What's On The Menu Quotes

8:58 We go to McDonald's. The woman in front of me in line spends more than five seconds contemplating her order. This infuriates me, "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?? MC-SEABASS?? IT'S THE GODDAMN MCDONALDS'S MENU, IT'S BEEN THE SAME FOR TEN YEARS! IT'S ALL MCSHIT!JUST ORDER!

Let me tell you, you either have chemistry or you don't, and you better have it, or it's like kissing some relative. But chemistry, listen to me, you got to be careful. Chemistry is like those perfume ads, the ones that look so interesting and mysterious but you dont even know at first what they're even selling. Or those menues without the prices. Mystery and intrigue are gonna cost you. Great looking might mean something ve-ry expensive, and I don't mean money. What I'm saying is, chemistry is a place to start, not an end point.

I have read so many books. And yet, like most Autodidacts, I am never quite sure of what I have gained from them. There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is to know in one single gaze, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of no where, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading. And then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates and no matter how often I reread the same lines they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading and I see myself as some mad old fool who thinks her stomach is full because she's been reading the menu.

We have a name," said Jace. "Magnes B-" "Shut up." Alec hissed, thwacking Jace with his closed menu. Jace looked injured. "Jesus," he rubbed his arm. "What's your problem?

Enjoy your Evening." "That will depend on the menu. If it's beef, it will be a tolerable meal. If it's chicken..." Elliot shuddered. "What is the point of chicken?" "Eggs?

So just tell me what you like on the menu, and we'll negotiate." All that is required is that you taste what is ordered. You do not have to eat it." No, no more of this tasting shit. I've gained weight. I never gain weight." You have gained four pounds, so I am told. Though I have searched diligently for this phantom four pounds and cannot find them. It brings your weight up to a grand total of one hundred and ten pounds, correct?" That's right." Oh, ma petite, you are growing gargantuan." I looked at him, and it was not a friendly look.

What are you going to have?” he asked. “A nervous breakdown,” she muttered and opened her menu. So we’ll tell the waitress to make that a double, he thought.

If one could order a crime as one does a dinner, what would you choose? . . . Let’s review the menu. Robbery? Frogery? No, I think not. Rather too vegetarian. It must be murder—red-blooded murder—with trimmings, of course.

The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and staging, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that the diner must be satisfied with the menu.

I let her ask the questions. Predictably, the main questions she had were 'What?' and 'Am I going to be on the menu?' Oh, and 'What?

And chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don't know what they want to eat.

You're like a box of chocolates with the menu missing - the card that tells you what they are. I never know what I'm going to get with you: a soft, creamy centre, something chewy, or an explosion of alcohol.

Clay, did you ever love me?" I'm studying a billboard and say that I didn't hear what she said. "I asked if you ever loved me?" On the terrace the sun bursts into my eyes and for one blinding moment I see myself clearly. I remember the first time we made love, in the house in Palm Springs, her body tan and wet, lying against cool, white sheets. "Don't do this, Blair," I tell her. "Just tell me." I don't say anything. "Is it such a hard question to answer?" I look at her straight on. "Yes or no?" "Why?" "Damnit, Clay," she sighs. "Yeah, sure, I guess." "Don't lie to me." "What in the fuck do you want to hear?" "Just tell me," she says, her voice rising. "No," I almost shout. "I never did." I almost start to laugh. She draws in a breath and says, "Thank you. That's all I wanted to know." She sips her wine. "Did you ever love me?" I ask her back, though by now I can't even care. She pauses. "I thought about it and yeah, I did once. I mean I really did. Everything was all right for a while. You were kind." She looks down and then goes on. "But it was like you weren't there. Oh shit, this isn't going to make any sense." She stops. I look at her, waiting for her to go on, looking up at the billboard. Disappear Here. "I don't know if any other person I've been with has been really there, either ... but at least they tried." I finger the menu; put the cigarette out. "You never did. Other people made an effort and you just ... It was just beyond you." She takes another sip of her wine. "You were never there. I felt sorry for you for a little while, but then I found it hard to. You're a beautiful boy, Clay, but that's about it." I watch the cars pass by on Sunset. "It's hard to feel sorry for someone who doesn't care." "Yeah?" I ask. "What do you care about? What makes you happy?" "Nothing. Nothing makes me happy. I like nothing," I tell her. "Did you ever care about me, Clay?" I don't say anything, look back at the menu. "Did you ever care about me?" she asks again. "I don't want to care. If I care about things, it'll just be worse, it'll just be another thing to worry about. It's less painful if I don't care." "I cared about you for a little while." I don't say anything. She takes off her sunglasses and finally says, "I'll see you later, Clay." She gets up. "Where are you going?" I suddenly don't want to leave Blair here. I almost want to take her back with me. "Have to meet someone for lunch." "But what about us?" "What about us?" She stands there for a moment, waiting. I keep staring at the billboard until it begins to blur and when my vision becomes clearer I watch as Blair's car glides out of the parking lot and becomes lost in the haze of traffic on Sunset. The waiter comes over and asks, "Is everything okay, sir?" I look up and put my sunglasses on and try to smile. "Yeah.

Connor pockets his cell. “Lily,” he says. “If I wanted to date for a last name, I’d have a girl on my arm every single day. I would never be single.” He leans forward. “I promise you, that my intentions are pure. And I think it’s sweet you’re looking out for Rose, but she’s more than capable of taking care of herself, which is one of the many reasons why I want to pursue her.” “What’s another reason?” I test him. He smiles. “I won’t have to taxingly explain to her menu items in a real French restaurant.” He knows she’s fluent? “I won’t have to explain financial statements or dividends. I’ll be able to discuss anything and everything in the world, and she’ll have an answer.

Michael lifted a menu from a stack on the counter and opened it. 'What's meatloaf?' I get the meat part, but a loaf of it?

Do you have trans on the menu? Is it possible to get a cup instead of a bowl? What's the smallest amount of trans you have available? I'll take that.

What I ate for breakfast on school mornings was one buttered roll--a soft roll, not a hard roll--and one cup of cocoa; any attempt to alter this menu I regarded as a plot to poison me.

Mrs. Forbes said that hating yellow and brown is just being silly. And Siobhan said that she shouldn't say things like that and everyone has favorite colors. And Siobhan was right. But Mrs. Forbes was a bit right, too. Because it is sort of being silly. But in life you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do. So it is good to have a reason why you hate some things and you like others. It is like being in a restaurant like when Father takes me out to a Berni Inn sometimes and you look at the menu and you have to choose what you are going to have. But you don't know if you are going to like something because you haven't tasted it yet, so you have favorite foods and you choose these, and you have foods you dno't like and you don't choose these, and then it is simple.

I’ve shared more breakfasts with you than any woman I’ve dated in the last year and a half,” Mitch returned. “I know what you look like in the morning. I know what you act like when you come home tired after work. I know that you pick the least expensive thing on the menu either to be nice or to be annoying in order to put me off. But I think it’s to be nice because you are nice and also both times you thought you’d be spending time with just me, you dressed in a way that would not, in any way, put me off. I know you cuddle when you’re sleeping. I know you take only milk in your coffee and you make coffee strong. I know you’re really good with kids. And I know that you use music and scents to regulate your mood. So I’m thinking this is not a first date. This is more like us hittin’ the six month mark. And the six month mark is when you stop talkin’ about shit that really doesn’t matter and start talkin’ about shit that means everything.

Sorry, Wolf, but you don’t get to choose off the Karma menu, you just get what’s coming to you.

Violence is not in good taste, but sometimes punch is what's on the menu.

Everything is going as planned until I notice that Ashley has barely touched her wine glass or food after ordering the priciest bottle and several of the most expensive dishes on the menu. From "My Worst Valentine's Day.Ever: a Short Story

She remembered her first-ever boyfriend of over thirty years ago, who told her he preferred smaller breasts than hers, while his hands were on her breasts, as if she’d find this interesting, as if women’s body parts were dishes on a menu and men were the goddamned diners. This is what she said to that first boyfriend: “Sorry.” This was her first boyfriend’s benevolent reply: “That’s okay.

Try to be surprised by something every day. It could be something you see, hear, or read about. Stop to look at the unusual car parked at the curb, taste the new item on the cafeteria menu, actually listen to your colleague at the office. How is this different from other similar cars, dishes or conversations? What is its essence? Don't assume that you already know what these things are all about, or that even if you knew them, they wouldn't matter anyway. Experience this once thing for what it is, not what you think it is. Be open to what the world is telling you. Life is nothing more than a stream of experiences - the more widely and deeply you swim in it, the richer your life will be.

Here's a profundity, the best I can do: sometimes you just know… You just know when two people belong together. I had never really experienced that odd happenstance before, but this time, with her, I did. Before, I was always trying to make my relationships work by means of willpower and forced affability. This time I didn't have to strive for anything. A quality of ease spread over us. Whatever I was, well, that was apparently what she wanted… To this day I don't know exactly what she loves about me and that's because I don't have to know. She just does. It was the entire menu of myself. She ordered all of it.

I've never seen Salisbury steak on a restaurant menu. It's only in frozen dinners. Is there something we should know about that? What IS Salisbury steak anyway? And where do they hunt or harvest the salisburies?

