Sweets And Coffee Quotes

Ah coffee. The sweet balm by which we shall accomplish today's tasks.

Black as night, sweet as sin.

Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.

Sure, we'd faced some things as children that a lot of kids don't. Sure, Justin had qualified for his Junior de Sade Badge in his teaching methods for dealing with pain. We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something. Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - gradutaing, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expecations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens. And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life. Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it. Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.

A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony.

The necklace was a good excuse," he murmured. "For what?" "I thought maybe I could go to Charleston and show up at your front door to give this back and maybe… you might let me in. Or something. I was worried that another male would court you, so I've been trying to go as fast as I could. I mean, I figured maybe if I could read, and if I took a little better care of myself, and if I tried to stop being such a mean-ass motherfucker…" He shook his head. "But don't misunderstand. It's not like I expected you to be happy to see me. I was just… you know, hoping… coffee. Tea. Chance to talk. Or some shit. Friends, maybe. Except if you had a male, he wouldn't allow that. So, yeah, that's why I've been hurrying." His yellow eyes lifted to hers. He was wincing, as if he were afraid of what might be showing on her face. "Friends?" she said. "Yeah… I mean, I wouldn't disgrace you by asking for more than that. I know that you regret… Anyway, I just couldn't let you go without… Yeah, so… friends.

I like old bookstores, the smell of coffee brewing, rainy day naps, farmhouse porches, and sunsets. I like the sweet, simple things that remind me that life doesn’t have to be complicated to be beautiful.

Whereas you prefer your coffee with a bucket of sugar added because you’re just so damn sweet?” he asked sarcastically as he watched me. “No. I like my sugar with a dash of coffee added because I’m bitter.

Take it all back. Life is boring, except for flowers, sunshine, your perfect legs. A glass of cold water when you are really thirsty. The way bodies fit together. Fresh and young and sweet. Coffee in the morning. These are just moments. I struggle with the in-betweens. I just want to never stop loving like there is nothing else to do, because what else is there to do?

I decline the coffee. I don't drink it, because no matter how much sugar I put into it, it still tastes like ass-water to me. Maybe it's because my taste buds are so desensitized to sweet that anything not comprised of at least ninety percent sugar tastes wrong

For a well-made cup of coffee is the proper beginning to an idle day. Its aroma is beguiling, its taste is sweet; yet it leaves behind only bitterness and regret. In that, it resembles, surely, the pleasures of love.

How you want your coffee?” she asked her guests. “Here we take it black as night, sweet as sin.

The combined aromas of hot cinnamon, ground coffee, and sweet cardamom intoxicated her, and as she brewed and smiled and served and chatted, a deep contentment welled up. It was a glowing warmth she’d never experienced before, and she liked it. She liked it a great deal.

This is my last letter There will be no others. This is the last grey cloud That will rain on you, After this, you will never again Know the rain. This is the last drop of wine in my cup There will be no more drunkenness. This is the last letter of madness, The last letter of childhood. After me you will no longer know The purity of youth The beauty of madness. I have loved you Like a child running from school Hiding birds and poems In his pockets. With you I was a child of Hallucinations, Distractions, Contradictions, I was a child of poetry and nervous writing. As for you, You were a woman of Eastern ways Waiting for her fate to appear In the lines of the coffee cups. How miserable you are, my lady, After today You won't be in the blue notebooks, In the pages of the letters, In the cry of the candles, In the mailman's bag. You won't be Inside the children's sweets In the colored kites. You won't be in the pain of the letters In the pain of the poems. You have exiled yourself From the gardens of my childhood You are no longer poetry.

A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.

She smiled as sweetly as a show poster for the glorified, all-American Ziegfeld girl just before dumping her second cigarette into Wally’s fresh cup of coffee.

some poems froth and foam and rise... out of my morning cup of mist-sweetened coffee.

Which was your favorite? Living room, or bed, or floor, or bed, or wall, or mirror, or bar, or floor?” “Shhh,” I whisper, lifting my cup to take another, more careful sip of coffee. I smile into my mug. “You’re weird.” “I think I need a cast for my penis.

Anna finds remnants of cocaine on my coffee table and goes all daughter-of-Belial on me.

Her eyes were dark. Dark as chocolate, dark as coffee, dark as the polished wood of my father’s lute. They were set in a fair face, oval. Like a teardrop. Her easy smile could stop a man’s heart. Her lips were red. Not the garish painted red so many women believe makes them desirable. Her lips were always red, morning and night. As if minutes before you saw her, she had been eating sweet berries, or drinking heart’s blood. No matter where she stood, she was in the center of the room. Do not misunderstand. She was not loud, or vain. We stare at a fire because it flickers, because it glows. The light is what catches our eyes, but what makes a man lean close to a fire has nothing to do with its bright shape. What draws you to a fire is the warmth you feel when you come near. The same was true of Denna.

Do you know what the Turkish say about coffee? It should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

Would you?” Mom smiles and touches my hair, pushing it back from my forehead. I let her, but I grit my teeth. Her bare fingers brush my skin. I am thankful when none of my amulets crack. “Do you know what the Turkish say about coffee? It should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love. Isn’t that beautiful? My grandfather told me that when I was a little girl, and I never forgot it. Unfortunately, I still like my milk.

She tasted like buried treasure and swing swets and coffee. She tasted the way fireworks felt, like something you could get close to but never really have just for yourself.

I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity? Are we sure it is desirable for a man's spirit not to be at war with itself, or that it is better to be serene and ready to go to dinner than to be excited and unwilling to stop for a cup of coffee, even?

He was a ruffled haired, stubble faced, woman's dream, tangled in sheets. So I stepped away from the Ryker and went for coffee instead.

Strange how the bitterness of coffee makes life sweet.

It never stopped, even at night, it was our lullaby. It was our metronome, our pulse. It was our lives measured out in doses slightly larger than those famous coffee spoons. Soup spoons, maybe? Dented tin spoons brimming with what should have been sweet but was sour, gone off, gone by without our savouring it: our lives

Chloe took a sip of her coffee. Strong as faith, sweet as love, black as sin.

Or perhaps a widow found him and took him in: brought him an easy chair, changed his sweater every morning, shaved his face until the hair stopped growing, took him faithfully to bed with her every night, whispered sweet nothings into what was left of his ear, laughed with him over black coffee, cried with him over yellowing pictures, talked greenly about having kids of her own, began to miss him before she became sick, left him everything in her will, thought of only him as she died, always knew he was fiction but believed in him anyway.

Cade is the embodiment of actions speaking louder than words. He wasn’t about to fall all over himself apologizing for not making enough coffee for me. Instead, he just made more and left me a mug, knowing that it would make me feel good. And a Post-it note addressed to Red. Maybe I’m an idiot but it feels sweet. Coming from Cade, it is sweet.

Someone speak to me. Call out to me and take me out. Please, please, I'm begging you, say something kind to me. Tell me I'm pretty, tell me I'm sweet. Invite me out for coffee, or more... Tell me that you want to spend the day with me and me alone.

With my eyes on my wife, I would tell the waitress that I liked my coffee like I liked my women, “black and sweet.” This always got me a smile. Then Celestial would say, “I like my mimosa like I like my men: transparent.

