chest?

the only thing he’s tweeted was from over a month ago: Does anyone get weird looks when they ask for “real spicy, not just white people spicy” at Indian restaurants? (This got three likes, and the following response from one RichardBurns08: Me too. Been with my Thai wife for three years now, and they still think this gaijin can’t handle it. Love to prove them wrong!)

Adria:Tell me what you want right now, or I’ll get that vibrator out and you can say goodbye to being inside me. Bryson: I want to rip these ropes off and carry you to the bed. I want to taste you, be inside of you. Slam into you, fill you.Serve you.Ruin you. Aria: Are you sure that’s what you want? Because you seem to like this? Bryson: "I love this",he said. I love you.

But was this the touted bliss of love that she'd read about in Madame Sand's spicy novels? It was not the crushing sensation she'd expected, but rather feathery and weightless. How lightly had his hand covered hers! And how much it assured: to keep her safe, to guide and delight. Such a simple act, holding hands. We are a pair, it said. Two in harmony against this inattentive, suffering world.

Professor Skye narrowed his eyes at her. They were as blue and as light as a crystal-clear sky, like his namesake. Hypnotic. And they were peering directly into Elena's emerald ones. There was a reason Elena had to constantly remind herself not to look into those eyes during class; once you did there was no going back. They were like never ending pods into the abyss. They sucked you in without mercy.....

People come to New Orleans to forget themselves and party like a pagan. They gorge themselves on exotic spicy foods and five to seven course meals, taking hours to consume. They behave badly in bars and routinely encourage their willing female counterparts to flash their tits for cheap plastic beads. Beads women would never wear anywhere else but in New Orleans become triumphant symbols of one’s insatiable allure.

The trouble was, Elizabeth thought, they did not tell the children of colonial families not to love these foreign lands, not to fall in love with their birthplaces. While parents dreamt of retiring in peace to another place called ‘home’, their children soaked up knowledge of the only world they knew: its different peoples, its spicy food, its birdsong, the way warm rain fell like a curtain through the palm trees. Their souls would be forever torn.

One of his hands run up my neck and through my hair, the other supporting my waist. I'm held up by a dizzying suspension, feeling like I could sprout wings and fly. Time stands still and the only thing I can think about is the taste of his mouth, his tongue, spicy and sweet from the saffron, and how I hunger for more. His hand cups my ass, and he leans into me, kissing my neck. My hips grind into him. This kiss, this moment, really proves I'd never experienced passion like this before. It's more than a connection between bodies; it's like a recipe with the perfect balance of ingredients.

The greatest masters have only made single statues, groups are always inferior; that is why Carpeaux, big though he was, is less so than Rodin, for he never knew how to make single statues. He did not know how to find his rhythm in the arrangement of the shapes of one body, but obtained it by the disposition of several. The great sculptors are there to prove it. Think of the masterpieces which we like most, all standing or seated, and one at a time, and they are not in the least monotonous. The connoisseur loves one spicy cake, but the glutton requires at least six to stimulate his pleasure.

Too racy?" I asked. She snorted. "Too asinine. For being such a brilliant woman in all other respects, apparently, she was completely flummoxed by sex. When she wrote about it, it was either all buttoned up or completely, pardon the expression,screwy. Between you and me, the letters to Willing are just sloppy and boring. The spicy bits read like old Cosmopolitans now. The rest is just simpering and scolding him for not writing in kind." "Of course he didn't. He loved Diana." Maxine swept a shred of paper from her desk with a quick backhand. "Oh, for heavens sake." She huffed out a breath. "The heart of a teenager.

A kitten is almost too easy, I think, as I quickly pull out its fur and separate and de-bone it, and put the pieces in the blast cooker for three of the remaining four minutes, then add them to my gumbo, just as Chef Reamsy calls time. “Ladies first,” he says, as I present him with a plate. “What have we here?” “Chef, this is a Slim Jim, Chee-Tos, and kitten gumbo in a spicy Pepsi sauce,” I say. “Bon appetite.” He picks through it. “It certainly looks visually stunning,” he says. “What’d you use in the sauce?” “Pepsi, and a little K-C Masterpiece barbecue sauce. I put that in a pan and let it reduce down.” He takes a bite. “Flavorful. The meat is moist and tender, the sauce has just the right amount of spice, and I love the way you incorporated the stray kitten into the dish. Well done indeed.