Standing at the window, reading the menu of Obediah's services, the Minotaur wishes he could believe in what she has to offer: a promise woven into deep lines of his palm, some turn of fate told by a card. But faith is a nebulous thing and charlatans a dime a dozen; it's always been that way. The Minotaur both envies and pities the devout.

Now I'm not saying the act of going to church fixes everything. Just as simply looking at a restaurant menu won't give you nourishment. We've got to engage with what's offered if it's going to do us any good. But putting my heart in a place to receive truth certainly got me going in a different direction.

He’s a filler,” Cammie says with more conviction than a suicide bomber. “What does that mean?” I am studying the menu, contemplating an almond croissant. “You know—stuff something into your heart quickly to stop it from cracking open…from bleeding out...

Absolutely not. What do you think? That I’m made of money? You can order off the two-for-twenty menu, and if you’re a good girl and eat all your dinner, maybe I’ll splurge and get you a molten chocolate cake for dessert.

Modern cultish groups also feel comforting in part because they help alleviate the anxious mayhem of living in a world that presents almost too many possibilities for who to be (or at least the illusion of such). I once had a therapist tell me that flexibility without structure isn’t flexibility at all; it’s just chaos. That’s how a lot of people’s lives have been feeling. For most of America’s history, there were comparatively few directions a person’s career, hobbies, place of residence, romantic relationships, diet, aesthetic—everything—could easily go in. But the twenty-first century presents folks (those of some privilege, that is) with a Cheesecake Factory–size menu of decisions to make. The sheer quantity can be paralyzing, especially in an era of radical self-creation, when there’s such pressure to craft a strong “personal brand” at the very same time that morale and basic survival feel more precarious for young people than they have in a long time. As our generational lore goes, millennials’ parents told them they could grow up to be whatever they wanted, but then that cereal aisle of endless “what ifs” and “could bes” turned out to be so crushing, all they wanted was a guru to tell them which to pick.

Yet we could not feed on the carbon dioxide that results from the reaction. And so Simon is quite right in pointing out to me, as he did, that actually the energy content of our food does matter; so my mocking at the menu cards that indicate it was out of place.

You use your Bible like you were ordering from a restaurant menu. I call that Bible a la carte. You choose what parts of the Bible you wish to obey and what others to ignore.

Women’s Magazine, “A study found that the act of physically closing your menu once you’ve decided what to order can make you feel more satisfied with your choice.

I had been handed what might be called a full menu of all the troubles in my life while still too young to read it. But all I had to do was spread my napkin and face the table.

When things change, even radically, you look at your buddies, shake your head, shrug, and adapt. That's what you do, as soldiers. Civilians get upset when the menu changes at Applebees.

What is desire? Desire is a restaurant. Desire is watching you eat. Desire is pouring wine for you. Desire is looking at the menu and wondering what it would be like to kiss you. Desire is the surprise of your skin. Look - in between us now are the props of ordinary life - glasses, knives, cloths, Time has been here before. History has had you - and me too. My hand has brushed against yours for centuries. The props change, but not this. Not this single naked wanting you.

We wanted to see the baby!” Hope cries. “Yeah. The whole point is for you to bring Jamie so we can coo over her. I’m almost done with the booties.” Carin pulls out a mess of yarn that looks nothing like a shoe or even a sock. “What is that thing?” I lay down the menu to get a better view of the object she’s holding up. It’s kind of like the wool equivalent of Logan’s horrifying teddy bear. “It’s a sock. Is it too big or too small?” She stretches it out and I vaguely see something shiplike in the mess. “It’s…are you sure that’s a sock?” Hope giggles behind her menu. Carin scowls at me. “Have you ever tried knitting? It’s hard as fuck, thank you very much.

Hunter-gatherers no more live on the knife-edge of survival than wolves or lions or sparrows or rabbits. Man was as well adapted to life on this planet as any other species, and the idea that he lived on the knife-edge of survival is simply biological nonsense. As an omnivore, his dietary range is immense. Thousands of species will go hungry before he does. His intelligence and dexterity enable him to live comfortably in conditions that would utterly defeat any other primate. “Far from scrabbling endlessly and desperately for food, hunter-gatherers are among the best-fed people on earth, and they manage this with only two or three hours a day of what you would call work—which makes them among the most leisured people on earth as well. In his book on stone age economics, Marshall Sahlins described them as ‘the original affluent society.’ And incidentally, predation of man is practically nonexistent. He’s simply not the first choice on any predator’s menu. So you see that your wonderfully horrific vision of your ancestors’ life is just another bit of Mother Culture’s nonsense. If you like, you can confirm all this for yourself in an afternoon at the library.

The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder ― its DNA ― xerox it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a lef- turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines. In olden times, you’d wander down to Mom’s Café for a bite to eat and a cup of joe, and you would feel right at home. It worked just fine if you never left your hometown. But if you went to the next town over, everyone would look up and stare at you when you came in the door, and the Blue Plate Special would be something you didn’t recognize. If you did enough traveling, you’d never feel at home anywhere. But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald’s and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald’s is Home, condensed into a three-ringed binder and xeroxed. “No surprises” is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin. The people of America, who live in the world’s most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto.

Often on the menu, oysters will be listed as “oysters on the half shell.” As opposed to what? “In a Kleenex?” Even the way you are supposed to eat an oyster indicates something counterintuitive. “Squeeze some lemon on it, a dab of hot sauce, throw the oyster down the back of your throat, take a shot of vodka, and try to forget you just ate snot from a rock.” That is not how you eat something. That is how you overdose on sleeping pills.

Now I must listen again to Claude’s set piece on menu terms, as if he’s the first ever to spot these unimportant absurdities. He lingers on “pan-fried.” What is pan but a deceitful benediction on the vulgar and unhealthy fried?

Many cooks and food writers have nothing but negative things to say about people who have dietary restrictions or preferences. Quite often it's suggested that you just make what you want to make, and everyone can find something to eat, most likely. But if feeding people around your table is about connecting with them more than it is about showing off your menu or skills, isn't it important to cook in such a way that their preferences or restrictions are honored?

Alex took a high stool and ordered a whiskey. “Little early in the day for celebration,” the barkeep said as he poured. “What’s the occasion?” “It turns out,” Alex said, exaggerating his Mariner Valley drawl just a little for the effect, “that sometimes I’m an asshole.” “Hard truth.” “It is.” “You expect drinking alone to improve that?” “Nope. Just observing the traditions of alienated masculine pain.” “Fair enough,” the barkeep said. “Want some food with it?” “I’d look at a menu.

So, what do you go for in a girl?” He crows, lifting a lager to his lips Gestures where his mate sits Downs his glass “He prefers tits I prefer ass. What do you go for in a girl?” I don’t feel comfortable The air left the room a long time ago All eyes are on me Well, if you must know I want a girl who reads Yeah. Reads. I’m not trying to call you a chauvinist Cos I know you’re not alone in this but… I want a girl who reads Who needs the written word & uses the added vocabulary She gleans from novels and poetry To hold lively conversation In a range of social situations I want a girl who reads Who’s heart bleeds at the words of Graham Greene Or even Heat magazine Who’ll tie back her hair while reading Jane Eyre And goes cover to cover with each water stones three for two offer but I want a girl who doesn’t stop there I want a girl who reads Who feeds her addiction for fiction With unusual poems and plays That she hunts out in crooked bookshops for days and days and days She’ll sit addicted at breakfast, soaking up the back of the cornflakes box And the information she gets from what she reads makes her a total fox Cos she’s interesting & unique & her theories make me go weak at the knees I want a girl who reads A girl who’s eyes will analyze The menu over dinner Who’ll use what she learns to kick my ass in arguments so she always ends the winner But she’ll still be sweet and she’ll still be flirty Cos she loves the classics and the classics are dirty So late at night she’d always have me in a stupor As she paraphrases the raunchier moments from the works of Jilly Cooper See, some guys prefer asses Some prefer tits And I’m not saying that I don’t like those bits But what’s more important What supersedes Is a girl with passion, wit and dreams So I’d like a girl who reads.

I stalked toward him, grinning. “Say something awesome, quick,” Frank said. “Preferably about me.” I dropped my pistols into my inventory, accessed the streamer menu and started recording. Then I slipped Frank out of his loop, activated Repel, and held him out in front of me. “This is what you’re after, right?” “What are you doing?” Frank said. “I’m introducing you,” I said. “Tyrann, meet Frank, aka the Axe of Unbridled Knowledge.” I cocked back and slapped Tyrann across the face with Frank as hard as I could. “Yes!” Frank said. The attack didn’t do any damage, but it launched Tyrann backward toward the boat and sent him skimming over the waves like a stone across a pond. “Yes yes yes!” Frank said at the top of his nonexistent lungs, and it felt like he was shadowboxing at my side. “You just got Franked, fool!” Tyrann bounced off a cresting wave and belly-flopped into the ocean.

What do you recommend, James?" asked Jozef, perusing the scanty menu with a metropolitan air. "So many choices!" Dorota giggled. "Ah, it's recommending the fish I am," James answered gravely. "So good, you aren't needing even a drop of lemon to aid it." Both girls tittered. Truth to be told, none of them had seen so much as a lemon peel in the last two months.