He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes, She had just enough time to take in a breath, to blink, to part her lips before he took them with his own. Time froze. Her heart ceased to beat. Her eyes fluttered shut. The cool slip of the small metal loop pressed into her skin as he kissed her. Urgent. Gentle. So slow. Sweet, soft demolition. He tasted of cloves and coffee. And of something else. A farawat essence, familiar and yet somehow foreign, too. Something sere and arid. A little like some. A little like decay Ash.

Any chance of getting something sweet to go with my coffee?” [Finn] asked in a hopeful voice. I arched an eyebrow at him. “You mean all those pieces of strawberry pie that you ate for lunch weren't enough?” “I’m a growing boy,” Finn said in a sincere tone. “I need my vitamins.” Bria snorted. “The only thing that’s growing on you, Lane, is your ego.” Finn sidled up to my sister and gave her a dazzling smile. “Well, other things of mine also tend to swell up in your presence, detective.

I even made myself a cup of chamomile tea, the nauseating sweet smell wafting up from my chipped coffee cup like a hot diaper. This was supposed to be relaxing?

Gwen smiled and asked hopefully, "Is there coffee again this morning?" Silvan put his book down and glanced absently at Gwen. His gaze dropped to her cleavage, and a single white brow shot up. He blinked several times. "There certainly is," Nell said, circling the table. She stopped behind Gwen and draped a linen cloth over her shoulders, so it tumbled from her neck like a bib. "Peel yer eyes off the lass's breasts," Nell said sweetly to Silvan. Gwen turned twenty shades of red, sneaked a hand beneath the bib, and tugged at her bodice, trying to jiggle them back down a little. Mortified, she devoted her attention to eyeing the medieval dining ware-plates and goblets made of heavy silver, a fat spoon and broad knife, and heavy blue bowls. "She's the one who fluffed them up," Silvan protested indignantly. "I didn't mean to look, but they were ... so ... there. Like trying not to see the sun in the sky." Nell arched a brow and circled round the table again. "I hardly think 'twas ye she fluffed 'em for, was it lass?" Gwen glanced up and gave an embarrassed shake of her head.

• At 1 A.M. I'd pull on my coat, my boots. Walk down the stairway, out the door, down the long driveway to the road. Sometimes, I'd go to the stoned boy's house. We'd sit and watch TV. We'd have sex, sometimes. I remember only that the bedroom had two windows through which blue light spilled, and it smelled sticky sweet. His guitar leaned against the wall. Sometimes, I'd just walk. Down roads and up roads, through hills, through the neighborhoods, cold. Counting the small squares of lamplight in the houses where someone was still awake. I wondered who they were, and what kept them up. I went down to the little strip mall, the all-night 7-Elevena single glow beside the dark bluegrass bar, the dark deli, the dark beauty salon, Acrylic's Only $19. I bought a thirty-two-ounce cup of coffee, black. I sat outside on the bench, smoking, holding the cup in both hands.

Kate picked up the carafe and poured some coffee into a cup. She added sugar and cream until it was the color of caramel. Her mom used to take her coffee like this. 'So sweet it could kiss you,' she used to say.

Hey, pumpkin head," she said, her ancient smile bright, albeit toothless. "I heard you stumble your way to the bathroom, so I figured I'd earn my keep and make us some coffee. Sure looks like you could use some." I grimaced. "Really? How sweet." Damn. Aunt Lillian couldn't really make coffee. I sat at the counter and pretended to drink a cup. "Is it too strong?" she asked. "No way, Aunt Lil, you make the best." Pretending to drink coffee was similar to faking an orgasm. Where in the supernatural afterlife was the fun in that?

Contrary to popular belief, the helpful words that open the way to great, dramatic dialogues are, in general, modest, ordinary, banal, no one would think that Would you like a cup of coffee could serve as an introduction to a bitter debate about feelings that have died or to the sweetness of a reconciliation that neither person knows how to bring about.

Why are we inspired by another person's courage? Maybe because it gives us the sweet and genuine surprise of discovering some trace, at least, of the same courage in ourselves.

Empty nest was such a sweet term for having your heart ripped out and relocated to another state.

And I had forgotten to get more Sweet’N Low, so I had to drink coffee as bitter as I am.

She wanted an omlette, a mug of too-sweet coffee. She wanted to hear the rain on the rooftops and be snug and warm in her tiny room in the Slat. There were adventures to come.

In the morning, the woman who made you ill with fear brews a pot of coffee and jokes with you and kisses you and sweetly scratches your scalp like nothing has happened. And, as though you’d slept, a new day begins again.

The kiss is different than I expected. It’s slow and tender, his lips soft and warm against mine. He tastes sweet, like the powdered sugar I spilt and the coffee with chicory he’s always drinking. It’s a perfect first kiss.

~Dance~ My fingers dance On the set Of ivory & black pirouettes. I let go While my fingers fly, Making music through the night. This is the best therapy. A place of release, House of freedom & relief. My oasis of redemption. My river of gentle. My ocean of mental. My mind is relieved. My fingers are free To let go, making music sweet. Rache Nicole Wagner Original

He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. ... This is the smell I love. This and fresh-cut clover, the crushed sage as you ride after cattle, wood-smoke and the burning leaves of autumn. That must be the odor of nostalgia, the smell of the smoke from the piles of raked leaves burning in the streets in the fall in Missoula. Which would you rather smell? Sweet grass the Indians used in their baskets? Smoked leather? The odor of the ground in the spring after rain? The smell of the sea as you walk through the gorse on a headland in Galicia? Or the wind from the land as you come in toward Cuba in the dark? That was the odor of cactus flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Or would you rather smell frying bacon in the morning when you are hungry? Or coffee in the morning? Or a Jonathan apple as you bit into it? Or a cider mill in the grinding, or bread fresh from the oven?

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.

She drank sweet coffee, sweet tea, sweet cocoa and sweet sherry.

How do you take your coffee?” “Dark as night, sweet as sin.

Coffee is a lot like people. In many ways, it’s deceiving. The sweetness that you smell as it brews is more often than not a fallacy. The scent of a dark roasted coffee bean promises you rich flavors with hints of chocolate and hazelnut, but if you’re not used to coffee’s deceptiveness, you’re left with a bitter aftertaste dangling at the back of your throat. To those of us who are used to it- we’ve grown a fondness for that bitter taste. It’s complex. It’s teasing. It reminds us that most things in life are not consistently sweet with every sip. One morning, your coffee might brew mild with just a flirtation of nutty undertones, And the next morning, it might be pelting you in the face with those same nuts, leaving little stinging marks with each sip. It’s moody. It’s not easy to perfect. But when you get the perfect brew, it’s rewarding. And that same perfection is not guaranteed tomorrow just because you managed it today.

I ordered a hot chocolate and Chandler got a black coffee. He smiled over at me. "Still no love for coffee?" I shook my head. "Nah, why have bitter and gross when I can have sweet and delicious?

