Wake And Bake Quotes

I got tired, I told him. Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives who wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread. You never bake bread, he wrote, and we were still joking. Then it's like I woke up and baked bread, I said, and we were joking even then. I wondered will there come a time when we won't be joking? And what would it look like? And how would that feel? When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table. I spent my life learning to feel less. Every day I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

I need to get to that tea party and wake up the guests." Jeb looks at me. "And how are you supposed to do that? Give a magical kiss to the half-baked hatmaker?

He has untangled himself from vines blossoming with story-filled flowers. He has traversed piles of abandoned teacups with text baked into their crackled glaze. He has walked through puddles of ink and left footprints that formed stories in his wake that he did not turn around to read.

I got tired, I told him. Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives who wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread.

Wake & Bake. More like Wash & Bake. Half a bowl of cereal and a shot of bourbon later, I'm there, my friendly haze having finally arrived. I'm ready for work.

God, the three of you. When I wake up on Saturday mornings--late you always let me sleep in--I come looking for you, and you're in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails, and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree, and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they're round and golden, but the glow for you. And you built us a picnic table. And you learned to bake bread. And you've painted a mural on ever west-facing wall. And it isn't all bad, I promise. I swear to you. You might not be actively, thoughtfully happy 70 to 80 percent of the time, but maybe you wouldn't be anyway. And even when you're sad, Neal--even when you're falling asleep at the other side of the bed--I think you're happy, too. About some things. About a few things.

I sat up and the room was full of a man with a gun.

She was a woman with a broom or a dust- pan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You saw her cutting piecrust in the morning, humming to it, or you saw her setting out the baked pies at noon or taking them in, cool, at dusk. She rang porcelain cups like a Swiss bell ringer to their place. She glided through the halls as steadily as a vacuum machine, seeking, finding, and setting to rights. She made mirrors of every window, to catch the sun. She strolled but twice through any garden, trowel in hand, and the flowers raised their quivering fires upon the warm air in her wake. She slept quietly and turned no more than three times in a night, as relaxed as a White glove to which, at dawn, a brisk hand will return. Waking, she touched people like pictures, to set their frames straight.

I should have chosen the moment before the arrival of my children, for since then I've lost the option of dying. The sharp smell of their sun-baked hair, the smell of sweat on their backs when they wake from a nightmare, the dusty smell of their hands when they leave a classroom, meant that I had to live, to be dazzled by the shadow of their eyelashes, moved by a snowflake, bowled over by a tear on their cheek. My children have given me the exclusive power to blow on a wound to make the pain disappear, to understand words unpronounced, to possess the universal truth, to be a fairy. A fairy smitten with the way they smell.

It's difficult to know when love blooms; suddenly one day you wake up and it's in full flower. It works the same way when it wilts-one day it is just too late. Love has a great deal in common with balcony plants in that way. Sometimes not even baking soda makes a difference.

I miss you, Aoife.” She was quiet a second, and I knew she was, indeed, surprised. “I miss you too, Finn.” “I miss not waking up beside you. I miss your food—God,” I groaned, “I miss your bread. I want you in my kitchen all the time. Fuck the bakery, just bake for me.

Howard was almost as fond of this hall as he was of his own shop. The Brownies used it on Tuesdays, and the Women's Institute on Wednesdays. It had hosted jumble sales and Jubilee celebrations, wedding receptions and wakes, and it smelled of all of these things: of stale clothes and coffee urns, and the ghosts of home-baked cakes and meat salads; of dust and human bodies; but primarily of aged wood and stone.

BLINIS SERVED AT VASSILY EGOROV’S WAKE Season one cup flour with baking powder and kosher salt. Add milk, egg, and clarified butter, and blend into a smooth batter. Cook a tablespoon of the batter at a time over medium low heat until blini are golden on both sides. Serve topped with red caviar, salmon, crème fraîche, sour cream, and fresh dill.

Can I do anything for you? Bake you cookies? Walk your dogs? Throw snowballs? Just generally be a distraction?

Wake up the ley line?” Hennessy sneered. “I’m afraid we’re fresh out of your order. We can’t wake the ley line. Can we give you a substitution? Fries, a baked potato, side salad, eternity in hell?

