The School Of Essential Ingredients Quotes

Each person's heart breaks in it's own way. Every cure will be different, but there are some things we all need. Before anything else, we need to feel safe.

Life is beautiful. Some people just remind you of that more than others.

I am starting to think that maybe memories are like this dessert. I eat it, and it becomes a part of me, whether I remember it later or not.

Sometimes, niña, our greatest gifts grow from what we are not given.

The name for the cocoa tree is theobroma, which means "food of the gods." I know that chocolate is meant for us, however, because the melting point for good chocolate just happens to be the temperature within your very human mouth.

We are all just ingredients, Tom What matters is the grace with which you cook the meal

If you live in your sense, slowly, with attention, if you use your eyes and your fingertips and your taste buds, then romance is something you’ll never need a greeting card to make you remember.

Being around her, he found even every day experiences were deeper, nuanced. Satisfaction and awareness slipped in between the layers of life like love notes hidden in the pages of a textbook.

When she realized that there are many kinds of love and not all of them are obvious. That some wait like presents in the back of the closet until you are able to open them.

I used to know a sculptor... He always said that if you looked hard enough, you could see where each person carried his soul in his body. It sounds crazy, but when you saw his sculptures, it made sense. I think the same is true with those we love... Our bodies carry our memories of them, in our muscles, in our skin, in our bones. My children are right here." She pointed to the inside curve of her elbow. "Where I held them when they were babies. Even if there comes a time when I don't know who they are anymore. I believe I will feel them here.

I've been wondering," Isabelle commented reflectively over dessert, "if it is foolish to make new memories when you know you are going to lose them.

It was like trying to teach subtlety to a thunderstorm.

Lillian sometimes wondered why psychologists focused so much on a couple’s life in their bedroom. You could learn everything about a couple just watching their kitchen choreography as they prepared dinner.

When a couple came to class together, it meant something else entirely - food as a solution, a diversion, or, occasionally, a playground.

I loved to walk in her garden after dinner; it felt alive, even in the winter. She always told me that rosemary grows in the garden of a strong woman. Hers were like trees.

If you live in your senses, slowly, with attention, if you use your eyes and your fingertips and your taste buds, then romance is something you’ll never need a greeting card to make you remember.

Every time we prepare food we interrupt a life cycle. We pull up a carrot or kill a crab- or maybe just stop the mold that's growing on a wedge of cheese. We make meals with those ingredients and in doing so we give life to something else. It's a basic equation and if we pretend it doesn't exist, we're likely to miss the other important lesson which is to give respect to both sides of the equation.

Most people of my grandparents' generation had an intuitive sense of agricultural basics ... This knowledge has vanished from our culture. We also have largely convinced ourselves it wasn't too important. Consider how many Americans might respond to a proposal that agriculture was to become a mandatory subject in all schools ... A fair number of parents would get hot under the collar to see their kids' attention being pulled away from the essentials of grammar, the all-important trigonometry, to make room for down-on-the-farm stuff. The baby boom psyche embraces a powerful presumption that education is a key to moving away from manual labor and dirt--two undeniable ingredients of farming. It's good enough for us that somebody, somewhere, knows food production well enough to serve the rest of us with all we need to eat, each day of our lives.

Maybe your mind won't remember what I cooked last week, but your body will.

Marriage is a leap of faith. You are each other’s safety net.

They walked back to the chopping block, Claire carrying the crab in her hands. Helen paused. "You know, I'd like to ask you something a friend asked me once, if you don't think it's too personal." "What is it?" "What do you do that makes you happy? Just you?" Claire looked at Helen for a moment and thought, the crab resting on the block beneath her hands. "I was just wondering," Helen continued. "No one ever asked me when I was your age, and I think it's a good thing to think about." Claire nodded. Then she took the cleaver and cut the crab into ten pieces.

While the egg yolks cooled, he directed the beaters at the egg whites, setting the mixer on high speed that sent small bubbles giggling to the side of the bowl, where a few became many until they were a white froth rising up and then lying down again in patters and ridges, leaving an intricate design like the ribs of a leaf in the wake of the beaters

When it was mixed together, the salsa was a celebration of red and white and green, cool and fresh and alive. On a tortilla, with a bit of crumbled white 'queso fresco,' it was both satisfying and invigorating, full of textures and adventures, like childhood held in your hand.