He nearly called you again last night. Can you imagine that, after all this time? He can. He imagines calling you or running into you by chance. Depending on the weather, he imagines you in one of those cotton dresses of yours with flowers on it or in faded blue jeans and a thick woollen button-up cardigan over a checkered shirt, drinking coffee from a mug, looking through your tortoiseshell glasses at a book of poetry while it rains. He thinks of you with your hair tied back and the characteristic sweet scent on your neck. He imagines you this way when he is on the train, in the supermarket, at his parents' house, at night, alone, and when he is with a woman. He is wrong, though. You didn't read poetry at all. He had wanted you to read poetry, but you didn't. If pressed, he confesses to an imprecise recollection of what it was you read and, anyway, it wasn't your reading that started this. It was the laughter, the carefree laughter, the three-dimensional Coca-Cola advertisement that you were, the try-anything-once friends, the imperviousness to all that came before you, the chain telephone calls, the in-jokes, the instant music, the sunlight you carried with you, the way he felt when you spoke to his parents, the introductory undergraduate courses, the inevitability of your success, the beach houses, ...

Oh my gosh, he smells good, like some exotic but comforting spice, nutmeg or cardamom. Slowly Damian lowers his head to mine and I think my chest might explode, my heart is tap-dancing so quickly. He's going to kiss me. I've imagined this and now it's really happening, I am like a block of wood. I can't move. I can't breathe. I close my eyes as the lightest feather of a breath , then lips, brushing over my lips. His breath is sweet and the taste of coffee barely lingers in his mouth. I feel as though my whole body has turned to liquid, into a river of millions of droplets, rushing apart and then back together. "You have the softest lips," he whispers as he pulls back to look at me. "So do you," I murmur. Oh, was that a stupid thing to say? I turn my face into his jacket and breathe in his scent.

What we hadn’t known about, back then, was pain. Sure, we’d faced some things as children that a lot of kids don’t. Sure, Justin had qualified for his Junior de Sade Badge in his teaching methods for dealing with pain. We still hadn’t learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you’re just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something. Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There’s the little empty pain of leaving something behind—graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There’s the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There’s the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn’t give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn. There’s the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens. And if you’re very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realize that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last—and yet will remain with you for life. Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don’t feel it. Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you’re alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.

I will remember the perfect oval of your face, the warmth of your throat, the way you hold a pen when you write. Most of all . . .” He cupped my chin, his eyes roving over my upturned face. “I will remember a strange, beautiful girl who liked the feel of old books and drank her coffee sweet. She snuck onto my porch on a gray day and taught me to see in color. She was a thief, my rainbow-haloed girl. When she left, she took my heart. And if I had another, I would give her that too

He looked round once more at the piled boxes, glass dishes, fondants, ribbons, rosettes, cracknels, violet creams, mocha blanc, dark rum truffle, chili squares, lemon parfait, and coffee cake on the countertop with an expression of slightly blank amazement.

I talk to people, but a sort of emptiness seems to come over them, as though the face really is a mask, with the real person somewhere behind it, normally pressed up against the inside like a child with their nose against a sweet-shop window, but - when I am talking to them, trying to make some difficult or unacceptable point - lifting that internal self away from the mask and turning somewhere inside themselves, performing the mental equivalent of taking their shoes off and putting their feet up, having a cup of coffee and resting for a while, returning later only when they're good and ready, to nod inappropriately and make some wholly irrelevant remark redolent of stale thoughts. Perhaps it's me, I think. Perhaps only I have this effect on people; maybe nobody else does.

I think how heavenly it must be to nibble on tiny cakes and swirled caramels and plum ginger puffs all day. Tea with lemon petit fours in the afternoon; after-dinner mint truffles with butterscotch coffee in the evening. My mind swims with the notion of it. The easy, sugar-induced lull that would follow me into candy-tinted dreams each night. Life here, in Valentine's Town, would surely be simple and uncomplicated.

Hello sister." Her face was like a cup of milk dashed with coffee in the sweet warm emptiness. [...] She looked like a librarian. Something among dusty shelves of ordered certitudes long divorced from reality, desiccating peacefully, as if a breath of that air which sees injustice done.

Hi...ah..." What did she call him? Honey? Babe? Darling? "...Humraaz." The Urdu term of endearment came out before she could stop it. Liam's gaze shifted to her, and his face softened. Before he could ask her what it meant and ruin the performance, she rose up on her toes, pressed her hands against his chest, and kissed him. Without hesitation, Liam wrapped one arm around her waist, pressed his mouth against hers, and bent her over backward in a full-on movie kiss. Her breath hitched and her lips softened. His lips were firm and cool and tasted of coffee and something sweet. He slipped his tongue into her mouth and for a moment she thought her heart had stopped. But it didn't matter. Upside down, in front of her work colleagues, she was the woman she always wanted to be. Then she was up and back on her feet, lips tingling, an ache of desire between her thighs. "What does it mean?" he murmured gently. "The one with whom we share our secrets." "Then I am your humraaz," he said. "And you are mine.

Francie loved the smell of coffee and the way it was hot. As she ate her bread and meat, she kept one hand curved about the cup enjoying its warmth. From time to time, she’d smell the bitter sweetness of it. That was better than drinking it. At the end of the meal, it went downt the sink.

So, I’m not takin’ you to the hotel. We’re sittin’ out on the deck and havin’ coffee. Then I’ll make you breakfast. Then we’ll fuck in bed, then fuck again in the shower, then we’ll go to work. I’ll take you for your swim. We’ll fuck in the shower at the hotel. Then I’ll feed you and we’ll probably fuck in my bed again.” “That’s a lot of, um…” “Maybe I should rephrase, some of it’ll be fuckin’, some of it’ll be me makin’ you come.

I want us to wake up together, to drink coffee from the same cup, to go to sleep at the same time. I want to go out with you, to show you off and around. I want us to eat dinner, then watch some hockey match together and then your melodramas. I promise I will keep your most favorite CD in my car, and we'll listen to it whenever you'll want, even when I know it will drive me insane. I want you to look at me when I am shaving in the mornings and I promise wherever we go I will always look only at you. I want to finally understand why you smell so fresh and flowery, I want to hold your hand, not under the table, but over it. I want us to cook together, to laugh together, to cry together, I want you for worse and for better. I want us to get married some day, have kids,a lot of them, then grow up and even die in one day. I want it all with you. And I get it that I haven't been around for 4 years, but if you still want me, if you still love me like you did all those years ago, I will make up for our lost time.

What are you thinking? Sandwiches?” Finn asked in a hopeful voice. “No. I’m in the mood for something sweet.” I grabbed the butter out of the fridge, then rummaged through the cabinets. Flour, oats, dried apricots, golden raisins, brown sugar, vanilla. I pulled them out, along with some mixing cups, a baking pan, a spatula, and a bowl. Finn settled himself at the kitchen table and drank his coffee while I worked. By the time Jo-Jo walked back into the kitchen, I was sliding the batter into the oven. “Whatcha making?” the dwarf asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Apricot bars,

But what's important is that you enjoy and appreciate every day, and that's something you can accomplish by just living in the moment. Don't look behind you. Unless someone yells, "Look out behind you!" Then you should definitely look behind you because there's a good chance a Frisbee is being thrown at your head or, if you're in a movie, an attractive teenage vampire is about to attack you. Otherwise, don't look back and don't spend too much time worrying about the future. Stay in the present. There are a few ways to do that. Stop and smell the roses. Wake up and smell the coffee. Enjoy the sweet smell of success. I guess just keep taking big whiffs of stuff because it seems like the more we smell, the happier we are going to be. You know what I mean.