Does it seem like things were better when you were younger?” Huck asked. “Did life really make more sense then?” “Yeah,” Tress whispered. “I remember…calm nights, watching the spores fall from the moon. Lukewarm cups of honey tea. The thrill of baking something new.” “I remember not being afraid,” Huck said. “I remember waking each day to familiar scents. I remember thinking I understood how my life would go. Same as my parents’. Simple. Maybe not wonderful, but also not terrifying.” “I don’t think things were really better though,” Tress said softly, still staring at the ceiling. “We just remember it that way because it’s comforting.” “And because we couldn’t see the troubles,” Huck agreed. “Maybe we didn’t want to see them. When you’re young, there’s always someone else to deal with the problems.” Tress nodded. Beyond that, memories have a way of changing on us. Souring or sweetening over time—like a brew we drink, then recreate later by taste, only getting the ingredients mostly right. You can’t taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become.

There are two kinds of thoughts. There is nothing wrong with thinking in the sense of what I call “technical thinking.” We have to think in order to walk from here to the corner or to bake a cake or to solve a physics problem. That use of the mind is fine. It isn’t real or unreal; it is just what it is. But opinions, judgments, memories, dreaming about the future—ninety percent of the thoughts spinning around in our heads have no essential reality. And we go from birth to death, unless we wake up, wasting most of our life with them.

Aunt Rachel removes the knaffea from the oven and places it on its sumptuous tray; the shredded phyllo dough is crisp and brown, crackling with hot, rose-scented syrup. Nestled within, like a naughty secret, is the melting layer of sweet cheese. The pastry is freshly hot, the only way to eat it, really, with its miraculous study in contrasts— the running cheese hidden within crisp, crackling layers of baked phyllo and the distinctive, brocaded complexities of flavors. It’s so hot that it steams in your mouth, and at first you eat it with just the tips of your teeth. Then the layers of crisp and sweet and soft intermingle, a series of surprises. It is so rich and dense that you can eat only a little bit, and then it is over and the knaffea is just a pleasant memory—like a lovely dream that you forget a few seconds after you wake. But for a few seconds, you knew you were eating knaffea.

Silver sparkles from inside caught in the air and rolled in the wind past her. She took a deep breath, and it made her stand up straighter. Sugar and vanilla and butter. That relentless scent had been following her around all her life. Sometimes she could see it, like this, but most of the time she felt it. When she was a kid, she could be sitting in class at school, or walking her dog Chester, or in the middle of a dreary violin lesson with her older brother, and the smell would suddenly appear out of nowhere and make her inexplicably restless. Even now, sometimes she would wake up at night and swear someone was baking a cake in the house.

Firmly planted. Not fallen from on high: sprung up from below. Ochre, the color of burnt honey. The color of a sun buried a thousand years ago and dug up only yesterday. Fresh green and orange stripes running across its still-warm body. Circles, Greek frets: scattered traces of a lost alphabet? The belly of a woman heavy with child, the neck of a bird. If you cover and uncover its mouth with the palm of your hand, it answers you with a deep murmur, the sound of bubbling water welling up from its depths; if you tap its sides with your knuckles, it gives a tinkling laugh of little silver coins falling on stones. It has many tongues: it speaks of the language of clay and minerals, of air currents flowing between canyon walls, of washerwomen as they scrub, of angry skies, of rain. A vessel of baked clay: do not put it in a glass case alongside rare precious objects. It would look quite out of place. Its beauty is related to the liquid that it contains and to the thirst that it quenches. Its beauty is corporal: I see it, I touch it, I smell it, I hear it. If it is empty, It must be filled; if it is full, it must be emptied. I take it by the shaped handle as I would take a woman by the arm, I lift it up, I tip over a pitcher into which I pour milk or pulque - lunar liquids that open and close the doors of dawn and dark, waking a sleeping.

[Johns is a different butcher’s. Next place you are up town pay him a visit. Or better still, come tobuy. You will enjoy cattlemen’s spring meat. Johns is now quite divorced from baking. Fattens, kills, flays, hangs, draws, quarters and pieces. Feel his lambs! Ex! Feel how sheap! Exex! His liver too is great value, a spatiality! Exexexl COMMUNICATED.]

I got up and took the cake out from under its cake-shaped cover. I had made it at three o'clock in the morning in a desperate attempt to comfort myself. And it was an enormous comfort, standing alone in the kitchen in my nightgown, sifting fresh ground nutmeg with allspice and cloves by the little light over the sink. I peeled the apples with ridiculous care, taking the skins off in long, even ribbons that spiraled down to the floor without breaking. I didn't think of any of them while I peeled those apples. I didn't work anything out in my mind. I just relaxed into the creaming of butter and sugar, the sweet expansion of every egg. I had hoped the mixer wouldn't wake anyone up.The last thing I had wanted was company. I cut off big, hulking slices and slid them onto dessert plates. The apples were soft and golden, the cake was a rust color.