Isabelle had always thought of her mind as a garden, a magical place to play as a child, when the grown-ups were having conversations and she was expected to listen politely-- and even, although she hated to admit this, later with Edward, her husband, when listening to the particularities of his carpet salesmanship wore her thin. Every year the garden grew larger, the paths longer and more complicated. Meadows of memories. Of course, her mental garden hadn't always been well tended. There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not. She had always considered that one of the luxuries of growing older would be the chance to wander through the garden that had grown while she wasn't looking. She would sit on a bench and let her mind take every path, tend every moment she hadn't paid attention to, appreciate the juxtaposition of the one memory against another.

She became a frame for the picture that was her son and daughter.

Sometimes, niña, our greatest gifts grow from what we are not given.” Two

Perhaps, Lillian thought, smells were for her what printed words were for others, something alive that grew and changed.

If you stop to think about it, every meal you eat, you eat time—the weeks it takes to ripen a tomato, the years to grow a fig tree. And every meal you cook is time out of your day

We’re all just ingredients, Tom. What matters is the grace with which you cook the meal.

Her mother had always said if you are lost, just stand still until someone finds you.

There’s a difference between taking care of and caring for. That’s something I learned on my silly little walkabout, actually. Think about it.

Epicurus founded a school of philosophy which placed great emphasis on the importance of pleasure. "Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life," he asserted, confirming what many had long thought, but philosophers had rarely accepted. Vulgar opinion at once imagined that the pleasure Epicurus had in mind involved a lot of money, sex, drink and debauchery (associations that survive in our use of the word 'Epicurean'). But true Epicureanism was more subtle. Epicurus led a very simple life, because after rational analysis, he had come to some striking conclusions about what actually made life pleasurable - and fortunately for those lacking a large income, it seemed that the essential ingredients of pleasure, however elusive, were not very expensive. The first ingredient was friendship. 'Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship,' he wrote. So he bought a house near Athens where he lived in the company of congenial souls. The desire for riches should perhaps not always be understood as a simple hunger for a luxurious life, a more important motive might be the wish to be appreciated and treated nicely. We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us. Epicurus, discerning our underlying need, recognised that a handful of true friends could deliver the love and respect that even a fortune may not. Epicurus and his friends located a second secret of happiness: freedom. In order not to have to work for people they didn't like and answer to potentially humiliating whims, they removed themselves from employment in the commercial world of Athens ('We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics'), and began what could best have been described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors. The third ingredient of happiness was, in Epicurus's view, to lead an examined life. Epicurus was concerned that he and his friends learn to analyse their anxieties about money, illness, death and the supernatural. There are few better remedies for anxiety than thought. In writing a problem down or airing it in conversation we let its essential aspects emerge. And by knowing its character, we remove, if not the problem itself, then its secondary, aggravating characteristics: confusion, displacement, surprise. Wealth is of course unlikely ever to make anyone miserable. But the crux of Epicurus's argument is that if we have money without friends, freedom and an analysed life, we will never be truly happy. And if we have them, but are missing the fortune, we will never be unhappy.

I used to know a sculptor," Isabella said, nodding. "He always said that if you looked hard enough, you could see where each person carried his soul in his body. It sounds crazy, but when you saw his sculptures, it made sense. I think the same is true with those we love," she explained. "Our bodies carry our memories of them, in our muscles, in our skin, in our bones. My children are right here." She pointed to the inside curve of her elbow. "Where I held them when they were babies. Even if there comes a time when I don't know who they are anymore, I believe I will feel them here.

What did she do that made her happy? The question implied action, a conscious purpose. She did many things in a day, and many things made her happy, but that, Claire could tell, wasn’t the issue. Nor the only one, Claire realized. Because in order to consciously do something that made you happy, you’d have to know who you were. Trying to figure that out these days was like fishing on a lake on a moonless night—you had no idea what you would get.

