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The Scent Keeper

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No Two Persons

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“The smell of dry earth, opening to the rain in the spring. It unlocked me like a key. Once upon a time, Emmeline. "Petrichor," Rene said. "The word comes from petra, which means stones, and ichor, the ethereal blood of the Greek gods. Plants release an oil that stops their seeds from germinating when it would be too difficult to survive. The oil soaks into the pores of the stones, and is set free with water. They say it's the smell of waiting, paid off.”

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

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Book:The School of Essential Ingredients
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“I tried to read the menu, but I kept getting distracted. The aromas from the kitchen filled the room- melting butter, grilling meat, soft and sharp spices. All of them better than any of the restaurant smells I'd had to pass by during my time in the city. My mouth was watering, and my nose was so focused that I could barely skim the first few items. Sablefish with miso glaze Duck, dry-aged and served with pureed butternut squash Wagyu New York strip I had no idea what these things were, except for duck, which I couldn't help but feel sorry for. Dry-aged sounded like an especially bad death for a waterfowl. The waiter returned. "Shall I order for us?" Victoria asked. I nodded, grateful. "Anything you don't eat? Allergies?" I shook my head. Nobody had ever asked me that before. On the island, I'd eaten what I gathered. At the cove, I ate what came to the table. Now I'd eat anything that didn't involve the jar in my backpack. "We'll start with the clam chowder," Victoria said. "We can order more later." The waiter nodded respectfully and disappeared again. "They make it with fresh clams," she told me. "It's exceptional." A young woman with a fancy braid in her hair brought us a basket of French bread, still warm from the oven. I watched as Victoria spread one slice with butter that melted as she applied it, releasing the faintest scent of flowers. "Here," she said, handing it to me. The crust gave way under my teeth with a delicate crunch, the butter soft on my tongue. It tasted even better than it smelled. After almost two weeks of hard mattresses and strangers and failure, I wanted to crawl inside the comfort of this bread and stay there forever.”

FoodBread And ButterMenuAromasGourmet Food ItemsMother Daughter Interactions
Book:The Scent Keeper
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“By the time Lillian had turned twelve ears old, cooking had become her family. It had taught her lessons usually imparted by parents- economy from a limp head of celery left too long in the hydrator, perseverance from the whipping of heavy cream, the power of memories from oregano, whose flavor only grew stronger as it dried. Her love of new ingredients had brought her to Abuelita, the owner of the local Mexican grocery store, who introduced her to avocados and cilantro, and taught her the magic of matching ingredients with personalities to change a person's mood or a life. But the day when twelve-year-old Lillian had handed her mother an apple- fresh-picked from the orchard down the road on an afternoon when Indian summer gave over to autumn- and Lillian's mother had finally looked up from the book she was reading, food achieved a status for Lillian that was almost mystical. "Look how you've grown," Lillian's mother had said, and life had started all over again. There was conversation at dinner, someone else's hand on the brush as it ran through her hair at night. A trip to New York, where they had discovered a secret fondue restaurant, hidden behind wooden shutters during the day, open by candlelight at night. Excursions to farmers' markets and bakeries and a shop that made its own cheese, stretching and pulling the mozzarella like taffy. Finally, Lillian felt like she was cooking for a mother who was paying attention, and she played in an open field of pearl couscous and Thai basil, paella and spanakopita and eggplant Parmesan.”

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Book:The Lost Art of Mixing
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“By the time Lillian had turned twelve years old, cooking had become her family. It had taught her lessons usually imparted by parents- economy from a limp head of celery left too long in the hydrator, perseverance from the whipping of heavy cream, the power of memories from oregano, whose flavor only grew stronger as it dried. Her love of new ingredients had brought her to Abuelita, the owner of the local Mexican grocery store, who introduced her to avocados and cilantro, and taught her the magic of matching ingredients with personalities to change a person's mood or a life. But the day when twelve-year-old Lillian had handed her mother an apple- fresh-picked from the orchard down the road on an afternoon when Indian summer gave over to autumn- and Lillian's mother had finally looked up from the book she was reading, food achieved a status for Lillian that was almost mystical. "Look how you've grown," Lillian's mother had said, and life had started all over again. There was conversation at dinner, someone else's hand on the brush as it ran through her hair at night. A trip to New York, where they had discovered a secret fondue restaurant, hidden behind wooden shutters during the day, open by candlelight at night. Excursions to farmers' markets and bakeries and a shop that made its own cheese, stretching and pulling the mozzarella like taffy. Finally, Lillian felt like she was cooking for a mother who was paying attention, and she played in an open field of pearl couscous and Thai basil, paella and spanakopita and eggplant Parmesan.”

