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Quote by Rajani LaRocca

“We came to a clearing and stopped. Dark green vines with oblong leaves and purple flowers in pairs grew everywhere- under our feet, around tree trunks and small shrubs, in a circle at least thirty feet wide. Fat green-eyed insects buzzed lazily around the blossoms. A heavy, luscious fragrance filled the air. "Honeysuckle!" I plucked a couple of flowers and took a moment to appreciate the dark purple petals that faded to lavender and then white at their base. I brought one to my nose and sniffed. My cousins had a vine like this at their house in India. But these blossoms were gargantuan, each one the size of my palm. I pinched off the green cap that held the petals together, pulled on the little string that was exposed, and tasted the small glob of nectar that glistened at the end. My mouth burst with sweetness.”

Quote by Rajani LaRocca

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Midsummer's Mayhem

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Rajani LaRocca

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“After some experimentation, we put hot water in a measuring cup and dissolved the honeysuckle nectar by swirling the stems around. When we were done with all the flowers, I tasted the golden liquid; it was sweet and fragrant. There wasn't much of the solution, though- we'd have to make a very small batch if we wanted the honeysuckle to be noticeable. We measured out the dry ingredients and Vik whisked in a pinch of ground cloves while I creamed the butter with the sugar, and then added honey. We poured in the honeysuckle nectar and combined everything. Vik and I tasted the dough: it was sweet and spicy, the flavors in perfect harmony.”

“Her dad never brought Phil and Lara back to the graveyard. He had buried some of her mother's things beneath a honeysuckle in the garden. A worn leather glove, a birthday card that she had written for each of them. The last photograph of the four of them together. There was a wisdom to what he had done; Lara saw it now. As the memory of her mother faded, the honeysuckle grew stronger. When Lara stood beneath it in summer, when it was in full bloom, her mother's sweetness seemed to live on in the scent of the flowers.”

“As an editor, you develop a B.S. meter—an internal warning system that signals caution about journalism that doesn't feel trustworthy. Sometimes it's a quote or incident that's too perfect —a feeling I always had when reading stories by Stephen Glass in the New Republic. Sometimes it's too many errors of fact, the overuse of anonymous sources, or signs that a reporter hasn't dealt fairly with people or evidence. And sometimes it's a combination of flaws that produces a ring of falsity, the whiff of a bad egg. There's no journalist who sets off my bullshit alarm like Ron Suskind.”