You meet that chick yet?” “Who?” “Emily. The coffee shop chick.” “Briefly.” “You should make that shit less brief. Woman’s fuckin’ hot as hell, the right kinda pain in the ass and so sweet she made my motherfuckin’ teeth hurt. Jenna’s it for me. But if she wasn’t, I’d be drinkin’ coffee for every meal and eaten the coffee chick’s pussy for dessert.

I'ts not just a cup of coffee !!! “Coffee is lot like people” Coffee is a language in itself. In many ways, It’s Complex, Just like Humans. It’s Dark, Just like our Soul. It’s Black, Just like Grief. It’s Addictive, Just like love. It’s Pure, Just like our heart. It’s Sweet, Just like our Memories. It’s Strong yet Grind, Just like our Determination. It’s Blended, Just like our Feelings. It’s Tantalizing, Just like our Emotions. It’s Rewarding, As it is easy to Confess anything over a Cup of Coffee.

It may also be that, quite apart from any specific references one food makes to another, it is the very allusiveness of cooked food that appeals to us, as indeed that same quality does in poetry or music or art. We gravitate towards complexity and metaphor, it seems, and putting fire to meat or fermenting fruit and grain, gives us both: more sheer sensory information and, specifically, sensory information that, like metaphor, points away from the here and now. This sensory metaphor - this stands for that - is one of the most important transformations of nature wrought by cooking. And so a piece of crisped pig skin becomes a densely allusive poem of flavors: coffee and chocolate, smoke and Scotch and overripe fruit and, too, the sweet-salty-woodsy taste of maple syrup on bacon I loved as a child. As with so many other things, we humans seem to like our food overdetermined.

She is the sun that shines on my path, chasing away any shadows. She is the laughter that fills up the gaping holes, without which I would be a basket case. She is the reason why I love my job. The best part of my day is drinking a coffee, eating a chocolate treat and listening to great music, while sitting with Genevieve Cain. She appreciates life, she grasps it and makes it what she wants. Sure, she's hit a few bumps recently, what with her loser ex, but Gen's a survivor. And not just any survivor, she's a survivor with dignity and pride.

This morning I was walking through Manhattan, head down, checking directions, when I looked up to see a fruit truck selling lychee, two pounds for five bucks, and I had ten bucks in my pocket! Then while buying my bus ticket for later that evening I witnessed the Transbridge teller’s face soften after she had endured a couple unusually rude interactions in front of me as I kept eye contact and thanked her. She called me honey first (delight), baby second (delight), and almost smiled before I turned away. On my way to the Flatiron building there was an aisle of kousa dogwood—looking parched, but still, the prickly knobs of fruit nestled beneath the leaves. A cup of coffee from a well-shaped cup. A fly, its wings hauling all the light in the room, landing on the porcelain handle as if to say, “Notice the precise flare of this handle, as though designed for the romance between the thumb and index finger that holding a cup can be.” Or the peanut butter salty enough. Or the light blue bike the man pushed through the lobby. Or the topknot of the barista. Or the sweet glance of the man in his stylish short pants (well-lotioned ankles gleaming beneath) walking two little dogs. Or the woman stepping in and out of her shoe, her foot curling up and stretching out and curling up.

He walked outside onto the terrace and sat. Obviously settled and comfortable, he poured coffee. There were ways and ways to gain trust, he thought. With a bird with a broken wing, it took patience, care, and a gentle touch. With a high-strung horse that had been whipped, it took diligence and the risk of being kicked. With a woman, it took a certain amount of charm. He was willing to combine all three.

Love looked like a man who had coffee ready for me in the mornings even though he preferred tea, and remembered exactly how I took it. Love ate my sugary spaghetti, and held an umbrella over my head when it rained, and apologized when he knew he was wrong. Love was inquisitive, and mindful, and—somewhere beneath the grumpy exterior—sweet. Love was tricking yourself into doing something you didn’t want to do, because you loved the person who did.

Domestic Where's the wisdom in erasing a loved one's mess, so akin to his signature? Your honor, I only meant to strew the immaculate in his wake. To wipe the path ahead and behind reasonably clean. Futile, yes, but weren't such gestures essential to love's discipline once upon a time? Daily, I harvested dropped fruit peels and socks. I chased him through life with dustpan and broom, smoothed his body dents from the bed, soothed the mud tramped floors. Did I sin in this? Better to leave the habitat sweetly reeking of him than to spend years scrubbing up evidence of his existence. Archaelogists centuries hence may marvel at such relics: his mustard stained napkins, toothpicks chewed to splinters. Never let it be said that in my zeal to clean I robbed the future's museums. Who am I to call what flies to either side of the trail he blazes--half read magazines, cups of scummed over coffee and mashed out cigarettes--dirt?

Frank was by far the best kisser I'd ever had the pleasure to make out with. Being able to wrap his tongue around so many languages couldn't have hurt his skill of wrapping his tongue around mine. It felt like he controlled my whole body when he kissed me, his hands on my face, his fingers reaching the back of my head as we tried to consume each other, like only one of us could come out alive at the end. And his mouth tasted more like the sweet aroma of coffee than the bitter flavor.

And there are those who prefer cappuccino, which in turn can be served in several varieties... . Some want it scuro, with less milk, some want it chiaro, with note milk, and some prefer it workout foam, senna schiuma, and there is generally a shaker of cocoa powder somewhere available for those eager for a bit of chocolate. Caffelatte, a hot drink we Americans mysteriously have dubbed a “latte” (which in Italian simply means “milk”), comes in only one variety and is a morning drink, as is a cappuccino.

And there, in small warm pools of lamplight, you could see what Leo Auffmann wanted you to see. There sat Saul and Marshall, playing chess at the coffee table. In the dining room Rebecca was laying out the silver. Naomi was cutting paper-doll dresses. Ruth was painting water colors. Joseph was running his electric train. Through the kitchen door, Lena Auffman was sliding a pot roast from the steaming oven. Every hand, every head, every mouth made a big or little motion. You could hear their faraway voices under glass. You could hear someone singing in a high sweet voice. You could smell bread baking, too, and you knew it was real bread that would soon be covered with real butter. Everything was there and it was working. . . . "Sure," he murmured. "There it is." And he watched with now-gentle sorrow and now-quick delight, and at last quiet acceptance as all the bits and pieces of this house mixed, stirred, settled, poised, and ran steadily again. "The Happiness Machine," he said. "The Happiness Machine.

You are a bright light, Elli.’ His own breath hitches, a sound that I cannot quite grasp. His eyes are darkening, his lips tightening. His hands grasp me tighter and he moves closer, his mouth inches from mine, I can almost taste the sweetness and saltiness of his scent, the rich coffee beans and sugar, the vague spearmint. I say nothing, I’m not even sure I’m breathing. ‘You shouldn’t have to see such pain, such blackness. You are too pure.’ His lips do not collide with mine, his skin does not brush against me, only his voice sends a shiver down every notch in my spine, trailing goose bumps over my skin. He tilts his head to the side, his lips gently brushing against my ear. And that is all. I’m not good enough for him. I’m not. That’s why… that’s why… ‘Too pure…

So what does matcha taste like, if you've never had it? It's commonly described as tasting "green," which is true, albeit begging the question. Good matcha is naturally very sweet, a plant sweetness quite unlike bad matcha sweetened with sugar, which is common in shelf-table convenience store drinks and at coffee places. When you're drinking matcha, even high quality stuff, you can rub your tongue against the roof of your mouth and feel that it was whipped up from a powder. If you like the scent of newly mown grass, you would probably enjoy matcha. It's not much like brewed green tea at all.