Order what you feel like eating," says your impatient dinner companion. But the problem is that you don't KNOW what you feel like eating. What you feel like eating is precisely what you are trying to figure out. Order what you feel like eating" is just a piece of advice about the criteria you should be using to guide your deliberations. It is not a solution to your menu problem - just as "Do the right thing" and "Tell the truth" are only suggestions about criteria, not answers to actual dilemmas. The actual dilemma is what, in the particular case staring you in the face, the right thing to do or the honest thing to say really is. And making those kinds of decisions - about what is right or what is truthful - IS like deciding what to order in a restaurant, in the sense that getting a handle on tastiness is no harder or easier (even though it is generally less important) than getting a handle on justice or truth.

In terms of building neural structure, what matters is not the event or circumstance or condition itself but your experience of it. Knowing without feeling is like a menu without a meal.

They wind up at the kind of Italian restaurant that offers a trough-size bowl of spaghetti and meatballs and a giant basket of bread for a grand total of a dollar fifty. “Meals come with either a glass of red wine of unspecified variety,” Mark says, studying the menu, “or a bowl of ice cream. Wine or ice cream. In what universe is that a reasonable choice? It’s like – football or a haircut. Trombones or a spoon.” “You could get both for an extra seventy-five cents,” Eddie suggests. “That’s not the point. I don’t want either. It’s that the binary of wine and ice cream shouldn’t exist.

I sometimes rented a car and drove from event to event in Europe; a road trip was a great escape from the day-to-day anxieties of playing, and it kept me from getting too lost in the tournament fun house with its courtesy cars, caterers, locker room attendants, and such — all amenities that create a firewall between players and what you might call the 'real' world — you know, where you may have to read a map, ask a question in a foreign tongue, find a restaurant and read the menu posted in the window to make sure you're not about to walk into a joint that serves only exotic reptile meat.

What's the harm for an ingénue to examine the menu and indulge in the quiet of no more men on her diet ~ for my 'married' digestion has thrown my heart in congestion ~ desserts out of the question! Hmm, any suggestion?

Finally, I would hug 2004 Jen, understanding that discipleship is a journey, and each stage is a necessary precursor to the following one. God was right in Proverbs: our light is the dimmest at the beginning of salvation, but it grows brighter and brighter as we go. There is no wasted scene, no futile season. God gives us what we can handle, when we can handle it. We are drawn more and more deeply into the knowledge of Jesus. A baby can’t handle a steak before she has teeth. The steak will come, but for today milk is on the menu. That’s not an insult; it’s biology. The baby will get there. Be patient. Do the best with what you know. When you know more, adjust the trajectory.

The answer to that question is…I won’t. You belong with me. Which leads me to the discussion I wanted to have with you.” “Where I belong is for me to decide, and though I may listen to what you have to say, that doesn’t mean I will agree with you.” “Fair enough.” Ren pushed his empty plate to the side. “We have some unfinished business to take care of.” “If you mean the other tasks we have to do, I’m already aware of that.” “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about us.” “What about us?” I put my hands under the table and wiped my clammy palms on my napkin. “I think there are a few things we’ve left unsaid, and I think it’s time we said them.” “I’m not withholding anything from you, if that’s what you mean.” “You are.” “No. I’m not.” “Are you refusing to acknowledge what has happened between us?” “I’m not refusing anything. Don’t try to put words in my mouth.” “I’m not. I’m simply trying to convince a stubborn woman to admit that she has feelings for me.” “If I did have feelings for you, you’d be the first one to know.” “Are you saying that you don’t feel anything for me?” “That’s not what I’m saying.” “Then what are you saying?” “I’m saying…nothing!” I spluttered. Ren smiled and narrowed his eyes at me. If he kept up this line of questioning, he was bound to catch me in a lie. I’m not a very good liar. He sat back in his chair. “Fine. I’ll let you off the hook for now, but we will talk about this later. Tigers are relentless once they set their minds to something. You don’t be able to evade me forever.” Casually, I replied, “Don’t get your hopes up, Mr. Wonderful. Every hero has his Kryptonite, and you don’t intimidate me.” I twisted my napkin in my lap while he tracked my every move with his probing eyes. I felt stripped down, as if he could see into the very heart of me. When the waitress came back, Ren smiled at her as she offered a smaller menu, probably featuring desserts. She leaned over him while I tapped my strappy shoe in frustration. He listened attentively to her. Then, the two of them laughed again. He spoke quietly, gesturing to me, and she looked my way, giggled, and then cleared all the plates quickly. He pulled out a wallet and handed her a credit card. She put her hand on his arm to ask him another question, and I couldn’t help myself. I kicked him under the table. He didn’t even blink or look at me. He just reached his arm across the table, took my hand in his, and rubbed the back of it absentmindedly with his thumb as he answered her question. It was like my kick was a love tap to him. It only made him happier. When she left, I narrowed my eyes at him and asked, “How did you get that card, and what were you saying to her about me?” “Mr. Kadam gave me the card, and I told her that we would be having our dessert…later.” I laughed facetiously. “You mean you will be having dessert later by yourself this evening because I am done eating with you.” He leaned across the candlelit table and said, “Who said anything about eating, Kelsey?” He must be joking! But he looked completely serious. Great! There go the nervous butterflies again. “Stop looking at me like that.” “Like what?” “Like you’re hunting me. I’m not an antelope.” He laughed. “Ah, but the chase would be exquisite, and you would be a most succulent catch.” “Stop it.” “Am I making you nervous?” “You could say that.” I stood up abruptly as he was signing the receipt and made my way toward the door. He was next to me in an instant. He leaned over. “I’m not letting you escape, remember? Now, behave like a good date and let me walk you home. It’s the least you could do since you wouldn’t talk with me.

Watching her, I remembered a girl I'd known in school, a grind, Mildred Grossman. Mildred: with her moist hair and greasy spectacles, her strained fingers that dissected frogs and carried coffee to picket lines, her flat eyes that only turned toward the stars to estimate their chemical tonnage. Earth and air could not be more opposite than Mildred and Holly, yet in my head they acquired a Siamese twinship, and the thread of thought that had sewn them together ran like this: the average personality reshapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul--desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change. All right, here were two people who never would. That is what Mildred Grossman had in common with Holly Golightly. They would never change because they'd been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic. I imagined them in a restaurant of the future, Mildred still studying the menu for its nutritional values, Holly still gluttonous for everything on it. It would never be different. They would walk through life and out of it with the same determined step that took small notice of those cliffs at the left.

It all comes down to Jesus Christ, and what you CHOOSE to believe about Him. Jesus claims He is the Son of God. Jesus claims He died for you and rose from the dead. He claims that the only way to cancel out your sin and spend eternity in heaven is to be believe that He is who He said He was. These are the claims on the table. Bold claims. its will make you wince, won't it? Personally, I think the boldness of the claims makes the choosing a lot easier. Most people who have never actually read the menu probably assume they can order a la carte at the Jesus table or customize their own recipe of faith. But you can't say yes to the historical figure and a few parables but pass on miracles, the resurrection, and the Son-of-God thing. That is not the offering. Christ is a fixed meal. It is all or nothing with His claims. Everyone is invited, but only you can decide if you actually want to eat at His table. For those who do believe in Christ, it means getting real, being hones about your sin, and living your life as if you really mean it.

Ren took his time perusing the menu and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. I didn’t even pick my menu up. He shot me meaningful glances while I sat silently, trying to avoid making eye contact. When she came back, she spoke to him briefly and gestured to me. I smiled, and in a syrupy sweet voice, said, “I’ll have whatever will get me out of here the fastest. Like a salad, maybe.” Ren smiled benignly back at me and rattled off what sounded like a banquet of choices, which the waitress was more than happy to take her time writing down. She kept touching him and laughing with him too. Which I found very, very annoying. When she left, he leaned back in his chair and sipped his water. I broke the silence first and hissed at him quietly, “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you only have about two minutes left, so I hope you ordered the steak tartar, Tiger.” He grinned mischievously. “We’ll see, Kells. We’ll see.” “Fine. No skin off my nose. I can’t wait to see what happens when a white tiger runs through this nice establishment creating mayhem and havoc. Perhaps they will lose one of their stars because they put their patrons in danger. Maybe your new waitress girlfriend will run away screaming.” I smiled at the thought. Ren affected shock, “Why, Kelsey! Are you jealous?” I snorted in a very unladylike way. “No! Of course not.” He grinned. Nervously, I played with my cloth napkin. “I can’t believe you convinced Mr. Kadam to play along with you like this. It’s shocking, really.” He opened his napkin and winked at the waitress when she came to bring us a basket of rolls. When she left, I challenged, “Are you winking at her? Unbelievable!” He laughed quietly and pulled out a steaming roll, buttered it, and put it on my plate. “Eat, Kelsey,” he commanded. Then he sat forward. “Unless you are reconsidering seeing the view from my lap.” Angrily, I tore apart my roll and swallowed a few pieces before I even noticed how delicious they were-light and flaky with little flecks of orange rind mixed into the dough. I would have eaten another one, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