Every morning at dawn the village trembles with the rumbling of the wagons. They come in from everywhere, loaded with saltpeter, with corn, with hay. The wheels creak and creak, rattling the windows and waking up the village. That's the hour when the ovens are opened and the air smells of new-baked bread.Suddenly it thunders, perhaps, and the rain falls. perhaps spring is coming. You'll learn there what 'perhaps' means, my son...

Another effect of the heavy rainfall of the night of 17–18 June that worked against Napoleon was the way that it softened the ground, to the extent that cannonballs tended to plough into the mud, rather than bounce along hardened ground. A cannonball fired at sun-baked ground might bounce as many as five or six times, leaving death and carnage in its wake, while one that merely buried itself after its initial impact had only a fraction of that lethal capacity.

Asked me what?” Just the sound of his voice twists my stomach into a knot of unpleasant emotions like guilt, sadness, and fear. And longing. I might as well admit there’s some of that, too. Only it has too much competition to ever win out. I watch as Peeta crosses to the table, the sunlight from the window picking up the glint of fresh snow in his blond hair. He looks strong and healthy, so different from the sick, starving boy I knew in the arena, and you can barely even notice his limp now. He sets a loaf of fresh-baked bread on the table and holds out his hand to Haymitch. “Asked you to wake me without giving me pneumonia,” says Haymitch, passing over his knife. He pulls off his filthy shirt, revealing an equally soiled undershirt, and rubs himself down with the dry part. Peeta smiles and douses Haymitch’s knife in white liquor from a bottle on the floor. He wipes the blade clean on his shirttail and slices the bread. Peeta keeps all of us in fresh baked goods. I hunt. He bakes. Haymitch drinks. We have our own ways to stay busy, to keep thoughts of our time as contestants in the Hunger Games at bay. It’s not until he’s handed Haymitch the heel that he even looks at me for the first time. “Would you like a piece?” “No, I ate at the Hob,” I say. “But thank you.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own, it’s so formal. Just as it’s been every time I’ve spoken to Peeta since the cameras finished filming our happy homecoming and we returned to our real lives. “You’re welcome,” he says back stiffly. Haymitch tosses his shirt somewhere into the mess. “Brrr. You two have got a lot of warming up to do before showtime.” He’s right, of course. The audience will be expecting the pair of lovebirds who won the Hunger Games. Not two people who can barely look each other in the eye. But all I

I should have chosen the moment before the arrival of my children, for since then I’ve lost the option of dying. The sharp smell of their sun-baked hair, the smell of sweat on their backs when they wake from a nightmare, the dusty smell of their hands when they leave a classroom, meant that I have to live, to be dazzled by the shadow of their eyelashes, moved by a snowflake, bowled over by a tear on their cheek. My children have given me the exclusive power to blow on a wound to make the pain disappear, to understand words unpronounced, to possess the universal truth, to be a fairy. A fairy smitten with the way they smell.

So be the father and husband who makes wild love to your wife at night, wakes early in the morning to bake your family chocolate chip cookies for the evening family dinner, then rips your boys out of bed to go lift heavy kettlebells in the garage and drag sandbags up and down the driveway—followed by dirty, sweaty bear hugs afterward. But don't be the father and husband who stays absent and distracted with "noble" email and social media work all day, then gathers the family round Netflix in the basement in the evening so they can eat takeout while you have an excuse to dink on your phone some more as they're distracted by their own giant screen.

Suenos. Dulces Suenos. He must be painting upstairs. I can feel it. I remember when his father was just a baby and I called her Mama for the first time and she became Mama for all of us; Mama de la casa and his father would wake up in the middle of the night and scream in his crib and nothing would make him stop, nada, and Mama would get so exhausted she would turn her back to me and cry in her pillow. I would smooth her hair-it was black, Basilio, as black as an olive-and I would turn on the radio (electricity, Basilio, in the middle of the night), to maybe calm the baby and listen to something besides the screaming. Mama liked the radio, Basilio, and we listened while your father cried-cantante negra, cantante de almas azules-and it made us feel a little better, helped us make it through. I had to get up early to catch the streetcar to the shipyard, but when the crying finally stopped sometimes the sun would be ready to pop and Mama's breathing would slow down and her shoulders would move like gentle waves, sleeping but still listening, like I can hear her now on this good bed, and Basilio-Mira, hombre, I will not tell you this again-if I moved very close and kissed her shoulders, she would turn to face me and we would have to be quiet Basilio, under the music, very, very quiet.... So this I want to know, Basilio. This, if you want to live on Macon Street for another minute. Can you paint an apple baked soft in the oven, an apple filled with cinnamon and raisins? Can you paint such a woman? Are you good enough yet with those brushes so that she will step out of your pictures to turn on the radio in the middle of the night? Will she visit an old man on his death bed? If you cannot do that, Basilio, there is no need for you to live here anymore.