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Book:The Lost Art of Mixing
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“She opened the kitchen door and the smells came to greet her. The sensual, come-hither scent of chocolate cake. Mint, for the customer who always liked hers fresh-picked for her late-night tea. Red pepper seeds and onion skins, waiting in the compost pail that Finnegan had not, she could tell, emptied last night. Cooked boar meat from a ragout sauce that was a winter tradition, the smell striding toward her like a strong, sweaty hunter.”

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Book:The Lost Art of Mixing
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“The fragrance started off bright and happy, fresh-cut grass and sunshine, iced hibiscus tea, the best of a Sunday afternoon. Lavender and rose released their sweetness into the air so serenely you knew there was not a weed within ten yards of them. The scents filtered out through the store, and as Victoria and I watched, the customers began putting down their phones, looking about with greater interest, smiling at one another. "Well, you certainly made them friendly," Victoria said. I just smiled. The fragrance began to deepen. Vanilla, the clarion call of mothers in aprons and after-school cookies warm from the oven. The women's expressions softened. Your life can be like this, the fragrance said. Your children will love you. Then, slowly, lazily, in came the scent of jasmine. Victoria tilted her head. "Hello, troublemaker," she said. It floated out across the room, heavy and sensual, the essence of beautiful, younger women. Women who birthed children and wore bikinis within a month, or worse yet, never had children at all, their stomachs taut, their breasts ripe. Women who drew the wandering eyes of husbands. Then, even as the customers began shifting away from each other with polite, nervous smiles, there came another scent, lurking inside the jasmine, where it always waited- a touch of indole. A trail that led you downward, into the dirt. But not enough- the fragrance was still too sweet. It hovered in the store, off-kilter. "Hmm," Victoria said, her eyebrows pulling together. "Wait," I said. The want of balance was like an ache in the air. The fragrance reached out, searching, begging for completion. It didn't want sweet. It didn't want nice. And then, out of the skin, the sweat, the very heat of the women's thoughts, came the missing base note. Keen edged as a knife, it rose to meet the sweetness. Jealousy. As we watched, one of the women picked up a cashmere throw and clutched it to her chest. Another sat down on a leather couch, her arms spread out like a claim jumper. Mine. "Brilliant," Victoria said, stifling a laugh. "Absolutely brilliant.”

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Book:The Scent Keeper
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“And it was then, looking down at the town, that William truly understood that he would never hear a new story, a new secret, from Abigail. He’d known the physical reality of that, of course. But this was a different understanding, more complicated and subtle. More literary, Abigail said in his head. Which only proved the point – that Abigail’s words now could only ever be things she had said, not things a future Abigail, altered by events that had not yet happened, would say.”

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Book:No Two Persons
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“Isabelle had always thought of her mind as a garden, a magical place to play as a child, when the grown-ups were having conversations and she was expected to listen politely-- and even, although she hated to admit this, later with Edward, her husband, when listening to the particularities of his carpet salesmanship wore her thin. Every year the garden grew larger, the paths longer and more complicated. Meadows of memories. Of course, her mental garden hadn't always been well tended. There were the years when the children were young, fast-moving periods when life flew by without time for the roots of deep reflection, and yet she knew memories were created whether one pondered them or not. She had always considered that one of the luxuries of growing older would be the chance to wander through the garden that had grown while she wasn't looking. She would sit on a bench and let her mind take every path, tend every moment she hadn't paid attention to, appreciate the juxtaposition of the one memory against another.”

Beautiful
Book:The School of Essential Ingredients
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“The missing element couldn't be in the top notes. I figured that out quickly enough. Top notes were the ones that caught your attention, the glittering invitations that led you deeper into a fragrance. It couldn't be a middle note, either- those warm, round things, full and loving. Taking them out would induce the soft purple of wanting, but that was still too passive. Need lived in base notes. It was the difference between appetite and craving, a bruised heart and a broken one. Base notes were just that, base- subterranean and simmering, dirt and blood, grief and desire and memory.”