You can fuck the girls.” He brought his hands up and made a deeply junior-high gesture. “The penis goes into the vagina like this.” It took everything Ryan had not to roll his eyes. The last thing he wanted was for his personal life to become club fodder. Of course, sex was on the menu at Sanctum every night. That didn’t mean he had to partake. He was on a diet. A starvation diet. “What if I don’t want to fuck the girls?” “Okay. I went about this all wrong. I can see that now.” Ian leaned forward, a serious look on his face. “You can fuck the guys. The gay ones that is. I wouldn’t try fucking the straight ones. They get irritable

"If you prefer it, Your Excellency, a private room will be free directly: Prince Golitsin with a lady. Fresh oysters have come in." "Ah, oysters!" Stepan Arkadyevich became thoughtful. "How if we were to change our program, Levin?" he said, keeping his finger on the bill of fare. And his face expressed serious hesitation. "Are the oysters good? Mind, now!" "They're Flensburg, Your Excellency. We've no Ostend." "Flensburg will do -- but are they fresh?" "Only arrived yesterday." "Well, then, how if we were to begin with oysters, and so change the whole program? Eh?" "It's all the same to me. I should like cabbage soup and porridge better than anything; but of course there's nothing like that here." "Porridge a la Russe, Your Honor would like?" said the Tatar, bending down to Levin, like a nurse speaking to a child. "No, joking apart, whatever you choose is sure to be good. I've been skating, and I'm hungry. And don't imagine," he added, detecting a look of dissatisfaction on Oblonsky's face, "that I shan't appreciate your choice. I don't object to a good dinner." "I should hope so! After all, it's one of the pleasures of life," said Stepan Arkadyevich. "Well, then, my friend, you give us two -- or better say three-dozen oysters, clear soup with vegetables..." "Printaniere," prompted the Tatar. But Stepan Arkadyevich apparently did not care to allow him the satisfaction of giving the French names of the dishes. "With vegetables in it, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce, then... roast beef; and mind it's good. Yes, and capons, perhaps, and then stewed fruit." The Tatar, recollecting that it was Stepan Arkadyevich's way not to call the dishes by the names in the French bill of fare, did not repeat them after him, but could not resist rehearsing the whole menu to himself according to the bill: "Soupe printaniere, turbot sauce Beaumarchais, poulard a l'estragon, Macedoine de fruits..." and then instantly, as though worked by springs, laying down one bound bill of fare, he took up another, the list of wines, and submitted it to Stepan Arkadyevich. "What shall we drink?" "What you like, only not too much. Champagne," said Levin. "What! to start with? You're right though, I dare say. Do you like the white seal?" "Cachet blanc," prompted the Tatar. "Very well, then, give us that brand with the oysters, and then we'll see." "Yes, sir. And what table wine?" "You can give us Nuits. Oh, no -- better the classic Chablis." "Yes, sir. And your cheese, Your Excellency?" "Oh, yes, Parmesan. Or would you like another?" "No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.

1 SHA’BAN Did you know that 6 month prior to Ramadan the Sahaba’s used to make du’a to Allah that He would let them reach Ramadan. After Ramadan they used to make du’a for 6 month that Allah would accept their fasting and good deeds. Today is the first day of Sha’ban and Ramadan is not too far off. You might be wondering where the time has gone, and might feel a bit overwhelmed or even afraid of the long hours of fasting. You might also be asking yourself, “what have I done so far to prepare myself for this blessed month?” Many times we focus too much on the aspect of planning our meals for this month, but Ramadan is not the month of cooking, it is the month when the Quran was sent down, a month of worship. So let’s put the menu planning on the side, and prioritize on how we can prepare our hearts for this glorious month. Something you can start right now is to follow the Sahaba’s example and make that same du’a until we reach Ramadan. “Allahumma Balighna Ramadan” “Oh Allah let us reach Ramadan

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

Ildiko shuddered.  Her hope to never again see or eat the Kai’s most beloved and revolting delicacy had been in vain.  When Brishen informed her that the dish was one of Serovek’s favorites, she resigned herself to another culinary battle with her food and put the scarpatine on the menu.  She ordered roasted potatoes as well, much to the head cook’s disgust. When servants brought out the food and set it on the table, Brishen leaned close and whispered in her ear.  “Revenge, wife?” “Hardly,” she replied, keeping a wary eye on the pie closest to her.  The golden top crust, with its sprinkle of sparkling salt, pitched in a lazy undulation.  “But I’m starving, and I have no intention of filling up on that abomination.” Their guest of honor didn’t share their dislike of either food.  As deft as any Kai, Serovek made short work of the scarpatine and its whipping tail, cleaved open the shell with his knife and took a generous bite of the steaming gray meat. Ildiko’s stomach heaved.  She forgot her nausea when Serovek complimented her.  “An excellent choice to pair the scarpatine with the potato, Your Highness.  They are better together than apart.” Beside her, Brishen choked into his goblet.  He wiped his mouth with his sanap.  “What a waste of good scarpatine,” he muttered under his breath. What a waste of a nice potato, she thought.  However, the more she thought on Serovek’s remark, the more her amusement grew. “And what has you smiling so brightly?”  Brishen stared at her, his lambent eyes glowing nearly white in the hall’s torchlight. She glanced at Serovek, happily cleaning his plate and shooting the occasional glance at Anhuset nearby.  Brishen’s cousin refused to meet his gaze, but Ildiko had caught the woman watching the Beladine lord more than a few times during dinner. “That’s us, you know,” she said. “What is us?” “The scarpatine and the potato.  Better together than alone.  At least I think so.” One of Brishen’s eyebrows slid upward.  “I thought we were hag and dead eel.  I think I like those comparisons more.”  He shoved his barely-touched potato to the edge of his plate with his knife tip, upper lip curled in revulsion to reveal a gleaming white fang. Ildiko laughed and stabbed a piece of the potato off his plate.  She popped it into her mouth and chewed with gusto, eager to blunt the taste of scarpatine still lingering on her tongue.

Let’s try discrimination. “I have been discriminated against.” State the obvious. “People treat me differently when they find out I have bipolar disorder.” Now state the not so obvious. “As someone with a mental illness, I see discrimination where others don’t. Take happy hour, for instance. I think that is being discriminatory. There should also be a crappy hour for depressed people. And people with bipolar disorder could go to both.” So where do you see discrimination? At work? At school? With family? Now think of the unexpected. How about the bathtub? Or the local restaurant? Let’s take the restaurant. What would be a menu item that is discriminatory? Scrambled eggs? Take your time. Let your mind

So he asked her what she’d like to drink. Her choice would be crucial. If she orders a decaf, he thought, I’m getting up and leaving. No one was entitled to drink a decaf when it came to this type of encounter. It’s the least gregarious drink there is. Tea isn’t much better. Just met, and already settling into some kind of dull cocoon. You feel like you’re going to end up spending Sunday afternoons watching TV. Or worse: at the in-laws’. Yes, tea is indisputably in-law territory. Then what? Alcohol? No good for this time of day. You could have qualms about a woman who starts drinking right away like that. Even a glass of red wine isn’t going to cut it. François kept waiting for her to choose what she’d like to drink, and this was how he kept up his liquid analysis of first impressions of women. What was left now? Coke, or any type of soda … no, not possible, that didn’t say woman at all. Might as well ask for a straw, too, while she was at it. Finally he decided that juice was good. Yes, juice, that was nice. It’s friendly and not too aggressive. You can sense the kind of sweet, well-balanced woman who would make such a choice. But which juice? Better to avoid the great classics: apple, orange, too popular. It would have to be only slightly original without being completely eccentric. Papaya or guava—frightening. No, the best is choosing something in between, like apricot. That’s it. Apricot juice: perfect. If she chooses it, I’ll marry her, thought François. At that precise instant, Natalie raised her head from the menu, as if emerging from a long reflection. It was the same reflection in which the stranger opposite her had just been absorbed. “I’ll have a juice…” “…?” “Apricot juice, I guess.” He looked at her as if she were a violation of reality.

Anything Bunny wrote was bound to be alarmingly original, since he began with such odd working materials and managed to alter them further by his befuddled scrutiny, but the John Donne paper must have been the worst of all the bad papers he ever wrote (ironic, given that it was the only thing he ever wrote that saw print. After he disappeared, a journalist asked for an excerpt from the missing young scholar's work and Marion gave him a copy of it, a laboriously edited paragraph of which eventually found its way into People magazine). Somewhere, Bunny had heard that John Donne had been acquainted with Izaak Walton, and in some dim corridor of his mind this friendship grew larger and larger, until in his mind the two men were practically interchangeable. We never understood how this fatal connection had established itself: Henry blamed it on Men of Thought and Deed, but no one knew for sure. A week or two before the paper was due, he had started showing up in my room about two or three in the morning, looking as if he had just narrowly escaped some natural disaster, his tie askew and his eyes wild and rolling. 'Hello, hello,' he would say, stepping in, running both hands through his disordered hair. 'Hope I didn't wake you, don't mind if I cut on the lights, do you, ah, here we go, yes, yes…' He would turn on the lights and then pace back and forth for a while without taking off his coat, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head. Finally he would stop dead in his tracks and say, with a desperate look in his eye: 'Metahemeralism. Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism.' 'I'm sorry. I don't know what that is.' 'I don't either,' Bunny would say brokenly. 'Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see.' He would resume pacing. 'Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it.' 'Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word.' 'Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe.' 'Is it in the dictionary?' 'Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean' – he made a picture frame with his hands – 'the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?' And so it would go, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended. He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in. 'This is a nice paper, Bun -,' Charles said cautiously. 'Thanks, thanks.' 'But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?' 'Oh, Donne,' Bunny had said scoffingly. 'I don't want to drag him into this.' Henry refused to read it. 'I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really,' he said, glancing over the first page. 'Say, what's wrong with this type?' 'Triple-spaced it,' said Bunny proudly. 'These lines are about an inch apart.' 'Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?' Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose. 'Looks kind of like a menu,' he said. All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence 'And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.' We wondered if he would fail.

