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Quote by Jeffrey Stepakoff

“The soil beneath her smelled rich and wet;the only sound in the absolute silence was her breathing. Grace stood still, as still as she possibly could and listened to the quiet, to the stillness, absorbing the strange beauty. She became aware of her heart beating, pumping blood throughout her body. As she stood here alone at sunrise on this mountain, it was more than dreamlike. Accustomed to a world of limestone-tiled hallways lit by tungsten-filament halogen that smelled of artificial lemon and barbecue chemicals and digitized french fry-flavor molecules, Grace felt that she had stumbled into another world. This high peaceful place, it was heavenlike.”

Quote by Jeffrey Stepakoff

Book:The Orchard
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The Orchard

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Jeffrey Stepakoff
Jeffrey Stepakoff

Jeffrey Stepakoff is a renowned television writer whose works have gained widespread recognition in the industry. Detailed information about his life and achievements is limited. more

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“Notwithstanding the pressure in the room, this was always an emotional moment for Grace Lyndon, when someone was experiencing a scent she had created. When Grace was a little girl, her mother became very sick and lost her ability to hold down food, and in her final days lost her sight. But her sense of smell remained, strong as ever, and young Grace would bring to her mother's bedside fresh cut flowers, lilac and iris and tea rose, the sweet scents infusing the room with light and earth and memories long forgotten, and Grace brought in special foods to smell, like warm orange-ginger rolls, glazed and fragrant as winter holiday mornings, and cotton linens, laundered in lavender water and line-dried so you could smell the sun in them, and slices of ripe apples, a scent so perfect that in the end, it made her mother cry bittersweetly.”

Childhood MemoriesMother And DaughterScentsGrace LyndonSense Of Smell
Book:The Orchard
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“Then she remembered. The apple. Reaching over to her bag on the passenger seat with her right hand, left hand on the wheel, Grace grasped the apple like a baseball and brought it to her face. Again, she held it under her nose and took in its scent. Wow. Even with the wind blowing around her, the fragrance was full and lush and sweet- though not overtly, like so many of today's commercially bred grocery store apples, but deep, dark, sugared, as the night in a Caribbean cane field.”

ScentFragranceAppleGrace Lyndon
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“Taking in the scents of very high-end colognes and perfumes, a whiff of Joy, a trace of Shalini, equally exquisite whiskeys and wines, a mossy Islay, Lagavulin perhaps, first-growth Bordeaux, Latour definitely, a distant hint of Cohiba, Grace headed towards the bar. A melange of fascinating and captivating foods, spiced Kobe beef bao buns and Georgia shrimp and grits souffle and warm Coca-Cola chocolate cake, wafted from a variety of restaurants and open spaces to where Grace stood at the entrance, a cozy intimate living room-like space populated by a very well-dressed, well-heeled, and decidedly young crowd, to which Grace looked as though she belonged.”

PartyScentsFood And WineBarPerfumesGrace LyndonColognes
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“Do you know how to climb a tree?" Grace straightened her posture. "Yes, I know how to climb a tree." "Okay," Carter said skeptically. "When I was your age, I practically lived in trees." Grace grabbed hold of the trunk and began to hoist herself up. After New Guinea, this was gonna be easy. "No offense, but you're not exactly my age anymore," said Carter, amused with herself. Grace squinted at Carter. Then she looked at the wet tree trunk, then up at the girl who was holding her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. Grace was more than confident she could just climb up the trunk, but having been messed with, she decided to show the girl a little something. Standing under the tree, she squatted, and then stood up, and then down and up again, and on the third time, she crouched down as far as she could, and throwing all her weight upward, arms reaching completely outstretched, she jumped as hard and as high as she possibly could, springing from the ground, and with both hands grasped the limb upon which the girl sat. With amusement and curiosity, the girl looked down at Grace dangling below by her hands, exposed feet swinging in the mist. 'What is this lady going to do now?' Shifting her weight, Grace swung herself forward and then back, and then forward again farther and back again farther, and forward again even more, and as she swung back, throwing her weight firmly, she simultaneously lifted herself upward and as she rose parallel to the limb pushed down on it forcefully and with a quick twist of her hips- 'plop'- set herself down right next to the little girl. "I 'know' how to climb a tree," Grace said. "Impressive," said the little girl as she raised an eyebrow. Grace grinned, proud of herself.”