The page begins with the person’s picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim’s cheek. My father’s laugh. Peeta’s father with the cookies. The color of Finnick’s eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie’s newborn son. We learn to keep busy again. Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives. Fortunately, the geese can take pretty good care of themselves. We’re not alone. A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home. With the mines closed, they plow the ashes into the earth and plant food. Machines from the Capitol break ground for a new factory where we will make medicines. Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again. Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.

Justineau tries to stand. It’s not easy, because her guts are churning, her lungs are full of acid and the floor under her feet heaves like the deck of a ship. Her face feels like a mask of white-hot iron, fitted way too tight over her skull. Things are moving around her, quickly, with no accompanying narrative apart from panting breath and a single muffled shriek. She’s been blind since Caldwell sprayed her, and although the initial rush of tears washed most of the pepper spray out of her eyes, they’re still swollen half shut. She sees blurred shapes, crashing against each other like flotsam in the wake of a flood. She blinks furiously, trying to dredge up some more moisture from her now dry-baked tear ducts. Two of the shapes resolve. One is Selkirk, on her side on the floor of the lab, her legs jackknifing in furious staccato. The other is a hungry which is kneeling astride her, stuffing her spilled intestines into its mouth in pink, sagging coils. More hungries surge in from all sides, hiding Selkirk from view. She’s a honey-pot for putrescent bees. The last Justineau sees of her is her inconsolable face. Melanie!

After midnight, I’ve set the cookies on the cooling rack and put on my cat pajamas, and I’m climbing into bed to read when there’s a knock at my window. I think it’s Chris, and I go to the window to check and see if I’ve locked it, but it’s not--it’s Peter! I push the window up. “Oh my God, Peter! What are you doing here?” I whisper, my heart pounding. “My dad’s home!” Peter climbs in. He’s wearing a navy beanie on his head and a thermal with a puffy vest. Taking off the hat, he grins and says, “Shh. You’re gonna wake him up.” I run to my door and lock it. “Peter! You can’t be in here!” I am equal parts panicky and excited. I don’t know if a boy has ever been in my room before, not since Josh, and that was ages ago. He’s already taking off his shoes. “Just let me stay for a few minutes.” I cross my arms because I’m not wearing a bra and say, “If it’s only a few minutes, why are you taking off your shoes?” He dodges this question. Plopping down on my bed, he says, “Hey, why aren’t you wearing your Amish bikini? It’s so hot.” I move to slap him upside the head, and he grabs my waist and hugs me to him. He buries his head in my stomach like a little boy. His voice muffled, he says, “I’m sorry all this is happening because of me.” I touch the top of his head; his hair feels soft and silky against my fingers. “It’s okay, Peter. I know it’s not your fault.” I glance at my moonbeam alarm clock. “You can stay for fifteen minutes, but then you have to go.” Peter nods and releases me. I sink down on the bed next to him and put my head on his shoulder. I hope the minutes go slow. “How was the party?” “Boring without you.” “Liar.” He laughs an easy kind of laugh. “What did you bake tonight?” “How do you know I baked?” Peter breathes me in. “You smell like sugar and butter.” “Chai sugar cookies with eggnog icing.” “Can I take some with me?” I nod, and we lean our backs against the wall. He slides his arm around me, safe and secure. “Twelve minutes left,” I say into his shoulder, and I feel rather than see him smile. “Then let’s make it good.” We start to kiss, and I’ve definitely never kissed a boy in my bed before. This is brand-new. I doubt I’ll ever be able to think of my bed the same way again. Between kisses he says, “How much time do I have left?” I glance over at my clock. “Seven minutes.” Maybe I should tack on an extra five… “Can we lie down, then?” he suggests. I shove him in the shoulder. “Peter!” “I just want to hold you for a little bit! If I was going to try to do more, I’d need more than seven minutes, trust me.