You know, Ian,” Antonia commented, “my father always said a person needs a reason to leave and a reason to go. But I think sometimes the reason to go is so big, it fills you so much, that you don’t even think of why you are leaving, you just do.

Isabelle realized that parents most often know when their children are stalling to hold off the end of something they want to hold on to. When she realized that there are many kinds of love and not all of them are obvious, that some wait, like presents in the back of a closet, until you are able to open them.

Helen found ways to sneak summer into the dark months of the year, canning and freezing the fruit off their trees in July and August and using it extravagantly throughout the winter- apple chutney with the Thanksgiving turkey, raspberry sauce across the top of a December pound cake, blueberries in January pancakes.

Break the cinnamon in half.' The cinnamon stick was light, curled around itself like a brittle roll of papyrus. Not a stick at all, Lillian remembered as she look closer, but bark, the meeting place between inside and out. It crackled as she broke it, releasing a spiciness, part heat, part sweet, that pricked her eyes and nose, and made her tongue tingle without even tasting it.

She felt about her zester the way some women do about a pair of spiky red shoes—a frivolous splurge, good only for parties, but oh so lovely. The day Lillian had found the little utensil at a garage sale a year before, she had brought it to Abuelita, face shining. She didn’t even know what it was for back then, she just knew she loved its slim stainless-steel handle, the fanciful bit of metal at the working end with its five demure little holes, the edge scalloped around the openings like frills on a petticoat. There were so few occasions for a zester; using it felt like a holiday.

Lillian lifted the cake pans from the oven and rested them on metal racks on the counter. The layers rose level and smooth from the pans; the scent, tinged with vanilla, traveled across the room in soft, heavy waves, filling the space with whispers of other kitchens, other loves. The students food themselves leaning forward in their chairs to greet the smells and the memories that came with them. Breakfast cake baking on a snow day off from school, all the world on holiday. The sound of cookie sheets clanging against the metal oven racks. The bakery that was the reason to get up on cold, dark mornings; a croissant placed warm in a young woman's hand on her way to the job she never meant to have. Christmas, Valentine's, birthdays, flowing together, one cake after another, lit by eyes bright with love.

Add orange peel and cinnamon to milk. Grate the chocolate.' The hard, round cake of chocolate was wrapped in yellow plastic with red stripes, shiny and dark when she opened it. The chocolate made a rough sound as it brushed across the fine section of the grater, falling in soft clouds onto the counter, releasing a scent of dusty back rooms filled with bittersweet chocolate and old love letters, the bottom drawers of antique desks and the last leaves of autumn, almonds and cinnamon and sugar. Into the milk it went. 'Add anise.' Such a small amount of ground spice in the little bag Abuelita had given her. It lay there quietly, unremarkable, the color of wet beach sand. She undid the tie around the top of the bag and swirls of warm gold and licorice danced up to her nose, bringing with them miles of faraway deserts and a dark, starless sky, a longing she could feel in the back of her eyes, her fingertips.

Carl found himself observing the young couples who came to his office, fascinated that people would spend hundreds of dollars a year insuring against the chance that someone might slip on their front steps in ice that rarely made an appearance in the coastal Northwest, yet go to bed each night uninsured against the possibility that their marriage might be stolen the next day.

When it came to Lillian’s mother, her husband was more present in his absence,

It was interesting, Isabelle thought, the children that chose you. Some came through your body; others came in cars in the middle of the night. Sometimes it seemed as if the ones who had their own transportation were easier.

Isabelle knew that more than anything, she wanted for her daughter to have her own life—to draw her own lines.

She went to the not-quite-antique stores...and found an old bed quilt, blue and white, with stitches made by a hand she didn't know but trusted all the same, and laid it against the black metal bedstead.

her mental garden hadn’t always been well tended. There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not. She had always considered that one of the luxuries of growing older would be the chance to wander through the garden that had grown while she wasn’t looking. She would sit on a bench and let her mind take every path, tend every moment she hadn’t paid attention to, appreciate the juxtaposition of one memory against another. But now that she was older and had time, she found more often than not that she was lost—words, names, her children’s phone numbers arriving and departing from her mind like trains without a schedule.