Hesitantly, Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom peered through the large windowpane. And there, in the small warm pools of lamplight, you could see what Leo Auffmann wanted you to see. There sat Saul and Marshall, playing chess at the coffee table. In the dining room Rebecca was laying out the silver. Naomi was cutting paper-doll dresses. Ruth was painting water colors. Joseph was running his electric train. Through the kitchen door, Lena Auffmann was sliding a pot roast from the steaming oven. Every hand, every head, every mouth made a big or little motion. You could hear their faraway voices under the glass. You could hear someone singing in a high sweet voice. You could smell bread baking too, and you knew it was real bread that would soon be covered in real butter. Everything was there and it was working. Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom turned to look at Leo Auffmann, who gazed serenely through the window, the pink light on his cheeks. "Sure," he murmured," There it is." And he watched with now-gentle sorrow and now-quick delight, and at last quiet acceptance as all the bits and pieces of this house mixed, stirred, settled, poised, and ran steadily again. "The Happiness Machine," he said. "The Happiness Machine.

Finn stood by the counter, having just finished making his thirteenth cup of coffee of the day. As always, the chicory fumes warmed me from the inside out and made me think of his father. I wished that the old man were here tonight. Fletcher would have known exactly what to do about the mess we were in—the mess I’d dragged us all into by declaring war on Mab in the first place. Finn stared at me with his green eyes. “Any chance of getting something sweet to go with my coffee?” he asked in a hopeful voice. I arched an eyebrow at him. “You mean all those pieces of strawberry pie that you ate for lunch weren’t enough?” “I’m a growing boy,” Finn said in a sincere tone. “I need my vitamins.” Bria snorted. “The only thing that’s growing on you, Lane, is your ego.” Finn sidled up to my sister and gave her a dazzling smile. “Well, other things of mine also tend to swell up in your presence, detective.” I rolled my eyes at Finn’s attempt at witty banter. Jo-Jo just chuckled, amused by his antics. Bria returned Finn’s smile with a syrupy sweet one of her own. “Oh, really? So it’s gone from what, pencil eraser to cocktail sausage by now?” Finn sputtered and almost spit out a mouthful of coffee. His face flushed, and he glared at Bria.

Is that coffee?” Hunt busied himself with pouring three cups, passing one to Quinlan first. “A drop of coffee in a cup of milk, just as you like it.” “Asshole.” She swiped the mug. “I don’t know how you drink it straight.” “Because I’m a grown-up.” Hunt passed the second mug to Ithan, whose large hands engulfed the white ceramic cup that said I Survived Class of 15032 Senior Week and All I Got Was This Stupid Mug! Ithan peered at it, his mouth twitching. “I remember this mug.” Hunt fell silent as Bryce let out a breathy laugh. “I’m surprised you do, given how drunk you were. Even though you were a sweet baby frosh.” Ithan chuckled, a hint of the handsome, cocky male Hunt had heard about. “You and Danika had me doing keg stands at ten in the morning. How was I supposed to stay sober?” The wolf sipped from his coffee. “My last memory from that day is of you and Danika passed out drunk on a couch you’d moved right into the middle of the quad.” “And why was that your last memory?” Bryce asked sweetly. “Because I was passed out next to you,” Ithan said, grinning now.

But once when she was chatting with some stupid boy online, she described herself as the color of coffee with not enough milk. There was a pause in the conversation, and the words glared back at her strangely, like the echo of a burp in an empty auditorium. She wondered if what she’d typed was burning holes in her chat partner too. Then he typed o thas hot yo and she’d quickly slammed her laptop shut. In the sudden darkness of her bedroom, the words had lingered as if imprinted in her forehead: not enough. The worst part about it, the part she couldn’t let go of, was that the thought came from her. Not from one of the teachers or guidance counselors whose eyes said it again and again over sticky-sweet smiles. Not from some cop on Marcy Avenue or Tía Rosa. It came from somewhere deep inside her. And that meant that for all the times she’d shrugged off one of those slurs, some little tentacle of them still crawled its way toward her heart. Not enough milk. Not light enough. Morena. Negra. No matter what she did, that little voice came creeping back, persistent and unsatisfied. Not enough.

It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have had a nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one—a modest, private affair, all to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little bill of fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hot when I arrive—as follows: Radishes. Baked apples, with cream Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs. American coffee, with real cream. American butter. Fried chicken, Southern style. Porter-house steak. Saratoga potatoes. Broiled chicken, American style. Hot biscuits, Southern style. Hot wheat-bread, Southern style. Hot buckwheat cakes. American toast. Clear maple syrup. Virginia bacon, broiled. Blue points, on the half shell. Cherry-stone clams. San Francisco mussels, steamed. Oyster soup. Clam Soup. Philadelphia Terapin soup. Oysters roasted in shell-Northern style. Soft-shell crabs. Connecticut shad. Baltimore perch. Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas. Lake trout, from Tahoe. Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans. Black bass from the Mississippi. American roast beef. Roast turkey, Thanksgiving style. Cranberry sauce. Celery. Roast wild turkey. Woodcock. Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore. Prairie liens, from Illinois. Missouri partridges, broiled. 'Possum. Coon. Boston bacon and beans. Bacon and greens, Southern style. Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips. Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus. Butter beans. Sweet potatoes. Lettuce. Succotash. String beans. Mashed potatoes. Catsup. Boiled potatoes, in their skins. New potatoes, minus the skins. Early rose potatoes, roasted in the ashes, Southern style, served hot. Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vinegar. Stewed tomatoes. Green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper. Green corn, on the ear. Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, Southern style. Hot hoe-cake, Southern style. Hot egg-bread, Southern style. Hot light-bread, Southern style. Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk. Apple dumplings, with real cream. Apple pie. Apple fritters. Apple puffs, Southern style. Peach cobbler, Southern style Peach pie. American mince pie. Pumpkin pie. Squash pie. All sorts of American pastry. Fresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries which are not to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way. Ice-water—not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere and capable refrigerator.