13 The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it [the idol he is making] out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass [your craftsmen exercise great care and skill in manufacturing your idols], and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house [your craftsmen put great care into making your idols; implication: if you were as careful worshipping God as you are in making idols . . .]. 14 He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth [cultivates and grows] for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash [tree], and the rain doth nourish it. 15 Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it [you use most of the tree’s wood for normal daily needs; how can you possibly turn around and worship wood from the same tree in the form of idols!]; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. 16 He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire [normal uses]: 17 And the residue thereof [with the rest of the tree] he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver [save] me; for thou art my god [Isaiah is saying how utterly ridiculous it is to assign part of a tree to have powers over yourselves]. 18 They [idol worshipers; see 45:20] have not known [German: know nothing] nor understood [German: understand nothing]: for he hath shut their eyes [German: they are blind], that they cannot see [are spiritually blind]; and their hearts, that they cannot understand [they are as blind and unfeeling, insensitive, as the idols they make and worship]. 19 And none considereth in his heart [if idol worshipers would just stop and think], neither is there knowledge nor understanding [they don’t have enough common sense] to say, I have burned part of it [the tree spoken of in verse 44] in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination [is it reasonable to make the leftover portion into an abominable idol]? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree [is it rational to worship a chunk of wood]? 20 He [the idol worshiper] feedeth on ashes [German: takes pleasure in ashes, perhaps referring to ashes left over from some forms of idol worship]: a [German: his own] deceived heart hath turned him aside [German: leads him astray], that he cannot deliver [save] his soul, nor say [wake up and think], Is there not a lie in my right hand [covenant hand—am I not making covenants with false gods]? 21 ¶ Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee [the exact opposite of idol worshipers who form their gods]; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.

the elderly residents were given excessive doses of opiates so that they would not wake up while the batchers worked. In one Iowa county, the school district banned bake sales after several children unwittingly brought to school meth-tainted chocolate chip cookies and Rice Krispies treats that sickened classmates. Like dioxin, meth residue possesses a unique ability to bind to food, countertops, microwave walls, sink basins, and human lung tissue for days after being synthesized. Making the drug is a dangerous undertaking.

It was immensely attractive, in the way that a sparkling creek glimpsed through trees draws the eye, or the smell of fresh-baked bread wakes hunger.

I wish to see an embracing of differences. A way to bridge ourselves to others without loss of identity. There should be a school of thought. that see's the furthest horizon without fear of a burning sun. Let us have a new design for our sun away from that old one. The sun that can blind and bake and burn friendships. And make it a light that can bring each other out of the dark. I wish to see the star's shine overhead. Shine the light of better dreams into the sleeping many. And when they wake let them remember those dreams. Those dreams of a realm of men lived in unity among all men. Those dreams of giving without want and helping without cost. - From " No Bullshit

The nuns were not the only ones to take an interest in French-Canadian cooking that fall. It was a November evening, a little before the first snow. With both her parents out, Madeleine opened the can of maple syrup she had stolen from the Damours grocery store. The maple syrup pie recipe was quite straightforward. Just five ingredients. But Madeleine prepared it with all the care and attention to detail that the Japanese take in making sushi. She worked in religious silence, without making a mess, without spilling flour. The sweet aroma of maple syrup soon floated over the kitchen, then the living room, as the syrup boiled with the heavy cream. A smell delectable enough to wake the dead, to make them wish they were still alive. Madeleine washed the utensils as she went, leaving no trace behind. Once the pie was in the oven, its aroma gained in strength and substance.

The coast of Austria-Hungary yielded what people called cappuzzo, a leafy cabbage. It was a two-thousand-year-old grandparent of modern broccoli and cauliflower, that was neither charismatic nor particularly delicious. But something about it called to Fairchild. The people of Austria-Hungary ate it with enthusiasm, and not because it was good, but because it was there. While the villagers called it cappuzzo, the rest of the world would call it kale. And among its greatest attributes would be how simple it is to grow, sprouting in just its second season of life, and with such dense and bulky leaves that in the biggest challenge of farming it seemed to be how to make it stop growing. "The ease with which it is grown and its apparent favor among the common people this plant is worthy a trial in the Southern States," Fairchild jotted. It was prophetic, perhaps, considering his suggestion became reality. Kale's first stint of popularity came around the turn of the century, thanks to its horticultural hack: it drew salt into its body, preventing the mineralization of soil. Its next break came from its ornamental elegance---bunches of white, purple, or pink leaves that would enliven a drab garden. And then for decades, kale kept a low profile, its biggest consumers restaurants and caterers who used the cheap, bushy leaves to decorate their salad bars. Kale's final stroke of luck came sometime in the 1990s when chemists discovered it had more iron than beef, and more calcium, iron, and vitamin K than almost anything else that sprouts from soil. That was enough for it to enter the big leagues of nutrition, which invited public relations campaigns, celebrity endorsements, and morning-show cooking segments. American chefs experimented with the leaves in stews and soups, and when baked, as a substitute for potato chips. Eventually, medical researchers began to use it to counter words like "obesity," "diabetes," and "cancer." One imagines kale, a lifetime spent unnoticed, waking up one day to find itself captain of the football team.