Fresh seafood stock made from shrimp and crab... It's hot and spicy- and at the same time, mellow and savory! Visions of lush mountains, cool springs and the vast ocean instantly come to mind! She brought out the very best flavors of each and every ingredient she used! "I started with the fresh fish and veggies you had on hand... ... and then simmered them in a stock I made from seafood trimmings until they were tender. Then I added fresh shrimp and let it simmer... seasoning it with a special blend I made from spices, herbs like thyme and bay leaves, and a base of Worcestershire sauce. I snuck in a dash of soy sauce, too, to tie the Japanese ingredients together with the European spices I used. Overall, I think I managed to make a curry sauce that is mellow enough for children to enjoy and yet flavorful enough for adults to love!" "Yum! Good stuff!" "What a surprise! To take the ingredients we use here every day and to create something out of left field like this!" "You got that right! This is a really delicious dish, no two ways about it. But what's got me confused... ... is why it seems to have hit him way harder than any of us! What on earth is going on?!" This... this dish. It... it tastes just like home! It looks like curry, but it ain't! It's gumbo!" Gumbo is a family dish famously served in the American South along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. A thick and spicy stew, it's generally served over steamed rice. At first glance, it closely resembles Japan's take on curry... but the gumbo recipe doesn't call for curry powder. Its defining characteristic is that it uses okra as its thickener. *A possible origin for the word "gumbo" is the Bantu word for okra-Ngombu.*

I grabbed a handful of tarragon and closed my eyes, inhaling its sweet fragrance. I could almost feel my grandmother next to me, smell the aromas embedded into her poppy-print apron, taste her creamy veloutés. Thanks to her, my skills in the kitchen started developing from the age of seven. I'd learned how to chop, slice, and dice without cutting my fingers, to sauté, fry, and grill, pairing flavors and taming them into submission. Just as I'd experienced with my grandmother's meals, when people ate my creations, I wanted them to think "now this is love"- while engaging all of the five senses. For me, cooking was the way I expressed myself, each dish a balance of flavors and ingredients representing my emotions- sweet, sour, salty, smoky, spicy-hot, and even bitter. My inspiration as a chef was to give people sensorial experiences, to bring them back to times of happiness, to let them relive their youth, or to awaken their minds.

She forced herself to turn back to Luke, who’d closed his eyes but was now gripping her hand with renewed intensity. “I love you,” she said, but her words were swallowed up by the screams all around them. Suddenly, with a bone-shaking crack, the dropship slammed into Earth, and everything went black. In the distance, Glass heard a low, guttural moaning, a sound full of more anguish than anything she’d ever heard. She tried to open her eyes, but the slightest effort sent her head into a sickening spin. She gave up and allowed herself to sink back into the darkness. A few moments passed. Or was it a few hours? Again, she struggled against the comforting quiet, fighting her way toward consciousness. For a sweet, groggy millisecond, she had no idea where she was. All she could focus on was the barrage of strange smells. Glass hadn’t known it was possible to smell so many things at once: There was something she sort of recognized from the solar fields—her favorite spot to meet Luke—but amplified a thousand times over. There was something sweet, but not like sugar or perfume. Deeper, richer. Every breath she took sent her brain into overdrive as it struggled to identify the swirling scents. Something spicy. Metallic. Then a familiar scent jolted her brain to attention. Blood. Glass’s

Our eyes meet and the look in his gaze is so intense, I shut mine. He pulls me forward and leans into me, his mouth finding mine. He lightly nibbles my bottom lip, and I let out a moan. He whispers into my mouth. "A little bite isn't that bad, is it?" "No," I say. His mouth, his lips, become more ravenous, and our heated breaths become one, his chocolaty and spicy. His hands envelop my jawline as he pulls me into him even more. Our tongues explore each other's, gentle and demanding, and my hands slide down his sides. The kiss is urgent, fervent, and so utterly delicious. I'm clinging onto his back now, light-headed and dizzy. Wild tremors rush down my spine right into my loins. I grip him tighter, about to lose my breath as I breathe him in. He pulls away, groaning softly. "Do you want me to stop?" "No," I say breathlessly. "Let's get comfortable on the couch." I can only nod. He picks me up in his strong muscled arms, and I stroke his tattoo as he carries me into the living room. The next kiss is better and more intense than the first---the kind that makes me see fireworks, the kind that makes me want to explode. Every nerve in my body throbs, the weight of his body pressing against mine, his hardness. My hands explore his back as he kisses my neck. It's like I'm starving and thirsty and I want to eat him, drink him in. This is too good, too much, too delicious. Between the taste of his mouth and his scent, I think I'm going to pass out.