Do you believe in love at first sight?” He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?” Her breath caught in her throat like a sore hiccup. And then it was too much to keep trying not to kiss her. She came readily into his arms. Lincoln leaned against the coffee machine and pulled her onto him completely. There it was again, that impossible to describe kiss. This is how 2011 should have ended, he thought. This is infinity. The first time Beth pulled away, he pulled her back. The second time, he bit her lip. Then her neck. Then the collar of her shirt. “I don’t know…,” she said, sitting up in his lap, laying her check on the top of his head. “I don’t know what you meant by love before love at first sight.” Lincoln pushed his face into her shoulder and tried to think of a good way to answer. “Just that… I knew how I felt about you before I ever saw you,” he said, “when I still thought I might never see you…” She held his head in her hands and titled it back, so she could see his face. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. Which made him laugh. “Absolutely,” he said. “No, I mean it,” Beth said. “Men fall in love with their eyes.” He closed his. “That’s practically science,” she said. “Maybe,” Lincoln said. Her fingers felt so good in his hair. “But I couldn’t see you, so…” “So, what did you see?” “Just…the sort of girl who would write the sort of things that you wrote.” “What things?” Lincoln opened his eyes. Beth was studying his face. She looked skeptical-maybe about more than just the last thing he said. This was important, he realized. “Everything,” he said, sitting straighter, keeping hold of her waist. “Everything you wrote about your work, about your boyfriend…The way you comforted Jennifer and made her laugh, through the baby and after. I pictured a girl who could be kind, and that kind of funny. I pictured a girl who was that alive…” She looked guarded. Lincoln couldn’t tell from her eyes whether he was pushing her away or winning her over. “A girl who never got tired of her favourite movies,” he said softly. “Who saved dresses like ticket stubs. Who could get high on the weather.. “I pictured a girl who made every moment, everything she touched, and everyone around her feel lighter and sweeter. I pictured you,” he said. “I just didn’t know what you looked like. And then, when I did know what you looked like, you looked like the girl who was all those things. You looked like the girl I loved.” Beth’s fingers trembled in his hair, and her forehead dropped against his. A heavy, wet tear fell onto Lincoln’s lips, and he licked it. He pulled her close, as close as he could. Like he didn’t care for the moment whether she could breath. Like there were two of them and only one parachute. “Beth,” he barely said, pressing his face against hers until their lashes brushed, pressing his hand into the small of her back. “I don’t think I can explain it. I don’t think I can make any more sense. But I’ll keep trying. If you want me to.” She almost shook her head. “No,” she said, “no more explaining. Or apologizing. I don’t think it matters how we ended up here. I just…I want to stay…I want.. He kissed her then. There. In the middle of the sentence.

This is supposed to be one a one-night thing, Lukas,” I confessed, peering up to catch him raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize.” “Well, I didn’t tell you. I just planned on making it that way,” I said, hoping my bluntness would remind me of my mission here. Have sex. Be done. Move on. But Lukas was making that difficult for me. “Certainly a first for me,” he smiled, studying me in the way that got my neck hot as well. “But as much as it turns me on to think that you used me for sex, I’m not quite done with you here.” “Oh, no?” “Not even close.” “Well, too bad it’s not up to you.” Lukas grinned. “You’ll want me again.” “I won’t.” “You already do. I can see it,” he said as I shook my head. “In all seriousness, Lia, your poker face is shit. Remind me to never take you to Vegas.” I laughed but chucked the cap of my cream at his head. “For that, you have to chug your coffee in ten seconds and leave.” “Fuck that. I’m making your ass a French omelette.

Memories fill my mind, as though they are my own, of not just events from Gideon's life, but of various flavors and textures: breast milk running easily down into my stomach, chicken cooked with butter and parsley, split peas and runner beans and butter beans, and oranges and peaches, strawberries freshly picked from the plant; hot, strong coffees each morning; pasta and walnuts and bread and brie; then something sweet: a pan cotta, with rose and saffron, and a white wine: tannin, soil, stone fruits, white blossom; and---oh my god---ramen, soba, udon, topped with nori and sesame seeds; miso with tofu and spring onions, fugu and tuna sashimi dipped in soy sauce, onigiri with a soured plum stuffed in the middle; and then something I don't know, something unfamiliar but at the same time deeply familiar, something I didn't realize I craved: crispy ground lamb, thick, broken noodles, chili oil, fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk, tamarind... and then a bright green dessert---the sweet, floral flavor of pandan fills my mouth.

She blushed softly as she viewed herself in the mirror, suddenly aware that he was once more behind her eyes, seeing her just as she did. “You could at least warn me,” she said aloud, cocking a scolding brow at her reflection. And deprive myself of this side of you? I would not dream of it. Legna smiled, moving closer to her looking glass. She gasped when she got a closer look at herself, her hand coming up to her cheek in shock as she looked into her eyes. “My eyes!” she exclaimed. My eyes, he said. He couldn’t have spoken a clearer truth. It was his mercury-colored irises that had become part of her reflection, the multicolored gray and green gone from their familiar place. She sighed with resignation, supposing to herself that since it wasn’t likely she could do anything about it, she would have to get used to it. “I do not suppose you will show up here suddenly sprouting coffee-colored hair?” she asked hopefully. No, sweet, that is not likely. “Well, this is a highly unfair situation!” she cried with exaggerated petulance. “An exchange historically indicates one thing being swapped for another. So far I only see you in me, but none of me in you. It feels terribly high-handed. How typical of you.” He did not respond, only a soft impression of laughter flitting through her mind. Odd, but she realized then that she had hardly ever heard him laugh before. She was surprised by how comfortable it sounded on him. He had always been so serious, so . . . Self-possessed. “If you do not mind, do refrain from editing my personal thoughts,” she scolded, her arching tone taunting and haughty.

From east to west, in fact, her gaze swept slowly, without encountering a single obstacle, along a perfect curve. Beneath her, the blue-and-white terraces of the Arab town overlapped one another, splattered with the dark-red spots of the peppers drying in the sun. Not a soul could be seen, but from the inner courts, together with the aroma of roasting coffee, there rose laughing voices or incomprehensible stamping of feet. Father off, the palm grove, divided into uneven squares by clay walls, rustled its upper foliage in a wind that could not be felt up on the terace. Still farther off and all the way to the horizon extended the ocher-and-gray realm of stones, in which no life was visible. At some distance from the oasis, however, near the wadi that bordered the palm grove on the west could be seen broad black tents. All around them a flock of motionless dromedaries, tiny at the distance, formed against the gray ground the black signs of a strange handwriting, the meaning of which had to be deciphered. Above the desert, the silence was as vast as the space. Janine, leaning her whole body against the parapet, was speechless, unable to tear herself away from the void opening before her. Beside her, Marcel was getting restless. He was cold; he wanted to go back down. What was there to see here, after all? But she could not take her gaze from the horizon. Over yonder, still farther south, at that point where sky and earth met in a pure line - over yonder it suddenly seemed there was awaiting her something of which, though it had always been lacking, she had never been aware until now. In the advancing afternoon the light relaxed and softened; it was passing from the crystalline to the liquid. Simultaneously, in the heart of a woman brought there by pure chance a knot tightened by the years, habit, and boredom was slowly loosening. She was looking at the nomads' encampment. She had not even seen the men living in it' nothing was stirring among the black tents, and yet she could think only of them whose existence she had barely known until this day. Homeless, cut off from the world, they were a handful wandering over the vast territory she could see, which however was but a paltry part of an even greater expanse whose dizzying course stopped only thousands of miles farther south, where the first river finally waters the forest. Since the beginning of time, on the dry earth of this limitless land scraped to bone, a few men had been ceaselessly trudging, possessing nothing but serving no one, poverty-stricken but free lords of a strange kingdom. Janine did not know why this thought filled her with such a sweet, vast melancholy that it closed her eyes. She knew that this kingdom had been eternally promised her and yet that it would never be hers, never again, except in this fleeting moment perhaps when she opened her eyes again on the suddenly motionless sky and on its waves of steady light, while the voices rising from the Arab town suddenly fell silent. It seemed to her that the world's course had just stopped and that, from that moment on, no one would ever age any more or die. Everywhere, henceforth, life was suspended - except in her heart, where, at the same moment, someone was weeping with affliction and wonder.