O.K., Maggie. You will note, we have no clocks, hourglasses, or even calendars. Time is measured in years, seasons, or even phases of the moon. But, we have no way of keeping track of what month or day it is, except our own memories. Now, as to when we'll get somewhere, there's just no telling. Because, we don't even know where we're going, so we don't know when we'll get there. I can tell you this. If we're careful, and fortunate, and the Good Lord is willing, we will make it to someplace to camp for the night, and hopefully have something to eat before we try to get some sleep. And if we're careful, and fortunate, and the Good Lord is willing, we'll wake up in the morning and start again. Everything in this country will either stick you, sting you, bite you, kick you, claw you, pluck your eyes out or try to kill you. And if that doesn't get you the weather will try to drown you, bake you, freeze you, or bury you. So, if we're careful, and fortunate, and the Good Lord is willing, we'll make it somewhere, but for right now, I just don't know where.

We aren't born monsters, are we? Ar birth, don't we all have potential baked into us, the possibility to be good people or bad or just some nebulous area in between? But life and circumstances do their work on the biases that are already written into our genes, Our bad behavior is rewarded; our weaknesses go un- punisheds we aspire to ideals that can never be achieved and then grow bitter when we can't reach those goals. We look out at the world, we measure ourselves within it, and become more and more entrenched in one position. We turn into monsters without even realizing it. That's how you wake up, twenty-eight years into life, and find yourself looking down at a gun in your hands. And you wonder where the Rewind button might be, the button that might take you back to the very beginning so that you can try it all over again and see if you land somewhere new.

yama—moral discipline comprising nonharming (ahimsā), nonstealing (asteya), truthfulness (satya), chastity (brahmacarya), and nongrasping or greedlessness (aparigraha) 2. niyama—self-restraint comprising purity (shauca), contentment (samtosha), asceticism (tapas), self-study (svādhyāya), and devotion to the Lord (īshvara-pranidhāna) 3. āsana—posture (specifically for meditation) 4. prānāyāma—breath control 5. pratyāhāra—sensory inhibition 6. dhāranā—concentration 7. dhyāna—meditation, or sustained and deepening concentration 8. samādhi—ecstasy, or merging in consciousness with the object of meditation Together the eight limbs lead practitioners out of the maze of their own preconceptions and confusions to a sublime state of freedom. This is accomplished through the progressive control of the mind (citta). Beyond the highest ecstatic state lies the freedom of the transcendental Self, which is the pure Witness (sākshin) of all mental processes. For Patanjali, Self-realization is kaivalya, or the “isolation” or “aloneness” of that transcendental Witness. The many free Selves (purusha) all intersect in infinity and eternity. Enlightenment, or liberation, consists in simply waking up to our true nature, which is the transcendental Spirit, or Self. HATHA-YOGA The word hatha means “force” or “forceful.” Thus Hatha-Yoga is the “forceful Yoga” or “Yoga of Force,” meaning the Yoga of the inner kundalinī power. This branch of Yoga, which is particularly associated with Matsyendra Nātha and Goraksha Nātha, two perfected masters or siddhas, is a medieval development arising out of Tantra. It approaches Self-realization through the vehicle of the physical body and its energetic (pranic/etheric) template. In the first instance, Hatha-Yoga seeks to strengthen or “bake” the body so that practitioners have a chance to cultivate higher realizations. Secondly, it means to transubstantiate the body into a “divine body” (divyadeha) or “adamantine body” (vajra-deha), which is endowed with all kinds of paranormal capacities. Thus, the disciplines of Hatha-Yoga are designed to help manifest the ultimate Reality in the finite human body-mind. Sri Aurobindo put it this way: The chief processes of Hathayoga are āsana and prānāyāma. By its numerous Asanas or fixed postures it first cures the body of that restlessness which is a sign of its inability to contain without working them off in action and movement the vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to it an extraordinary health, force and suppleness and seeks to liberate it from the habits by which it is subjected to ordinary physical Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. . . . By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hathayogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the nervous system unclogged for those exercises of respiration which are his most important instruments.1