He was deeply in love with her. Truly. Madly. A kind of love he'd never dared fathom. It hadn't happened in an instant--- a flash in the pan, quick sear, raw within--- but over time, his initial wallop of attraction so thin and bland beside the concentrated feeling that consumed him now, this love that had simmered slowly, sauce marrying over long, low heat. Maura with the tarot, shuffling his cards, dashing his dreams, telling him to quit in a way that only drove him to think about her: the tartness of tomato, stewing over flame. Maura in the dark, pulling down his mask, kissing him in the stairwell of that strange immersion theater: the heat of hot pepper flakes. Maura in his bed, in his T-shirt, eating grilled cheese in the middle of the night, feeding it to him, crumbs on the comforter, her fingers in his mouth: the sweet emulsion of butter. Maura arguing with him, one hand on her hip, pissed the hell off: basil, torn. Maura working through a problem, her forehead furrowed, eyes in such sharp focus: the concentration of tomato paste. Maura walking into a room, the air shifting, his eyes finding hers: garlic, caramelized. Maura when she said his name, when she whispered it, when she traced it into his shoulder, gasped it, screamed it, held it in her mouth like a secret: pepper--- red and black and white--- grinding in a mill. Maura in the world, living with so much life, so much yearning, so much hunger, that all he ever wanted to do was feed her, satisfy her, love her, make her feel as full as she made him: streams of salt and salt and salt. It had all stirred together inside him until there it was--- love--- and everything else he'd ever tried just fell away, tasteless.

For four hours, Andrew and I were presented with course after course of delightful creations, imaginative pairings, and, always, dramatic presentations. Little fillets of sturgeon arrived under a glass dome, after which it was lifted, applewood smoke billowed out across the table. Pretzel bread, cheese, and ale, meant to evoke a picnic in Central Park, was delivered in a picnic basket. But my favorite dish was the carrot tartare. The idea came, along with many of the menu's other courses, while researching reflecting upon New York's classic restaurants. From 21 Club to Four Seasons, once upon a time, every establishment offered a signature steak tartare. "What's our tartare?" Will and Daniel wondered. They kept playing with formulas and recipes and coming close to something special, but it never quite had the wow factor they were looking for. One day after Daniel returned from Paffenroth Gardens, a farm in the Hudson Valley with the rich muck soil that yields incredibly flavorful root vegetables, they had a moment. In his perfect Swiss accent, he said, "What if we used carrots?" Will remembers. And so carrot tartare, a sublime ode to the humble vegetable, was added to the Eleven Madison Park tasting course. "I love that moment when you clamp a meat grinder onto the table and people expect it to be meat, and it's not," Will gushes of the theatrical table side presentation. After the vibrant carrots are ground by the server, they're turned over to you along with a palette of ingredients with which to mix and play: pickled mustard seeds, quail egg yolk, pea mustard, smoked bluefish, spicy vinaigrette. It was one of the most enlightening yet simple dishes I've ever had. I didn't know exactly which combination of ingredients I mixed, adding a little of this and a little of that, but every bite I created was fresh, bright, and ringing with flavor. Carrots- who knew?

I’ll tell you what,” he says. “You keep me company while I finish my dinner. I won’t even ask you what you have…or don’t have…under that coat. Deal?” I smile tentatively and smooth down my hair. “Deal.” “You don’t have to do that for me,” he says, gently taking my hand away from my hair. “I’ll get a blanket so you don’t get dirty.” I wait until he pulls a clean light green fleece blanket out of a closet. We sit on the blanket and Alex looks at his watch. “Want some?” he asks, pointing to his dinner. Maybe eating will calm my nerves. “What is it?” “Enchiladas. Mi’amá makes kick-ass enchiladas.” He stabs a small portion with a fork and holds it out to me. “If you’re not used to this kind of spicy food--” “I love spicy,” I interrupt, taking it into my mouth. I start chewing, enjoying the blend of flavors. But when I swallow, my tongue slowly catches on fire. Somewhere behind all the fire there’s flavor, but the flames are in the way. “Hot,” is all I can say as I attempt to swallow. “I told you.” Alex holds out the cup he’d been drinking from. “Here, drink. Milk usually does the trick, but I only have water.” I grab the cup. The liquid cools my tongue, but when I finish the water it’s as if someone stokes it again. “Water…,” I say. He fills another cup. “Here, drink more, though I don’t think it’ll help much. It’ll subside soon.” Instead of drinking it this time, I stick my tongue in the cold liquid and keep it there. Ahhh… “You okay?” “To I wook otay?” I ask. “With your tongue in the water like that, actually, it’s erotic. Want another bite?” he asks mischievously, acting like the Alex I know. “Mo mank ooh.” “Your tongue still burnin’?” I lift my tongue from the water. “It feels like a million soccer players are stomping on it with their cleats.” “Ouch,” he says, laughing. “You know, I heard once that kissin’ reduces the fire.” “Is that your cheap way of telling me you want to kiss me?” He looks into my eyes, his dark gaze capturing mine. “Querida, I always want to kiss you.