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Book:The Scent Keeper
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“Something was coming. Nola could feel it. She wanted to stop reading, but she couldn’t, because she could tell that this was the moment that would rip the boy’s life into a before and after. Fiction and reality. She knew the lesson that moment taught you – that everything you believed was yours, all the cinnamon toast and hugs and campfires, was just something you’d visited, not something you were guaranteed as a generic human being.”

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Book:No Two Persons
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“As I took off the rumpled sheets, the smell of the people who had slept in them would lift up into the air. There was the round, almost sweet sweat smell of a child who had spent a day happily exploring, or the sharper-edged odor of one who'd gone to bed unhappy. With the bigger beds, I came to understand the way the scents of two people could mingle as effortlessly as rainwater, and to recognize the times they stayed apart, the smells resolutely separate. Sometimes there were those unreal perfumes, jumbling and talking too loudly- but underneath them I could always find the person. Sadness, like the dark purple juice of a blackberry. Fear, like the metallic taste of an oncoming storm. Love, which smelled like nothing so much as fresh bread. In an odd way, the game wasn't that different from reading the smells of our island. Scents were always about what was growing and what was dying. What would last through the next season. This was just with people instead of trees or flowers or dirt.”

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

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Book:The School of Essential Ingredients
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“Jack's marketing books had been a part of her life for so long that she had ceased to register their presence, simply moving them from the couch to the coffee table, from the bed to the nightstand. How to Sell Everything to Anybody. Eight Great Habits of CEOs. They all seemed to involve numbers, as if you could simply count yourself to riches, like following sheep to sleep.”

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Book:Joy For Beginners
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“Nutmeg." Claudia grabbed the bottle and screwed the cap back on. The story was still filtering through me when a new scent exploded forth. "Orris root," Claudia said, tapping the new bottle on the table. "Am I going too fast for you?" "No," I lied. "Good." Linden blossom. Tonka bean. Benzoin. The smells came at me, little glass missiles fired across the table in rapid succession. "The point is speed and precision," Claudia said. She pushed a stack of papers toward me, the pages divided into rows and columns. "Put each scent in a category. Fresh, floral, woody, spicy, animal, marine, fruity. You need to recognize them instantly, without thinking." The bottles started again, and the world turned into charts and rows, filled with an onslaught of strange names. Litsea cubeba. Frangipani. Neroli. Tagette. Orange broke into pieces, became pettigrain, bergamot, tangerine, mandarin, bitter, sweet, and blood. Pepper was black, green, or pink. Mint was winter, spear, or pepper.”

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Book:The Scent Keeper
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“By the end of the day, I'd reached the point where I could sense the category of a scent almost before the bottle was open. Fresh was quick and cool, never warm. Floral was soft and seductive, the kind that kept its clothes on, showing only an ankle or a shoulder. Spicy bit your nose, woke you up. Woody sent me to the island so fast I couldn't stop the tears from filling my eyes. I couldn't wait to start combining them, creating something new. Victoria was right- this was a language, my language, and I wanted to write.”

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Book:The Scent Keeper
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“Every perfume is made of top, middle, and base notes. Top notes are light, middle notes last longer, base notes last longest. A good perfume has all three, but they have to be in the proper proportions." The sentences washed over me in a wave of technicalities, but I could feel what she was talking about. It had happened with every scent-paper I'd smelled, the fragrance shifting, telling a story that deepened even as it disappeared. Even nature was that way, if you thought about it- the bright green of the trees giving way to the dark and complicated dirt beneath, the ocean holding the scent of death under all that life.”

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

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Book:The School of Essential Ingredients
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“Dodge looked up and saw me in the window, then lay down in front of the door. Protecting me, I realized. After that, I started watching Dodge all the time. I saw the way he knew by scent alone when Colette's bread was done cooking, or a squirrel was a hundred feet away, or the wind had changed direction. Before he even saw them, he recognized each of the five fishermen who kept their boats in the cove. Most he would go greet, tail wagging, but one he stayed away from. Over the following days, Dodge became my translator of the world outside the house. Through his nose it became safer, and soon I found myself wanting to inhale the air around me as he did, as something pure and alive and full of messages.”

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Book:The Scent Keeper
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