Lottie's cake is last. This one is layered three deep, impressive for a moist, snacking-style cake, which normally couldn't be stacked. The bottom layers are bound together by a thick cream cheese icing, while the top is coated with a thick streusel crumble held in place by a circle of decorative piping. "It's a layered blueberry buckle," Lottie says, looking at Betsy hopefully. "Now that is another unconventional choice from you," Betsy says, eyeing the streusel topping, an odd choice for a layer cake. A buckle is a humble sort of cake--- old-fashioned in its simplicity--- that she hasn't seen around in years. Nowadays most prefer a thick layer of icing, buttercream they can decorate, or the scraped edge of a naked cake. Something meant to impress on a table or in a photograph rather than just be eaten at a family dinner or on a picnic. Secretly it's kind of a relief to see such a normal person's cake given its due. "The decoration is lacking," Betsy tells her flatly, though the completely bare sides show an even sprinkling of blueberries, which is impressive. It can be difficult to keep berries from falling to the bottom of a cake, but these are evenly distributed throughout. The knife glides into the cake, which has a springy sort of give to it. She cleaves a slice away, leaving a small avalanche of streusel crumbs in its wake. The cake inside is plump and golden, studded with juicy blueberries. Betsy can tell before she even takes a bite that it has been cooked to perfection. The flavors hit her tongue and bring on a wave of nostalgia so strong that she has to steady herself against the table. It is heavenly, the sweet and sour of the blueberries wrapped in the soft vanilla-y cake. She is instantly transported back in time, back to her childhood. It is unquestionably the best cake of the bunch, simple and satisfying, the kind that if you were to bake it at home would leave you wanting more, taking secret trips to the kitchen to cut another slice.

Another of my pet peeves is that the female characters used to be all sort of cutesy, like having flour on their nose after they baked cookies and not knowing it. And now they're all a mess, like waking up really hungover and getting fired. I want to create characters who aren't flawless but also aren't ridiculous or incompetent at life.

Do you ever read a feature praising a woman whose life is to care for her disabled child or parent with Alzheimer’s? No, you don’t. When someone talks about ‘achievement’ they’re talking about salary and status, not the fact that you actually managed to take a shower and change your clothes after being in the hospital with your child for two nights straight even though, believe me, that’s an achievement. You read about hedge fund managers who get up at three in the morning so they can get their workout done, use the gym, clear their emails and make a healthy breakfast for the whole family before putting in a full day of work in the city and returning home in time to read bedtime stories and then do another few hours of work before having perfect sex, three hours undisturbed REM sleep and waking up and starting again. You read about women who were at home with children and suddenly realized that if they started charging for all the cupcakes they made for their children’s friends and school events, they could turn their baking skills into a profitable business.

Of course, I wasn't completely right in my own head. first off there was the Dream. Sheepishly, I dub it 'the Dream': 'The Dream of Golden Light' sounds like something cheesy from the annals of Chinese Folklore or the ramblings of some wake-and-bake New Age guru. Granted, 'The Dream' sounds a little pretentious, but what other options do I have? And you can't say, given the circumstances, that it doesn't warrant capitalization. Just count yourself lucky that I don't call it THE DREAM, in hysterical all caps.

Sometimes the wake-and-bake feels like snuggling a lover while the sun creeps further across the floor with each passing hour. Sometimes those midday bong rips are like sharing mimosas and appetizers with a friend at a cute restaurant in a big city like in the movies. And sometimes at night when she sits on the porch with a joint between her fingers and one behind her ear — as Erica so often did — it feels like being cradled in a rocking chair and then carried to bed by a mother that loves her.

Why is it always about the mother?” She looked to Ellery. “The school notices come to me, not him. It’s the mothers who are expected to contribute to the bake sales and make the posters for the book fair and volunteer at the Halloween parade. If the homework is late, if the child isn’t practicing her piano enough, the teachers go to the mother, not the father. Fathers can jet off to work for weeks at a time. They can be twenty-five or sixty-five and no one bats an eye.

They wore sandy- and light-green-colored camouflage fatigues, carried AK-47s, and wore army boots with red socks topped with white stripes tucked into their trouser legs. Veiled turbans covered their faces, but Issaka could still see the area around their eyes. Though clearly baked by the sun, most of these men had the toffee skin tone of Arabs. They were hell-bent on leaving a wake of destruction as they fled the French army. The trucks stopped and the men in the backs of the trucks held their guns in the air, bouncing the trucks on their tires as they chanted in Arabic, “There is no god but God! We stand up for Islam!” A tall militant in a deep-green turban and camouflage fatigues got out of the driver’s side of the truck closest to the house. He didn’t carry a gun. He pointed a finger at Issaka’s father. “You have some evil things we’ve been looking for, old man.