I have been all over the world cooking and eating and training under extraordinary chefs. And the two food guys I would most like to go on a road trip with are Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlmann, both of whom I have met, and who are genuinely awesome guys, hysterically funny and easy to be with. But as much as I want to be the Batgirl in that trio, I fear that I would be woefully unprepared. Because an essential part of the food experience that those two enjoy the most is stuff that, quite frankly, would make me ralph. I don't feel overly bad about the offal thing. After all, variety meats seem to be the one area that people can get a pass on. With the possible exception of foie gras, which I wish like heckfire I liked, but I simply cannot get behind it, and nothing is worse than the look on a fellow foodie's face when you pass on the pate. I do love tongue, and off cuts like oxtails and cheeks, but please, no innards. Blue or overly stinky cheeses, cannot do it. Not a fan of raw tomatoes or tomato juice- again I can eat them, but choose not to if I can help it. Ditto, raw onions of every variety (pickled is fine, and I cannot get enough of them cooked), but I bonded with Scott Conant at the James Beard Awards dinner, when we both went on a rant about the evils of raw onion. I know he is often sort of douchey on television, but he was nice to me, very funny, and the man makes the best freaking spaghetti in tomato sauce on the planet. I have issues with bell peppers. Green, red, yellow, white, purple, orange. Roasted or raw. Idk. If I eat them raw I burp them up for days, and cooked they smell to me like old armpit. I have an appreciation for many of the other pepper varieties, and cook with them, but the bell pepper? Not my friend. Spicy isn't so much a preference as a physical necessity. In addition to my chronic and severe gastric reflux, I also have no gallbladder. When my gallbladder and I divorced several years ago, it got custody of anything spicier than my own fairly mild chili, Emily's sesame noodles, and that plastic Velveeta-Ro-Tel dip that I probably shouldn't admit to liking. I'm allowed very occasional visitation rights, but only at my own risk. I like a gentle back-of-the-throat heat to things, but I'm never going to meet you for all-you-can-eat buffalo wings. Mayonnaise squicks me out, except as an ingredient in other things. Avocado's bland oiliness, okra's slickery slime, and don't even get me started on runny eggs. I know. It's mortifying.

Sì avvicinò, pose i palmi sul muro sopra le mie spalle e mi bloccò. «Ti piace sfottere. O f0ttere?» Maskable, Unmaskable

THE SUMMER BEFORE COLLEGE Mick drove trucks for the Coke plant, big lumbering GMCs with slide-up side doors from which he pulled down wooden cases of bottles and slung back cases of empties, delivering to corner markets, restaurants and grocery stores in Rockland County. He loved the hard labor and the changing scenes and people, the sun hot on his face through the GMC’s big windshield and on his arm through the open window full of all the scents of summer – spicy fresh-mown alfalfa, sun-warm bark of beeches and birches, black-furrowed soil, the redolent pastures of cattle and sheep, the cool moist air when the road went over a stream. Wherever he sold, people upped their orders. “What I like,” one corner grocer said, “is you never let me down. You always come when you say you will.” Mick shrugged it off but smiled, “Isn’t everybody like that?” “The way you work, you’re gonna make somethin’ of yourself some day.” He drove on, one arm out the window, shoulder warm in the sun, wind cooling his face, in the friendly grease, diesel and sun-hot plastic smell of the truck. Of course you worked hard, everybody should. It made you happy. How could you not work when your family needed it? Tara waiting tables full-time at Primo’s Café on Main Street, Troy running the farm all by himself and delivering papers at four every morning; Dad’s salary at the plastic factory had gone