Barry Schwartz points out in his book, The Paradox of Choice, that this kind of sheep-in-wolf’s-clothing decision is more likely to come up the more options you have to choose from. The greater the number of available options, the greater the likelihood that more than one of those options will look pretty good to you. The more options that look pretty good to you, the more time you spend in analysis paralysis. That’s the paradox: more choice, more anxiety. Remember, if the only choices are between Paris and a trout cannery, no one has a problem. But what if the choices are Paris or Rome or Amsterdam or Santorini or Machu Picchu? You get the picture. THE ONLY-OPTION TEST For any options you’re considering, ask yourself, “If this were the only option I had, would I be happy with it?” A useful tool you can use to break the gridlock is the Only-Option Test. If this were the only thing I could order on the menu . . . If this were the only show I could watch on Netflix tonight . . . If this were the only place I could go for vacation . . . If this were the only college I got accepted to . . . If this were the only house I could buy . . . If this were the only job I got offered . . . The Only-Option Test clears away the debris cluttering your decision. If you’d be happy if Paris were your only option, and you’d be happy if Rome were your only option, that reveals that if you just flip a coin, you’ll be happy whichever way the coin lands.

I glance around, feeling stupid. I’m clearly intruding on the employees’ off hours between meals, and I feel awkward taking up so much space. There’s nothing I want to eat here. The menu consists entirely of different kinds of soup dumplings. I don’t know what a soup dumpling is, but it sounds gross. The strong, musty, dumpster-like smell wafting from the kitchen doors is killing my appetite.

And of course she had no idea what the actual member itself looked like, apart from the sisters’ surreptitious and intense study of the Elgin Marbles. If it were rather like a piece of liver in texture then it might do well with bacon. That was when she realized the appalling absurdity of what she was doing, coming up with a menu for raw . . . raw cock, that’s what the stable lads had called it.

When I was a girl in my grandfather’s house, the men in the family had money, cars, and freedom to come and go anytime they wanted, as well as the authority to make all decisions, even the smallest ones, such as what would appear on the dinner menu. My mother had none of that; she lived off her father’s and older brother’s charity. She also had to protect her reputation. How much of that did I perceive? Enough to suffer for it.

I think of the possibility that I will never hear her laugh again, never buy her a birthday present, never guess what she wants from the takeaway menu, never hear her secrets or kiss the petals of her eyelids. I take a photo on my phone of the jumper and the shirt in case I forget what it feels like to be loved. I close the curtains and get into the bed I’ve been sleeping in since I was a little boy. And I cry and cry and cry and cry.

The alternative to soul-acceptance is soul-fatigue. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the body. When we stay up too late and rise too early; when we try to fuel ourselves for the day with coffee and a donut in the morning and Red Bull in the afternoon; when we refuse to take the time to exercise and we eat foods that clog our brains and arteries; when we constantly try to guess which line at the grocery store will move faster and which car in which lane at the stoplight will move faster and which parking space is closest to the mall, our bodies grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the mind. When we are bombarded by information all day at work . . . When multiple screens are always clamoring for our attention . . . When we carry around mental lists of errands not yet done and bills not yet paid and emails not yet replied to . . . When we try to push unpleasant emotions under the surface like holding beach balls under the water at a swimming pool . . . our minds grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the will. We have so many decisions to make. When we are trying to decide what clothes will create the best possible impression, which foods will bring us the most pleasure, which tasks at work will bring us the most success, which entertainment options will make us the most happy, which people we dare to disappoint, which events we must attend, even what vacation destination will be most enjoyable, the need to make decisions overwhelms us. The sheer length of the menu at Cheesecake Factory oppresses us. Sometimes college students choose double majors, not because they want to study two fields, but simply because they cannot make the decision to say “no” to either one. Our wills grow weary with so many choices.

Everyone's here except for St. Clair." Meredith cranes her neck around the cafeteria. "He's usually running late." "Always," Josh corrects. "Always running late." I clear my throat. "I think I met him last night. In the hallway." "Good hair and an English accent?" Meredith asks. "Um.Yeah.I guess." I try to keep my voice casual. Josh smirks. "Everyone's in luuurve with St. Clair." "Oh,shut up," Meredith says. "I'm not." Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend. He lets go of her hand and gives an exaggerated sigh. "Well,I am. I'm asking him to prom. This is our year, I just know it." "This school has a prom?" I ask. "God no," Rashmi says. "Yeah,Josh. You and St. Clair would look really cute in matching tuxes." "Tails." The English accent makes Meredith and me jump in our seats. Hallway boy. Beautiful boy. His hair is damp from the rain. "I insist the tuxes have tails, or I'm giving your corsage to Steve Carver instead." "St. Clair!" Josh springs from his seat, and they give each other the classic two-thumps-on-the-back guy hug. "No kiss? I'm crushed,mate." "Thought it might miff the ol' ball and chain. She doesn't know about us yet." "Whatever," Rashi says,but she's smiling now. It's a good look for her. She should utilize the corners of her mouth more often. Beautiful Hallway Boy (Am I supposed to call him Etienne or St. Clair?) drops his bag and slides into the remaining seat between Rashmi and me. "Anna." He's surprised to see me,and I'm startled,too. He remembers me. "Nice umbrella.Could've used that this morning." He shakes a hand through his hair, and a drop lands on my bare arm. Words fail me. Unfortunately, my stomach speaks for itself. His eyes pop at the rumble,and I'm alarmed by how big and brown they are. As if he needed any further weapons against the female race. Josh must be right. Every girl in school must be in love with him. "Sounds terrible.You ought to feed that thing. Unless..." He pretends to examine me, then comes in close with a whisper. "Unless you're one of those girls who never eats. Can't tolerate that, I'm afraid. Have to give you a lifetime table ban." I'm determined to speak rationally in his presence. "I'm not sure how to order." "Easy," Josh says. "Stand in line. Tell them what you want.Accept delicious goodies. And then give them your meal card and two pints of blood." "I heard they raised it to three pints this year," Rashmi says. "Bone marrow," Beautiful Hallway Boy says. "Or your left earlobe." "I meant the menu,thank you very much." I gesture to the chalkboard above one of the chefs. An exquisite cursive hand has written out the morning's menu in pink and yellow and white.In French. "Not exactly my first language." "You don't speak French?" Meredith asks. "I've taken Spanish for three years. It's not like I ever thought I'd be moving to Paris." "It's okay," Meredith says quickly. "A lot of people here don't speak French." "But most of them do," Josh adds. "But most of them not very well." Rashmi looks pointedly at him. "You'll learn the lanaguage of food first. The language of love." Josh rubs his belly like a shiny Buddha. "Oeuf. Egg. Pomme. Apple. Lapin. Rabbit." "Not funny." Rashmi punches him in the arm. "No wonder Isis bites you. Jerk." I glance at the chalkboard again. It's still in French. "And, um, until then?" "Right." Beautiful Hallway Boy pushes back his chair. "Come along, then. I haven't eaten either." I can't help but notice several girls gaping at him as we wind our way through the crowd.

I had no idea the Monkey Bar meat loaf was going to have my name on it, but when the restaurant opened, there it was, on the menu, Nora’s Meat Loaf. I felt that I had to order it, out of loyalty to myself, and it was exactly as good as it had been at the tasting. I was delighted. What’s more, I had the oddest sense of accomplishment. I somehow felt I’d created this meat loaf, even though I’d had nothing to do with it. I’d always envied Nellie Melba for her peach, Princess Margherita for her pizza, and Reuben for his sandwich, and now I was sort of one of them. Nora’s Meat Loaf. It was something to remember me by. It wasn’t exactly what I was thinking of back in the day when we used to play a game called “If you could have something named after you, what would it be?” In that period, I’d hoped for a dance step, or a pair of pants. But I was older now, and I was willing to settle for a meat loaf.

In northwest Seattle, there is an immensely popular 'old-fashioned' ice cream parlor. It is modern, spotless, and gleaming, bursting with comfortable looking people on a warm summer evening. The parlor is dedicated to nostalgia, from the old-time decor to the striped candy, the ragtime music, the costumes of the smiling young waiters, the Gibson-girl menu with its gold-rush type, and the open-handed hospitality of the Old West. It serves sandwiches, hamburgers, and kiddie 'samiches,' but its specialty is ice-cream concoctions, all of them with special names, including several so vast and elaborate that they cost several dollars and arrive with so much fanfare that all other activities stop as the waiters join in a procession as guards of honor. Nobody seems to care that the sandwiches and even the ice cream dishes have a curious blandness, so that everything tastes rather alike and it is hard to remember what one has eaten. Nothing mars the insistent, bright, wholesome good humor that presses on every side. Yet somehow there is pathos as well. For these patrons are the descendants of pioneers, of people who knew the frontiers, of men who dared the hardships of Chilkoot Pass to seek gold in the Klondike. That is their heritage, but now they only sit amid a sterile model of the past, spooning ice cream while piped-in ragtime tinkles unheard.