Climbing TreesGrace LyndonCarter Jackson
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“You have a pretty name." "So do you." "Not like you. 'Grace' is the name of a princess or a movie star or, you know, something from heaven. Grace. The fruit of redemption." Carter said it as though repeating something she'd heard many times, which of course she had. Grace just chewed, her mouth full of apple. "At least, that's what they say," Carter continued. "That's what they say." On the backs of Carter's hands Grace could see a few scrapes, the kind kids get from running around in the woods. Grace remembered when the backs of her hands looked just like that. "'Carter' means 'driver of a cart.' In Old English or something. But everyone thinks of the ex-president of Georgia." "Well, I didn't." Carter stared at Grace, blinking, as though looking for something. "I think it's a beautiful name," said Grace. "It's full of character.”

Grace LyndonName MeaningCarter Jackson
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“You want to test our apples?" Carter asked. "I want to find out what makes them taste so special so that we can share that with other people, maybe lots of them." Grace saw Carter's perplexed expression. "You ever had a fruit-flavored soft drink?" "Like an orange soda?" "Exactly. Well, somebody found the perfect orange somewhere, studied it carefully, and then made a formula based on its special flavor so that anyone anywhere in the world could taste it." "In a can of soda." "Right." "Very cool." "Do you like peach ice cream?" "Yes!" "Well, a lot of the 'all-natural peach flavoring' that you taste in that ice cream is really Gamma-Aldehyde C-14, a molecule created by Nanjing Yuance Trade Company, which I'm sure is based on a perfect peach they found somewhere." "So you're like a scientist-cook," Carter said excitedly. "Something like that." Grace smiled.”

ScientistFruitFlavorGrace LyndonCarter JacksonMolecule
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“Grace leaned forward, studying him up close, able to make out some of his facial features in the clay mask: strong brow, broad cheekbones, prominent jawline and chin. As a flavorist, she was familiar with kaolin clay, a virtually tasteless edible mineral often used as an anti-caking agent in processed foods, various toothpastes, and originally kaopectate. But she'd never encountered the raw product out of the lab, and certainly not like this. She leaned closer to him. He smelled of sediment and mostly sweat, a decidedly masculine note, the precise replication of which one could base an entire career, and then some. Even the most skilled perfumers in the world, experts in the animal secrets of civet and ambergris, couldn't get it just right. It was a human thing. And she'd studied it, androstadienone and most of the known male pheromones, and she knew the effects certain concentrates could have on certain women. She'd written the reports and seen the CT scans of activity in women's brains. Still, knowing about it intellectually and rationally did not in any way lessen what it was doing to her right now, the effect it was having on her senses and her body. 'Can he tell?' she wondered. Lean and broad-shouldered, he had the build of a man who spent his days using his body in labor. She could see it in the way the mud set into the ridged musculature of his forearms, like the russeting across a firm apple. Still, the inner details of him escaped her. His hair was caked with dry clay, and she thought of the figures she'd seen artists craft in their hillside studios in Montmartre, with the Sacre-Coeur church on the summit above and the bawdy Moulin Rouge crowds teeming below. He looked like that, an unglazed unfinished sculpture of a man, but for his eyes, vast and deep, and very much alive, as if he were trapped inside his statued body.”

FranceScentClayPhysical AttractionGrace LyndonPheromonesGrace And DylanDylan Jackson
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“After several hours of preparing, cooking, eating, and laughing together, the kitchen was now lit by the glow of candlelight, and the entire house filled with the glorious aroma of freshly roasted heritage turkey. While Dylan had readied the bird with a few sprigs of chopped rosemary, ground black peppercorn, and a splash of maple syrup, Grace and Carter gathered fall beans and bush squash and a few little sugar pie pumpkins, and cooked the vegetables along with the sweet corn that Carter had brought home.”

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