Essential ingredients,” Antonia observed, “only the best.” “But you are beautiful,” Chloe insisted. Antonia laughed softly. “I used to say that to my mother all the time. She would be standing in the kitchen or digging in the garden, and I would think she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. I was not a pretty teenager. And do you know what she would say to me?” Chloe shook her head. “She would say, ‘Life is beautiful. Some people just remind you of that more than others.

Now, Chloe.” Lillian’s admonishment was diluted by a smile she couldn’t quite control. “We all know some bread just takes more time to rise.” Chloe laughed. “Yeah, well, I think

To make the TransMilenio work, Bogotá had to engineer a broader transformation, which included many of the ingredients of the Slow Fix we have seen so far. It started with a long-term goal: to create a city where everyone felt comfortable mingling in public spaces. Tackling poverty was identified as an essential part of making that happen. The city brought potable water and sewers to nearly all its citizens. Snazzy new schools, swimming pools, and libraries sprouted in the poorest neighborhoods. To crack down on crime, Bogotá modernized its police force with bigger budgets, better training, and more accountability. Through amnesties and mandatory searches, it collected and melted down thousands of firearms. All of these measures were underpinned by Colombia’s success in pushing the guerrilla forces deeper into the jungle and bringing economic stability.

It was intriguing how people came at their stories, Finnegan thought as he listened to Isabelle. He had learned to watch the gap between question and answer, having realized that the less obvious the connection the more interesting the material left unsaid. Diving into the gap yourself was rarely productive, but if allowed to talk uninterrupted, the storyteller would eventually build bridges across it, bridges made of memories that felt safe and familiar, anecdotes that had turned solid and durable with the retelling

the baby could cry for hours, refusing the bottles of pumped milk with the incredulous air of a gold club member told he had to fly coach.

The chocolate made a rough sound as it brushed across the fine section of the grater, falling in soft clouds onto the counter, releasing a scent of dusty back rooms filled with bittersweet chocolate and old love letters, the bottom drawers of antique desks and the last leaves of autumn, almonds and cinnamon and sugar.

There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not.

Now, when I'm deciding which ingredients to put together, I like to think about the central element in the dish. What flavors would it want? So I want you to think about crabs. Close your eyes. What comes to mind?" Claire obediently lowered her eyelids, feeling her lashes brush against her skin. She thought of the fine hairs on the sides of a crab's body, the way they moved in the water. She thought of the sharp edges of claws moving their way across the wavy sand bed of the sea, of water so pervasive it was air as well as liquid. "Salt," she said aloud, surprising herself. "Good, now keep going," Lillian prompted. "What might we do to contrast or bring out the flavor?" "Garlic," added Carl, "maybe some red pepper flakes." "And butter," said Chloe, "lots of butter.

Lillian put out ingredients- sticks of butter, mounds of chopped onion and minced ginger and garlic, a bottle of white wine, pepper, lemons. "We'll melt the butter first," she explained, "and then cook the onions until they become translucent." The class could hear the small snaps as the onions met the hot surface. "Make sure the butter doesn't brown, though," Lillian cautioned, "or it will taste burned." When the pieces of onion began to disappear into the butter, Lillian quickly added the minced ginger, a new smell, part kiss, part playful slap. Garlic came next, a soft, warm cushion under the ginger, followed by salt and pepper. "You can add some red pepper flakes, if you like," Lillian said, "and more or less garlic or ginger or other ingredients, depending on the mood you're in or the one you wanted to create. Now," she continued, "we'll coat the crab and roast it in the oven.

The class stood companionably around the wooden counter, trying to navigate forkfuls of cake into their mouths without losing a crumb to the floor. The frosting was a thick buttercream, rich as a satin dress laid against the firm, fragile texture of the cake. With each bite, the cake melted first, then the frosting, one after another, like lovers tumbling into bed.