Marielle had read a study recently that said some people didn’t have inner monologues. That their brains were free of the narrator that was so active in her own, never more so than in the quiet moments before sleep (when sleep came) and now (apparently) meditation. That they experienced emotion without coupling words with it. She wondered how they ever knew what to say out loud, if they didn’t say it in their own heads first, or how they composed an email, or decided what to order from a menu, or released the stress and anxiety that came with cussing people out silently to themselves. Letting go of thoughts only replaced them with a running commentary about how difficult it was to let go of them. A worry about empty spaces, and if her brain might collapse in on itself if it wasn’t running an endless narration about anything and everything she experienced, and what she might look like with a dented skull.

Eating for us was spontaneous and based solely on what mood we were in when we were 5 minutes away from eating time. But my life was so busy, what could I do about it? As luck would have it, the email from FlyLady this morning was about Menu Planning. I remembered reading something in her book about it. This email was about spontaneous eating leading to an unhealthy lifestyle. It’s like FlyLady was a “fly” on my wall with special insight into my life! Whoa-oh!

Right now I'll just be happy if you let me know what would you like to have in breakfast ." She swiftly moved from the platform to the fridge and took some bell peppers out of it. I spotted a bowl of boiled noodles. Perhaps, I would be fine with some change in my menu. "some noodles will just be fine,a glass of orange juice." I put my glass in the sink and stepped back to have a better view of her amazing body. "and a bed full of you." I added. Oops, I think that was pretty shameless. -Abstruse.

I get it, he's hot. He probably gives you the best sex of your life. But if it doesn't fill you with tinglies to be around him every second you're around him—if he doesn't make you happy—then what the hell are you doing? You only live once," I said, because if I'd learned anything about living in a time-travelling apartment, no matter how much time you get, it's still never enough. And I wanted to start living my life like I was enjoying every moment that I had it. "And if you do it right," I said, remembering the way my aunt laughed as we sprinted to catch our connecting flights across the airport, how she flung her arms wide at the top of Arthur's Seat and the Parthenon and Santorini and every hill with a beautiful view she came across, as if she wanted to embrace the sky; the way she took her time to decide what she wanted on a menu; the way she asked everyone she met for their stories, absorbed their fairy tales, and chased the moon. "If you do it right," I repeated, "once is all you need.

To the chefs who pioneered the nouvelle cuisine in France, the ancienne cuisine they were rebelling against looked timeless, primordial, old as the hills. But the cookbook record proves that the haute cuisine codified early in this century by Escoffier barely goes back to Napoleon's time. Before that, French food is not recognizable as French to modern eyes. Europe's menu before 1700 was completely different from its menu after 1800, when national cuisines arose along with modern nations and national cultures.

Since intelligence is primarily defined as one's capacity to grasp the truth of things, it follows that what a culture means by intelligence is derived from the character of its important forms of communication. In a purely oral culture, intelligence is often associated with aphoristic ingenuity, that is, the power to invent compact sayings of wide applicability. the wise Solomon, we are told in First Kings, knew three thousand proverbs. In a print culture, people with such a talent are thought to be quaint at best, more likely pompous bores. In a purely oral culture, a high value is always placed on the power to memorize, for where there are no written words, the human mind must function as a mobile library. To forget how something is to be said or done is a danger to the community and a' gross form of stupidity. In a print culture, the memorization of a poem, a menu, a law or most anything else is merely charming. It is almost always functionally irrelevant and certainly not considered a sign of high intelligence.

I remember one group of family members had gone down to the restaurant in the Dorchester. The waiter had brought the menu and they said, ‘We’ll have it.’ It took a while for the penny to drop that they actually meant the whole lot, the a la carte, which is over a thousand pounds’ worth of food. So the waiters brought it, the family tried a little bit of all of it, then went back up to their room. Then they sent out one of their servants to bring back a sackful of hamburgers, which is what their real obsession was.

Chelsea said with complete conviction. “I don’t understand why Satan hasn’t taken her out yet. She should be strung up. You know what, if Ian won’t do what needs to be done, then I will. I will make her life a living hell. She will wish I’d simply put her on the no-fly list. I’m going to put an APB out on her ass. I’ll get her on the sex offender list. Hell, I’ll put her number up at Craig’s list with a long menu of sexual services she’s willing to provide for very little money. See how she likes that.” Chelsea could be fierce when she cared about a person,

Tender poached egg. Creamy mashed potatoes. And the thick layer of hot, melted cheese! Those are all incredibly delicious, but what takes the cake is the roux! It's been made in a VICHYSSOISE style!" VICHYSSOISE Boiled potatoes, onions, leeks and other ingredients are pureed with cream and soup stock to make this potage. It's often served chilled. Its creation is generally credited to Louis Diat, a French chef at the Ritz Carlton in New York, who first put it on the hotel's menu in 1917. "Amazing! It looks like a thick, heavy dish that would sit in the stomach like lead, but it's so easy to eat!" "The noodles! It's the udon noodles, along with the coriander powder, that makes it feel so much lighter! Coriander is known for its fresh, almost citrusy scent and its mildly spicy bite. It goes exceptionally well with the cumin kneaded into the noodles, each spice working to heighten the other's fragrance. AAAH! It's immensely satisfying!" "I have also included dill, vichyssoise's traditional topping. Dry roasting the dill seeds together with the cumin seeds made a spice mix that gave a strong aroma to the roux." "Hm! Fat noodles in a thick, creamy roux. Eating them is much the same experience as having dipping noodles. What an amazing concept to arrive at from a century-old French soup recipe!

Metahemeralism. Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism." "I'm sorry. I don't know what that is." "I don't either," Bunny would say brokenly. "Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see." He would resume pacing. "Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it." "Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word." "Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe." "Is it in the dictionary?" "Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean" — he made a picture frame with his hands — "the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?" And so it would go on, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended. He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in. "This is a nice paper, Bun — ," Charles said cautiously. "Thanks, thanks." "But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?" "Oh, Donne," Bunny had said scoffingly. "I don't want to drag him into this." Henry had refused to read it. "I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really," he said, glancing over the first page. "Say, what's wrong with this type?" "Tripled spaced it," said Bunny proudly. "These lines are about an inch apart." "Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?" Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose. "Looks kind of like a menu," he said. All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence "And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.

Heather whistles to round us all up. Oliver and I reach for each other’s hands at the same time, falling into step with each other as easily as breathing. “To the Milkshake Bar,” Heather calls. “Millie Mias on the house!” “That’s what I was hoping she’d say,” says Oliver. Perhaps the most delicious consequence of all this is that Heather coined a new sundae on the menu based on last summer’s shenanigans. It’s got a scoop of mint chip for me and Georgie, strawberry for Heather and Chloe, vanilla for my dad and Beth, Nutella for Farrah, sea salt chocolate chip cookie pieces for Oliver, and Reese’s Puffs for Teddy. The whole thing is a big ooey-gooey fantastic mess, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There was a food counter at the rear of the drugstore and Nancy made her way to it. Perching on a high-backed stool, she read the menu over and over. Nothing appealed to her. When the counterman asked her what she wanted, Nancy said frankly she did not know—she was not very hungry. “Then I recommend our split-pea soup,” he told her. “It’s homemade and out of this world.” Nancy smiled at him. “I’ll take your advice and try it.” The hot soup was delicious. By the time she had finished it, Nancy’s spirits had risen considerably. “And how about some custard pie?” the counter-man inquired. “It’s just like Mother used to make.” “All right,” Nancy answered, smiling at the solicitous young man. The pie was ice cold and proved to be delicious.

Obviously, in those situations, we lose the sale. But we’re not trying to maximize each and every transaction. Instead, we’re trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer, one phone call at a time. A lot of people may think it’s strange that an Internet company is so focused on the telephone, when only about 5 percent of our sales happen through the telephone. In fact, most of our phone calls don’t even result in sales. But what we’ve found is that on average, every customer contacts us at least once sometime during his or her lifetime, and we just need to make sure that we use that opportunity to create a lasting memory. The majority of phone calls don’t result in an immediate order. Sometimes a customer may be calling because it’s her first time returning an item, and she just wants a little help stepping through the process. Other times, a customer may call because there’s a wedding coming up this weekend and he wants a little fashion advice. And sometimes, we get customers who call simply because they’re a little lonely and want someone to talk to. I’m reminded of a time when I was in Santa Monica, California, a few years ago at a Skechers sales conference. After a long night of bar-hopping, a small group of us headed up to someone’s hotel room to order some food. My friend from Skechers tried to order a pepperoni pizza from the room-service menu, but was disappointed to learn that the hotel we were staying at did not deliver hot food after 11:00 PM. We had missed the deadline by several hours. In our inebriated state, a few of us cajoled her into calling Zappos to try to order a pizza. She took us up on our dare, turned on the speakerphone, and explained to the (very) patient Zappos rep that she was staying in a Santa Monica hotel and really craving a pepperoni pizza, that room service was no longer delivering hot food, and that she wanted to know if there was anything Zappos could do to help. The Zappos rep was initially a bit confused by the request, but she quickly recovered and put us on hold. She returned two minutes later, listing the five closest places in the Santa Monica area that were still open and delivering pizzas at that time. Now, truth be told, I was a little hesitant to include this story because I don’t actually want everyone who reads this book to start calling Zappos and ordering pizza. But I just think it’s a fun story to illustrate the power of not having scripts in your call center and empowering your employees to do what’s right for your brand, no matter how unusual or bizarre the situation. As for my friend from Skechers? After that phone call, she’s now a customer for life. Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company   1. Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department. A customer service attitude needs to come from the top.   2. Make WOW a verb that is part of your company’s everyday vocabulary.   3. Empower and trust your customer service reps. Trust that they want to provide great service… because they actually do. Escalations to a supervisor should be rare.   4. Realize that it’s okay to fire customers who are insatiable or abuse your employees.   5. Don’t measure call times, don’t force employees to upsell, and don’t use scripts.   6. Don’t hide your 1-800 number. It’s a message not just to your customers, but to your employees as well.   7. View each call as an investment in building a customer service brand, not as an expense you’re seeking to minimize.   8. Have the entire company celebrate great service. Tell stories of WOW experiences to everyone in the company.   9. Find and hire people who are already passionate about customer service. 10. Give great service to everyone: customers, employees, and vendors.

