Big Thoughts, Human-sized Canvas
Having eaten kasha in Poland his entire youth, he both spiritually and physically craved this grain.
When I first met him, Isaac had been a strict vegetarian for…
How strange that we acquire tastes as we grow. Babies don’t like olives, mustard, hot pepper, beer, fruits that make one pucker, or coffee. After all…
Bilbo knelt on one knee filled with sorrow. “Farewell, King under the Mountain!” he said. “This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils – that has…”
Peaches are as old as China,
reserved for the first emperors
This one will be gone in a day
the pit a prize fit only for compost…
I reveled in her humor. Spontaneous humor – such as the time she pulled a bouquet garni out of a bubbling stock and said of the used bundle of herbs, “It looks like a dead mouse,” and the time she announced, to cover for a bell that inadvertently…
Besides, such admissions only draw attention to one’s shortcomings (or self-perceived shortcomings), and make the other person think, “Yes, you’re right, this is really an awful meal!” Maybe the cat has fallen into the…
No matter what was going on behind the scenes or how many times the director or Sonya asked for retakes, Julia’s humor never failed her. Hers was such a quick wit; it was smart and natural, never corny, sarcastic or strained. She…
Lettuce, like most talkers, is, however, apt to run rapidly to seed. Blessed is that sort which comes to a head, and so remains, like a few people I know; growing more solid and satisfactory and tender at the same time, and whiter at the center, and crisp in their maturity. Lettuce, like conversation…
“…I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”
“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy.
I ask the young woman who brings us refills on the coffee what this wonderful soup is called, feeling like a person from San Antonio walking into a New York deli and asking what a bagel is. She opens her mouth and puffs at me. I can’t tell if it’s a word or an expression of Vietnamese…
After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don’t let it stand more than three minutes), it says to the brain, “Now, rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling…”