Her grandmother's cooking area was small- a tiny sink, no dishwasher, a bit of a counter- but out of it came tortellini filled with meat and nutmeg and covered in butter and sage, soft pillows of gnocchi, roasted chickens that sent the smell of lemon and rosemary slipping through the back roads of the small town, bread that gave a visiting grandchild a reason to unto the kitchen on cold mornings and nestle next to the fireplace, a hunk of warm, newly baked breakfast in each hand.

In front of them on the counter lay a mound of glistening turkey breast, deep green spikes of rosemary, creamy-white garlic cloves, wrinkled dried cranberries, slices of pink and white pancetta, salt, pepper, olive oil.

They drained the red-tinged sherry from the cranberries, tasting as they went. Isabelle dropped the swollen berries like a long ruby necklace across the rosemary and garlic, Antonia adding a thin stream of milky-green olive oil, finally covering the mixture with slices of translucent pink and white pancetta.

Ian held the serving dish while Helen carefully placed on each white plate five squares of ravioli no thicker than paper, their edges crinkled, their surfaces kissed with melted butter, scattered with bits of shallots and hazelnuts, like rice thrown at a wedding. They each took their places at the table. "Happy Thanksgiving, everyone," Lillian said, raising her glass. They sat for a moment, simply looking. The smell from their plates rose with the last bits of steam, butter releasing whispers of shallots and hazelnuts. Antonia raised a bite to her mouth. A quick crunch of hazelnut, and then the pasta gave way easily to her teeth, the pumpkin melting across her tongue, warm and dense, with soft, spicy undercurrents of nutmeg.

Spaghetti del mare," she said, coming through the door, "from the sea." In the large, wide blue bowl, swirls of thin noodles wove their way between dark black shells and bits of red tomato. "Breathe first," Charlie told him, "eyes closed." The steam rose off the pasta like ocean turned into air. "Clams, mussels," Tom said, "garlic, of course, and tomatoes. Red pepper flakes. Butter, wine, oil." "One more," she coaxed. He leaned in- smelled hillsides in the sun, hot ground, stone walls. "Oregano," he said, opening his eyes. Charlie smiled and handed him a forkful of pasta. After the sweetness of the melon, the flavor was full of red bursts and spikes of hot pepper shooting across his tongue, underneath, like a steadying hand, a salty cushion of clam, the soft velvet of oregano, and pasta warm as beach sand.

The class stood around the large prep table, two cheerful red pots perched on stands at each end, heated by small flickering silver cans underneath. The smell of warming cheese and wine, mellowed with the heat, rose languorously toward their faces, and they all found themselves leaning forward, hypnotized by the smell and the soft bubbling below them. Lillian took a long, two-pronged fork and skewered a piece of baguette from the bowl nearby, dipping it in the simmering fondue and pulling it away, trailing a bridal veil of cheese, which she deftly wrapped around her fork in a swirling motion. She chewed her prize thoughtfully and took a sip of white wine. "Perfect," she declared. Helen prepared a bite and placed the fork inside her mouth,the sharpness of the Gruyère and Emmenthaler mingling with the slight bite of the dry white wine and melting together into something softer, gentler, meeting up with the steady hand of bread supporting the whole confection. Hiding, almost hidden, so she had to take a second bite to be sure, was the playful kiss of cherry kirsch and a whisper of nutmeg.

I thought for our last session we should celebrate spring," Lillian said, coming out of the kitchen with a large blue bowl in her hands. "The first green things coming up through soft earth. I've always thought the year begins in the spring rather than January, anyway. I like the idea of taking the first asparagus of the year, picked right that day, and putting it in a warm, creamy risotto. It celebrates both seasons and takes you from one to the next in just a few bites." They passed the bowl around the table, using the large silver spoon to serve generous helpings. The salad bowl came next, fresh Bibb lettuce and purple onions and orange slices, touched with oil and lemon and orange juice. Then a bread basket, heaped high with slices of fragrant, warm bread.

There was avocado, wrinkled and grumpy on the outside, green spring within, creamy as ice cream when smashed into guacamole. There were the smoky flavors of chipotle peppers and the sharp-sweet crunch of cilantro, which Lillian loved so much Abuelita would always give her a sprig to eat as she walked home.