You see I'm wearing the tie," said Bingo. "It suits you beautiful," said the girl. Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their age and sex; but poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification, and smirked in the most gruesome manner. "Well, what's it going to be today?" asked the girl, introducing the business touch into the conversation. Bingo studied the menu devoutly. "I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?" I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick. "Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to wash it down?" said Bingo. You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite au gourmet au champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right. Ghastly! Ghastly! A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them, and Mabel hopped it.

He’d recreated the menu he requested for the naked dinner. Ha! “How did you even know my shoe size?” “I’ve seen your foot up close.” Curran pointed to his chest. “I’ve seen it here.” He moved his hand to his jaw. “Here.” He touched the place over his cheek where my kick had cut him. “And here.” Aha. “Would you like to watch a movie while we eat?” “Sure. What sort of movie?” “It has everything: action, drama, comedy, beautiful soundtrack. Hot male lead.” His thick eyebrows crept up half an inch. “That last one isn’t exactly a plus.” “Jealous of the actors now, are we?” “What, of some fancy boy on the screen? Inconceivable.” Oh, this was going to be good. We took our plates to the coffee table by the couch, and I slid Saiman’s disk into the player. The warehouse full of cars solidified on the screen. Curran’s face went blank.

First, the idea of the multiverse is essentially the fantasy of preserving perfect information. One of the hard things to deal with in life is the fact that you destroy potential information whenever you make a decision. You could even say that's essentially what regret is: a profound problem of incomplete information. If you select one thing on a diner's menu, you can't know what it would have been like to taste other things on it, right then, right there. When you marry one person, you give up the possibility of knowing what it would have been like to have married any number of others. But if the multiverse exists, you can at least imagine there's another version of you who's eating that other thing you thought about ordering, or who's married to that other man you only went on two dates with. Even if you'll never see all the information for yourself, at least you'll be able to tell yourself that it's there. 'The second reason the multiverse seems like such a neat idea is that it gives human beings just an incredible amount of agency, which they can exercise with the least effort. Why, Carson here created an entire alternate universe when he ordered hash browns on the side of his French toast instead of bacon—' 'Ah, I should have gotten bacon, how could I forget,' Carson said, and attempted to hail the waitress. 'But the history of science shows that any theory that covertly panders to the human ego like that, that puts humans at the center of things, is very likely to be found out wrong, given enough time. So, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that there's just this one universe, and we're stuck with it. What happens to our time traveler then?

Beliefs are a powerful thing. I often travel the world and sometimes the local waitresses attending me are nervous if they can’t speak English. Now, when this happens, I point at the pictures in the menu. However, I’ve noticed that the ones with the strongest beliefs, the most nervous ones, still do a mistake in my order. Another interesting things to notice in these situations is that, when I correct them, by pointing again at what I ordered before, they recognize their mistake, but get angry, as if their mistake was my fault, and that’s called irresponsibility. Now, when you combine irresponsibility with the wrong beliefs, you have a a very dumb person. That’s what stupidity is, it’s a human being doing the wrong things with the wrong beliefs and never ever accepting any responsibility for it. That’s how those with the lowest spiritual conscience behave in general with themselves and others.

Imagine that a literalist and a moderate have gone to a restaurant for lunch, and the menu promises "fresh lobster" as the speciality of the house. Loving lobster, the literalist simply places his order and waits. The moderate does likewise, but claims to be entirely comfortable with the idea that the lobster might not really be a lobster after all—perhaps it's a goose! And, whatever it is, it need not be "fresh" in any conventional sense—for the moderate understands that the meaning of this term shifts according to context. This would be a very strange attitude to adopt toward lunch, but it is even stranger when considering the most important questions of existence—what to live for, what to die for, and what to kill for. Consequently, the appeal of literalism isn't difficult to see. Human beings reflexively demand it in almost every area of their lives. It seems to me that religious people, to the extent that they're 'certain' that their scripture was written or inspired by the Creator of the universe, demand it too. - pg. 67-68

I dial her mum's number, then sit down cross-legged, facing the wall. When she comes on the line, she sounds uncertain, hesitant. 'Hey! Guess where I am?' I ask, my voice loud with false cheer. 'Rami told me. The Wellesly Hospital in Worthing. What's it like?' 'For a loony-bin it's actually quite decent,' I reply. 'I don't have Sky or an en-suite, and the menu isn't exactly à la carte, but you know...' I tail off. There is a silence. 'Do you have your own room?' Jenna asks, 'Oh yeah, yeah. I have a lovely view of the sea between the bars of my window.' She doesn't laugh. 'Have you started' -there is a pause as she searches for the right word -'threatment?' 'Yeah, yeah. We had group therapy today. Tomorrow we'll probably have art therapy - maybe I'll draw you a hourse and a garden. I know, perhaps they'll teach us to make baskets! Isn't that why they call us basket cases?' 'Flynn, stop,' Jennah softly implores. 'And we'll probably have music therapy the day after. Maybe I'll get to play the tambourine. Or the triangle. I've always wanted to play the triangle!' 'Flynn-' 'No, I'm serious! I'll ask for some manuscript paper and see if I can write a composition for tambourine and triangle. Then I can post if off to you to hand in for my next composition assignment.' 'Flynn, listen-' 'Hold on, hold on! I'm making a note to myself now: Find fellow insane musician and start composing the Flynn Laukonen Sonata for Tambourine and Triangle.' 'Flynn-' 'And then, when they let me out, if they ever let me out, perhaps you could pull a few strigns and organize for me and my tambourine buddy to give a recital. I'm not sure where though -how about the subway at Marble Arch tube? Nice and central, good acoustics-' 'What are the other people like?' Jennah cuts in, an edge to her voice. I notice she doesn't use the word patients. Clever Jennah. For a moment there you almost made me forget I was locked up in a mental institution. 'Round the bend, just like me,' I reply. 'I'm in excellent company. We'll be swapping suicide tips in no time at all!' I give a harsh laugh.

After a lineup of stellar secondi- braised tripe, fried lamb chops, veal braciola simmered in tomato sauce- Andrea and I wander into the kitchen to talk with Leonardo Vignoli, the man behind the near-perfect meal. Cesare al Casaletto had been a neighborhood anchor since the 1950's, but when Leonardo and his wife, Maria Pia Cicconi, bought it in 2009, they began implementing small changes to modernize the food. Eleven years working in Michelin-starred restaurants in France gave Leonardo a perspective and a set of skills to bring back to Rome. "I wanted to bring my technical base to the flavors and aromas I grew up on." From the look of the menu, Cesare could be any other trattoria in Rome; it's not until you twirl that otherworldly cacio e pepe (which Leonardo makes using ice in the pan to form a thicker, more stable emulsion) and attack his antipasti- polpette di bollito, crunchy croquettes made from luscious strands of long-simmered veal; a paper cone filled with fried squid, sweet and supple, light and greaseless- that you understand what makes this place special.

I cooked with so many of the greats: Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert, Wylie Dufresne, Grant Achatz. Rick Bayless taught me not one but two amazing mole sauces, the whole time bemoaning that he never seemed to know what to cook for his teenage daughter. Jose Andres made me a classic Spanish tortilla, shocking me with the sheer volume of viridian olive oil he put into that simple dish of potatoes, onions, and eggs. Graham Elliot Bowles and I made gourmet Jell-O shots together, and ate leftover cheddar risotto with Cheez-Its crumbled on top right out of the pan. Lucky for me, Maria still includes me in special evenings like this, usually giving me the option of joining the guests at table, or helping in the kitchen. I always choose the kitchen, because passing up the opportunity to see these chefs in action is something only an idiot would do. Susan Spicer flew up from New Orleans shortly after the BP oil spill to do an extraordinary menu of all Gulf seafood for a ten-thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raising dinner Maria hosted to help the families of Gulf fishermen. Local geniuses Gil Langlois and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard joined forces with Gale Gand for a seven-course dinner none of us will ever forget, due in no small part to Gil's hoisin oxtail with smoked Gouda mac 'n' cheese, Stephanie's roasted cauliflower with pine nuts and light-as-air chickpea fritters, and Gale's honey panna cotta with rhubarb compote and insane little chocolate cookies. Stephanie and I bonded over hair products, since we have the same thick brown curls with a tendency to frizz, and the general dumbness of boys, and ended up giggling over glasses of bourbon till nearly two in the morning. She is even more awesome, funny, sweet, and genuine in person than she was on her rock-star winning season on Bravo. Plus, her food is spectacular all day. I sort of wish she would go into food television and steal me from Patrick. Allen Sternweiler did a game menu with all local proteins he had hunted himself, including a pheasant breast over caramelized brussels sprouts and mushrooms that melted in your mouth (despite the occasional bit of buckshot). Michelle Bernstein came up from Miami and taught me her white gazpacho, which I have since made a gajillion times, as it is probably one of the world's perfect foods.

