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A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

Book by Nigel Slater · 3 quotes · Scents, Breakfast, Japanese Cuisine

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A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts Quotes

“Petals the color of butter, primroses and farmhouse Caerphilly. Deep egg yolk and elephant's tusk. Others of piercing marigold, honey and Dutch orange. Trumpets of turmeric, saffron and Sienese alleyways. The narcissi I am planting have petals, coronas and stamens in all the colors of spring. The colors of a child's hand-made Easter card. The single narcissi are those I cherish most, as much for their scent as their simple, uncluttered form. Many are placed singly in small, chipped terracotta pots. They will sit snugly between larger terracotta pans of Thalia, miniature scented daffodils the color of buttermilk, and Jetfire with its orange trumpet. There will be a deep pot of Paperwhites and the scrunched creamy-orange Erlicheer. I'm digging in Avalanche with its tangerine fairy cups and Chinese Sacred Lily, which I fear I have acquired for its name alone. My plan is for a zinc table of spring yellows in all the colors of milk on its journey to cheese. Narcissi, their petals and their scent, carry the spirit of Easter. Planting them on a warm afternoon in November is something of an act of hope. The belief that spring will come once again, and that I will be around to enjoy it. If not, then perhaps someone else will.”

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“At night the space is filled with the scent of daphne, philadelphus and Choisya ternata. Protected by walls and hedges, the leaves still rustle in the breeze, whispering to one another or, perhaps, to me. I fancy this part is occupied by relatives of the kami, the sacred spirits of the Japanese forest, which can take the form of trees, of which the Cornus Gloria Birkett is now the most splendid, its pale bracts like a shimmer of creamy-white butterflies come to rest.”

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“Once established, jasmine grows well in this garden, and there are three, no, four varieties now. A soft yellow, like clotted cream, that hangs loosely from the window boxes, shifting in the breeze. A pink variety, Jasminum stephanense, clambers up the brittle, naked stems of a much older plant, using its relative as a trellis. White stars of Jasminum grandiflorum cover the tendrils that have woven a canopy over the courtyard, a fragrant white parasol whose petals fall like snowflakes each autumn.”

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Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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