We need a test!" I jump up out of the chair and pat my body down. "Where's my wallet?" "In your pocket," she replies dryly. "I'll be back!" I race out of the house and drive the short distance between Dom's estate and the nearest village. After I find a drug store and buy one of each kind of pregnancy test they have, I race back to my hopefully pregnant wife. "That was fast," she murmurs with a grin. She was still sitting in the lounge chair, sipping her coffee. "Should you be drinking coffee?" I ask. "Let's not get crazy," she responds. I need coffee. "I got one of each kind," I announce and opened the bag, sending small white and blue boxes scattering. "Uh, Caleb, we only need one." "What if we can't figure them out?" I ask and pick one up to examine it. "All of the instructions are in Italian." She laughs hysterically and then stands, wiping her eyes. "It's not funny." "Yes, it is. Pregnancy tests are pretty universal, Caleb. You pee on it and a line either appears or it doesn't." She rubs my arm sweetly and kisses my shoulder before plucking the box out of my fingers. "I'll be back." "I'm coming with you." I begin to follow her but she turns quickly with her hands out to stop me. "Oh no, you aren't. You are not going to watch me pee on this stick." I scowled down at her and cross my arms over my chest. "I've helped you bathe and dress and every other damn thing when you were hurt. I can handle watching you pee." "Absolutely not." She shakes her head but then leans in and kisses my chin. "But thank you for helping me when I was hurt." She turns and runs for the bathroom and it feels like an eternity before she comes back out, white stick in her hand. "Well?" I ask. "It takes about three minutes, babe." She sits in the lounge chair and stares out over the vineyard.

You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something.  Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind—graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.  And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realize that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last—and yet will remain with you for life.  Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something im-portant about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.  Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.

Sunday Morning I Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. II Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. III Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue. IV She says, "I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?" There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings

Hypothetically, then, you may be picking up in someone a certain very strange type of sadness that appears as a kind of disassociation from itself, maybe, Love-o.’ ‘I don’t know disassociation.’ ‘Well, love, but you know the idiom “not yourself” — “He’s not himself today,” for example,’ crooking and uncrooking fingers to form quotes on either side of what she says, which Mario adores. ‘There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them.’ ‘Engulf means obliterate.’ ‘I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all. This interpretation is “existential,” Mario, which means vague and slightly flaky. But I think it may hold true in certain cases. My own father told stories of his own father, whose potato farm had been in St. Pamphile and very much larger than my father’s. My grandfather had had a marvelous harvest one season, and he wanted to invest money. This was in the early 1920s, when there was a great deal of money to be made on upstart companies and new American products. He apparently narrowed the field to two choices — Delaware-brand Punch, or an obscure sweet fizzy coffee substitute that sold out of pharmacy soda fountains and was rumored to contain smidgeons of cocaine, which was the subject of much controversy in those days. My father’s father chose Delaware Punch, which apparently tasted like rancid cranberry juice, and the manufacturer of which folded. And then his next two potato harvests were decimated by blight, resulting in the forced sale of his farm. Coca-Cola is now Coca-Cola. My father said his father showed very little emotion or anger or sadness about this, though. That he somehow couldn’t. My father said his father was frozen, and could feel emotion only when he was drunk. He would apparently get drunk four times a year, weep about his life, throw my father through the living room window, and disappear for several days, roaming the countryside of L’Islet Province, drunk and enraged.’ She’s not been looking at Mario this whole time, though Mario’s been looking at her. She smiled. ‘My father, of course, could himself tell this story only when he was drunk. He never threw anyone through any windows. He simply sat in his chair, drinking ale and reading the newspaper, for hours, until he fell out of the chair. And then one day he fell out of the chair and didn’t get up again, and that was how your maternal grandfather passed away. I’d never have gotten to go to University had he not died when I was a girl. He believed education was a waste for girls. It was a function of his era; it wasn’t his fault. His inheritance to Charles and me paid for university.’ She’s been smiling pleasantly this whole time, emptying the butt from the ashtray into the wastebasket, wiping the bowl’s inside with a Kleenex, straightening straight piles of folders on her desk.

These pastries are gorgeous colors," she said. "I didn't even know I liked green, but I do. It reminds me of her. I keep thinking of her grandparents' house in India. My mother and aunt grew up in the city, but their grandparents grew coffee on a plantation a few hours away. Have you ever heard of Coorg? It's this region in the south of India where people grow tea and coffee, and they have the most beautiful forests, and we used to go there every year when I was little. My mother would take me out to show me the coffee blossoms and the tigers in the forests. It was always so green there, and the air always felt like rain. And now it's raining here and it's all just wet and cold and I'm scared that-" She broke off. "I don't know. Sorry. I'm probably not making much sense." Lila was quiet for a moment, and then she said, "What are you scared of?" Anna shook her head. She couldn't shape the words, and she wasn't sure she could say them to someone she had only just met anyway. To distract herself, she took a bite of one of the pan dulce Lila had given her. It almost melted in her mouth, moist and sweet and perfectly crumbly. "This is amazing," she said. Lila beamed. "I'm glad you like it." Another bite, another taste. Lila continued to swing gently, back and forth, in an oddly soothing rhythm. The taste of the pan dulce on Anna's tongue felt soft, comforting, like a friend holding her hand.

Gary Hallet is getting leg cramps sitting in the Honda, but he’s not going anywhere yet. His grandfather used to tell him that most folks had it all wrong: The truth of the matter was, you could lead a horse to water, and if the water was cool enough, if it was truly clear and sweet, you wouldn’t have to force him to drink. Tonight Gary feels a whole lot more like the horse than the rider. He has stumbled into love, and now he’s stuck there. He’s fairly used to not getting what he wants, and he’s dealt with it, yet he can’t help but wonder if that’s only because he didn’t want anything too badly. Well, he does now. He looks out at the parking lot. By afternoon he’ll be back where he belongs; his dogs will go crazy when they see him, his mail will be waiting outside his front door, the milk in his refrigerator will still be fresh enough to use in his coffee. The hitch is, he doesn’t want to go. He’d rather be here, crammed into this tiny Honda, his stomach growling with hunger, his desire so bad he doesn’t know if he could stand up straight. His eyes are burning hot, and he knows he can never stop himself when he’s going to cry. He’d better not even try. “Oh, don’t,” Sally says. She moves closer to him, pulled by gravity, pulled by forces she couldn’t begin to control. “I just do this,” Gary says in that sad, deep voice. He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. This time he’d prefer to do almost anything but cry. “Pay no attention.” But she does. She can’t help herself. She shifts toward him, meaning to wipe at his tears, but instead she loops her arms around his neck, and once she does that, he holds her closer. “Sally,” he says. It’s music, it’s a sound that is absurdly beautiful in his mouth, but she won’t pay attention. She knows from the time she spent on the back stairs of the aunts’ house that most things men say are lies. Don’t listen, she tells herself. None of it’s true and none of it matters, because he’s whispering that he’s been looking for her forever. She’s halfway onto his lap, facing him, and when he touches her, his hands are so hot on her skin she can’t believe it. She can’t listen to anything he tells her and she certainly can’t think, because if she did she might just think she’d better stop.