She hadn't gotten his expression quite right in her imagination, because the stunned, vacant expression on Shane's face when she started down the stairs was even better than fantasy. His mouth actually dropped open. Next to him, Michael turned around, and although she hadn't counted on it, there was a warm fuzzy to making a hot golden-angel vampire blink and give her a quick, involuntary once-over. Claire stopped on the steps above them and did a tentative hip-shimmy. "Okay?" she asked. Shane's mouth shut with a snap, and Michael actually cleared his throat. "Fine," Michael said. "Fine?" That was Eve, coming down the stairs behind Claire. She moved around the roadblock and punched Michael in the arm. "She looks amazing. I'm not half g*y and I think she's hot." Shane wasn't saying anything. Claire felt warm and a little dizzy, the way he was looking at her. She resisted the urge to check to see if her skirt was straight -- she'd done it a dozen times already --and forced herself to meet his gaze and smile. "You sure this is smart?" Shane asked, which was not what she'd expected, not at all. "You look fantastic." "Thanks -- " He interrupted her. "Fantastic in this town pops you to the top of the take-out menu." She held up her left hand and pointed to her wrist. The gold bracelet was clearly visible. "I'll be okay," she said. "The vamps won't bother me." "Not even talking about the vamps. You're going to be drawing every guy there who's looking to get off.

Real burrata is a creation of arresting beauty- white and unblemished on the surface, with a swollen belly and a pleated top. The outer skin should be taut and resistant, while the center should give ever so slightly with gentle prodding. Look at the seam on top: As with mozzarella, it should be rough, imperfect, the sign of human hands at work. Cut into the bulge, and the deposit of fresh cream and mozzarella morsels seems to exhale across the plate. The richness of the cream- burrata comes from burro, the Italian word for "butter"- coats the mouth, the morsels of mozzarella detonate one by one like little depth charges, and the entire package pulses with a gentle current of acidity. The brothers, of course, like to put their own spin on burrata. Sometimes that means mixing cubes of fresh mango into its heart. Or Spanish anchovies. Even caviar. Today, Paolo sends me next door to a vegetable stand to buy wild arugula, which he chops and combines with olives and chunks of tuna and stirs into the liquid heart of the burrata, so that each bite registers in waves: sharp, salty, fishy, creamy. It doesn't move me the same way the pure stuff does, but if I lived on a daily diet of burrata, as so many Dicecca customers do, I'd probably welcome a little surprise in the package from time to time. While the Diceccas experiment with what they can put into burrata, the rest of the world rushes to find the next food to put it onto. Don't believe me? According to Yelp, 1,800 restaurants in New York currently serve burrata. In Barcelona, more than 500 businesses have added it to the menu. Burrata burgers, burrata pizza, burrata mac and cheese. Burrata avocado toasts. Burrata kale salads. It's the perfect food for the globalized palate: neutral enough to fit into anything, delicious enough to improve anything.

Harvard University biologist David Haig has spent the last few years systematically debunking the notion that the relationship between a mother and her unborn child is anything like the rose-tinted idyll that one usually finds on the glossy covers of maternity magazines. In fact, it is anything but. Pre-eclampsia, a condition of dangerously high blood pressure in pregnant women, is brutally kick-started by nothing short of a foetal coup d’état. It begins with the placenta invading the maternal bloodstream and initiating what, in anyone’s book, is a ruthless biological heist – an in utero sting operation to draw out vital nutrients. And I’m not just talking about baby Gordon Gekkos here – I’m talking about all of us. The curtain-raiser is well known to obstetricians. The foetus begins by injecting a crucial protein into the mother’s circulation which forces her to drive more blood, and therefore more nourishment, into the relatively low-pressure placenta. It’s a scam, pure and simple, which poses a significant and immediate risk to the mother’s life. ‘The bastard!’ says Andy. ‘Shall we get some olives?’ ‘And it’s by no means the only one,’ I continue. In another embryonic Ponzi scheme, foetal release of placental lactogen counteracts the effect of maternal insulin thereby increasing the mother’s blood sugar level and providing an excess for the foetus’s own benefit. ‘A bowl of the citrus and chilli and a bowl of the sweet pepper and basil,’ Andy says to the waiter. Then he peers at me over the menu. ‘So basically what you’re saying then is this: forget the Gaddafis and the Husseins. When it comes to chemical warfare it’s the unborn child that’s top dog!’ ‘Well they definitely nick stuff that isn’t theirs,’ I say. ‘And they don’t give a damn about the consequences.’ Andy smiles. ‘So in other words they’re psychopaths!’ he says. BABY

In Riverview, we stopped at Larkin’s Drugstore for a cold drink. Leaving the rest of us to scramble out unaided, John offered Hannah his hand. Although I’d just seen her leap out of a tree as fearless as a cat, she let him help her. At the soda fountain, Hannah took a seat beside John. In her white dress, she was as prim and proper as any lady you ever saw. Quite frankly, I liked her better the other way. I grabbed the stool on the other side of Hannah and spun around on it a couple of times, hoping to get her to spin with me, but the only person who noticed was Mama. She told me to sit still and behave myself. “You act like you have ants in your pants,” she said, embarrassing me and making Theo laugh. While I was sitting there scowling at Theo in the mirror, John leaned around Hannah and grinned at me. “To celebrate your recovery, Andrew, I’m treating everyone to a lemon phosphate--everyone, that is, except you.” He paused dramatically, and Hannah gave him a smile so radiant it gave me heartburn. She was going to marry John someday, I knew that. But while I was here, I wanted her all to myself, just Hannah and me playing marbles in the grove, talking, sharing secrets, climbing trees. She had the rest of her life to spend with stupid John Larkin. “As the guest of honor,” John went on, “you may pick anything your heart desires.” Slightly placated by his generosity, I stared at the menu. It was amazing what you could buy for a nickel or a dime in 1910. “Choose a sundae,” Theo whispered. “It costs the most.” “How about a root beer float?” Hannah suggested. “Egg milk chocolate,” Mama said. “It would be good for you, Andrew.” “Tonic water would be even better,” John said, “or, best of all, a delicious dose of cod-liver oil.” When Hannah gave him a sharp poke in the ribs, John laughed. “Andrew knows I’m teasing. Come on, what will it be, sir?” Taking Theo’s advice, I asked for a chocolate sundae. “Good choice,” John said. “You’d have to go all the way to St. Louis to find better ice cream.

Now Janie ordered a drink and glanced at the bar menu, choosing the goat curry because she'd never had it before. "You sure about that?" the barman said. He was a boy, really, no more than twenty, with a slim body and huge, laughing eyes. "It's spicy." "I can take it," she said, smiling at him, wondering if she might pull an adventure out of her hat on her next-to-last night, and what it would be like to touch another body again. But the boy simply nodded and brought her the dish a short time later, not even watching to see how she fared with it. The goat curry roared in her mouth. "I'm impressed. I don't think I could eat that stuff," remarked the man sitting two seats down from her. He was somewhere in the midst of middle age, a bust of a man, all chest and shoulders, with a ring of blond, bristling hair circling his head like the laurels of Julius Caesar and a boxer's nose beneath bold, undefeated eyes. He was the only other guest that wasn't with the wedding party. She'd seen him around the hotel and on the beach and had been uninspired by his business magazines, his wedding ring. She nodded back at him and took an especially large spoonful of curry, feeling the heat oozing from every pore. "Is it good?" "It is, actually," she admitted, "in a crazy, burn-your-mouth-out kind of way." She took a sip of the rum and Coke she'd ordered; it was cold and startling after all that fire. "Yeah?" He looked from her plate to her face. The tops of his cheeks and his head were bright pink, as if he'd flown right up to the sun and gotten away with it. "Mind if I have a taste?" She stared at him, a bit nonplussed, and shrugged. What the hell. "Be my guest." He moved quickly over to the seat next to hers. He picked up her spoon and she watched as it hovered over her plate and then dove down and scooped a mouthful of her curry, depositing between his lips. "Jee-sus," he said. He downed a glass of water. "Jee-sus Christ." But he was laughing as he said it, and his brown eyes were admiring her frankly over the rim of his water glass. He'd probably noticed her smiling at the bar boy and decided she was up for something. But was she? She looked at him and saw it all instantaneously: the interest in his eyes, the smooth, easy way he moved his left hand slightly behind the roti basket, temporarily obscuring the finger with the wedding ring.