Peppermint-Patty Cupcakes (makes approximately 12 cupcakes) I love peppermint. It always wakes me right up! And when it’s mixed with chocolate … yum! INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup milk 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/3 cup cocoa powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips 1/4 cup yogurt 3/4 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon peppermint extract 1/3 cup canola oil INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and vinegar, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt into a large bowl, and mix together. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate chips until smooth, then remove and cool to room temperature. If you prefer, you can instead melt the chocolate chips in a small bowl in the microwave, heating it on high for a few seconds at a time, then stirring until smooth. (Repeat heating if necessary, but don’t overdo it!) Once the milk has curdled, add in the yogurt, sugar, vanilla extract, peppermint extract, and oil, and stir together. Then add the melted chocolate and stir some more. With a whisk or handheld mixer, add the dry ingredients to the wet ones a little bit at a time and mix until no lumps remain, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl a few times. Fill cupcake liners two-thirds of the way and bake for 18–22 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack, and let cool completely before frosting. With your (clean!) thumb, poke large holes into the center of each cupcake. Alternately, take a small knife and carve out a cone from the center of each cupcake to create a well. (You can discard the cones, or eat them.) Fill a pastry bag with the peppermint frosting. (You can also make your own pastry bag by cutting off a corner from a plastic Ziploc bag.) Insert the tip of the pastry bag into each cupcake, and squeeze it to fill the cavity you created. Then swirl the frosting on top of the cupcake to cover the opening. Peppermint Frosting INGREDIENTS: 1 cup margarine or butter 3-1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar 1-1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract 1–2 tablespoons milk INSTRUCTIONS: In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, cream the margarine or butter until it’s a lighter color, about 2–3 minutes. Slowly beat in the confectioners’ sugar in 1/2-cup batches, adding a little bit of milk whenever the frosting becomes too thick. Add the peppermint extract and continue mixing on high speed for about 3–7 minutes, until the frosting is light and fluffy.

Waking up Thursday morning to another dreary day and the sense of being physically stuffed, they focused on FISH. While Charlotte interviewed the postmaster about the origin, techniques, and ingredients for his best-in-Maine lobster bakes, Nicole set off to gather recipes for glazed salmon, baked pesto haddock, and cod crusted with marjoram, a minted savory unique to Quinnipeague, and sage.

The 3:00 A.M. test requires you to imagine a spouse, a roommate, or a parishioner waking you from a deep slumber with this simple question: “What’s the sermon about today, Preacher?” If you cannot give a crisp answer, the sermon is probably half-baked. Thoughts you cannot gather at 3:00 A.M. are not likely to be caught by others at 11:00 A.M.

Dew dampened the grass and shimmered on the apples. From a distance, the blueberry bushes glistened as if encased in frost, and the trees looked as if they had been cloaked in ice. Walking through the orchards was comforting to Sam, nearly as comforting as baking. There was a precision in both endeavors, which brought a sense of order to the world, and yet each was filled with new surprises and revelations every day. The trees lined up like hunchback sentinels, seeming to protect the women as they walked the land. The paths between the trees were grassy but worn, showing where tourists and U-Pickers had trod in straight lines before veering left or right. Every so often, the earth had been upended by moles, muddy earthquakes left in the wake of their own underground walks. "Grandpa hated moles, didn't he?" Sam asked out of the blue. "With a passion," Willo said, touched that Sam remembered an innocuous fact about her grandfather from long ago. It was even cooler as the three went deeper into the heart of the orchards, mist dancing in between the rows of trees and the lake glistening beyond like a mirage. It was magical, mysterious, a lost world. I always feel like I've been transported to the world depicted in Lord of the Rings, Sam thought.

MUR LAFFERTY is an award-winning author and Hall of Fame podcaster. She’s the author of the Nebula- and Hugo-nominated Best Novel finalist Six Wakes, along with the Shambling Guides series, and host of the popular Ditch Diggers and I Should Be Writing podcasts. She also co-edits the Hugo-nominated podcast magazine Escape Pod. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, daughter, and two dogs, where she runs, plays computer and board games, and bakes bread.

I should have chosen the moment before the arrival of my children, for since then I’ve lost the option of dying. The sharp smell of their sun-baked hair, the smell of sweat on their backs when they wake from a nightmare, the dusty smell of their hands when they leave a classroom, meant that I had to live, to be dazzled by the shadow of their eyelashes, moved by a snowflake, bowled over by a tear on their cheek.