You were just in South Dakota a couple of weeks ago,” he pointed out. “Why didn’t you get it then?” “It wasn’t available then.” She brushed back a tiny strand of loose hair. “Don’t cross-examine me, okay? It’s been a long day.” He ran a hand around the back of his neck, under his braid of hair, and stared at her own hair in the tight bun at her nape as she replaced the errant strand. “I thought you took it down at night.” “At bedtime,” she corrected. His eyes narrowed. “Lucky Colby,” he said deliberately. She wasn’t going to give him any rope to hang her with. She just smiled. He glared at her. “He won’t change,” he said flatly. “I don’t care,” she said. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me, Tate, but my private life is my own business, not yours.” “That’s a hell of a way to talk to me.” “That works both ways,” she replied, eyes narrowing. “What gives you the right to ask questions about the men I date?” Her words made him mad. His lips compressed until they made a straight line. He looked like his father when he was angry. He finished his coffee in a tense silence and got to his feet. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go. I just wanted to see how you were.” “You just wanted to see if Colby was here,” she corrected and smiled mirthlessly when he blinked. “You know I don’t approve of Colby,” he told her. “Like I care?” she said. He took a step toward her. His black eyes glittered with conflicting emotions. She aroused him more lately than any woman he’d ever known. Just looking at her sent him over the edge. On some level she recognized the tension in him, the need that he was denying. He was upset about Matt Holden pulling him out of the security work, not because of the money, but rather because it seemed nothing more than spite. Actually Holden was saving them both from a political upheaval because he could have been accused of nepotism. But deeper than that was a frustration because he wanted a woman he couldn’t have. Cecily knew that at some level. He was trying to start a fight. She couldn’t let him. “Colby is a sweet man,” she said gently. “He’s good company and he doesn’t drink around me, ever.” “He’s an alcoholic,” he said quietly, trying to control the anger. “I told you before, he’s in therapy,” she said. “He’s trying, Tate.” “So you expect me not to worry about you? After what my own father put me and my mother through?

Neliss, why is this rug wet?” Legna peeked around the corner to glance at the rug in question, looking as if she had never seen it before. “We have a rug there?” “Did you or did you not promise me you were not going to practice extending how long you can hold your invisible bowls of water in the house? And what on earth is that noise?” “Okay, I confess to the water thing, which was an honest mistake, I swear it. But as for a noise, I have no idea what you are talking about.” “You cannot hear that? It has been driving me crazy for days now. It just repeats over and over again, a sort of clicking sound.” “Well, it took a millennium, but you have finally gone completely senile. Listen, this is a house built by Lycanthropes. It is more a cave than a house, to be honest. I have yet to decorate to my satisfaction. There is probably some gizmo of some kind lying around, and I will come across it eventually or it will quit working the longer it is exposed to our influence. Even though I do not hear anything, I will start looking for it. Is this satisfactory?” “I swear, Magdelegna, I am never letting you visit that Druid ever again.” “Oh, stop it. You do not intimidate me, as much as you would love to think you do. Now, I will come over there if you promise not to yell at me anymore. You have been quite moody lately.” “I would be a hell of a lot less moody if I could figure out what that damn noise is.” Legna came around the corner, moving into his embrace with her hands behind her back. He immediately tried to see what she had in them. “What is that?” “Remember when you asked me why I cut my hair?” “Ah yes, the surprise. Took you long enough to get to it.” “If you do not stop, I am not going to give it to you.” “Okay. I am stopping. What is it?” She held out the box tied with a ribbon to him and he accepted it with a lopsided smile. “I do not think I even remember the last time I received a gift,” he said, leaning to kiss her cheek warmly. He changed his mind, though, and opted to go for her mouth next. She smiled beneath the cling of their lips and pushed away. “Open it.” He reached for the ribbon and soon was pulling the top off the box. “What is this?” “Gideon, what does it look like?” He picked up the woven circlet with a finger and inspected it closely. It was an intricately and meticulously fashioned necklace, clearly made strand by strand from the coffee-colored locks of his mate’s hair. In the center of the choker was a silver oval with the smallest writing he had ever seen filling it from top to bottom. “What does it say?” “It is the medics’ code of ethics,” she said softly, taking it from him and slipping behind him to link the piece around his neck beneath his hair. “And it fits perfectly.” She came around to look at it, smiling. “I knew it would look handsome on you.” “I do not usually wear jewelry or ornamentation, but . . . it feels nice. How on earth did they make this?” “Well, it took forever, if you want to know why it took so long for me to make good on the surprise. But I wanted you to have something that was a little bit of me and a little bit of you.” “I already have something like that. It is you. And . . . and me, I guess,” he laughed. “We are a little bit of each other for the rest of our lives.” “See, that makes this a perfect symbol of our love,” she said smartly, reaching up on her toes to kiss him. “Well, thank you, sweet. It is a great present and an excellent surprise. Now, if you really want to surprise me, help me find out what that noise is.

And were you immediately taken with Charlotte, when you found her?" "Who wouldn't be?" Gentry parried with a bland smile. He drew a slow circle on Lottie's palm, stroking the insides of her fingers, brushed his thumb over the delicate veins of her wrist. The subtle exploration made her feel hot and breathless, her entire being focused on the fingertip that feathered along the tender flesh of her upper palm. Most disconcerting of all was the realization that Gentry didn't even know what he was doing. He fiddled lazily with her hand and talked with Sophia, while the chocolate service was brought to the parlor and set out on the table. "Isn't it charming?" Sophia asked, indicating the flowered porcelain service with a flourish. She picked up the tall, narrow pot and poured a dark, fragrant liquid into one of the small cups, filling the bottom third. "Most people use cocoa powder, but the best results are obtained by mixing the cream with chocolate liquor." Expertly she stirred a generous spoonful of sugar into the steaming liquid. "Not liquor as in wine or spirits, mind you. Chocolate liquor is pressed from the meat of the beans, after they have been roasted and hulled." "It smells quite lovely," Lottie commented, her breath catching as Gentry's fingertip investigated the plump softness at the base of her thumb. Sophia turned her attention to preparing the other cups. "Yes, and the flavor is divine. I much prefer chocolate to coffee in the morning." "Is it a st-stimulant, then?" Lottie asked, finally managing to jerk her hand away from Gentry. Deprived of his plaything, he gave her a questioning glance. "Yes, of a sort," Sophia replied, pouring a generous amount of cream into the sweetened chocolate liquor. She stirred the cups with a tiny silver spoon. "Although it is not quite as animating as coffee, chocolate is uplifting in its own way." She winked at Lottie. "Some even claim that chocolate rouses the amorous instincts." "How interesting," Lottie said, doing her best to ignore Gentry as she accepted her cup. Inhaling the rich fumes appreciatively, she took a tiny sip of the shiny, dark liquid. The robust sweetness slid along her tongue and tickled the back of her throat. Sophia laughed in delight at Lottie's expression. "You like it, I see. Good- now I have found an inducement to make you visit often." Lottie nodded as she continued to drink. By the time she reached the bottom of the cup, her head was swimming, and her nerves were tingling from the mixture of heat and sugar. Gentry set his cup aside after a swallow or two. "Too rich for my taste, Sophia, although I compliment your skill in preparing it. Besides, my amorous instincts need no encouragement." He smiled as the statement caused Lottie to choke on the last few drops of chocolate.

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.