Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Francesca Serritella

Quote by Francesca Serritella

“They ordered a parade of tapas and shared everything: petal-pink yellowfin tuna with bright orange habanada peppers drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt crystals the size of snowflakes; melt-in-your-mouth clams drenched in butter, white wine, and a confetti of parsley, and when the clams had been eaten, Gabe read her mind and ordered extra bread to sop up the sauce; a small bouquet of crispy shrimp heads--- at first glance Iris recoiled at their black eyes unseeing beneath a heavy dusting of red spice, but Gale dug right in, crunching as carelessly as a lion. Iris stalled and hesitated over trying one, laughing as Gabe cheered her on, yelping when the whiskery antennae tickled her nose, until she finally gave one a hasty chomp. Gabe was right, it was delicious--- a riot of different textures and tastes such that she savored her next bites--- even if she did leave the eyes uneaten. And finally the piri piri half chicken, the aroma alone evoked a future longing before the first bite was taken.”

Quote by Francesca Serritella

Book:Full Bloom
Create image

Work

Full Bloom

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Francesca Serritella

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Francesca Serritella. more

You May Also Like

“The caneton took long enough that by the time it showed up, I was hungry again. It was two ducks, actually, tiny and crisp and snuggled tight on a silver tray, swimming in a sauce spiked with brandy and caramel, surrounded by little boats of carved orange peel. It looked exactly like it had in Our World, only better because it was mine. It was the first thing I'd ever eaten where it smelled so good, I tasted it before it hit my mouth. The skin cracked like spring ice. The flesh was almost too salty, almost too sweet, but instead it was perfect--- so tender, I didn't even want to swallow. I just wanted to hold it in my mouth and let it melt. I ate both ducks and knew I'd never be the same. By then I was drunk on butter and salt. But when Jean-Louis brought out a frosted tureen of chocolate mousse, I didn't think of saying no. He slapped it onto my plate like a mason laying down mortar and topped it with a dollop of whipped cream. I licked my plate clean. I didn't think I could stand and was very grateful when, instead of asking me to haul myself out of there, Laurent poured me a little glass of crème de cassis.”

OrangeDessertDuckFrench FoodDinner DateChocolate Mousse
Book:To Kill a Cook
Create image

“Dylan, Duende, Death and Lorca Does Bob Dylan have Duende? DUENDE dancers perform moving, unique, unrepeatable performances Does Bob Dylan have duende? Do you have duende? What is duende? Duende is a Spanish word with two meanings. A duende is a goblin or a pixie that probably lives at the bottom of the garden and gives three wishes to old ladies who deserve a break. The duende was best defined by Spain’s great poet Federico García Lorca during a lecture he gave in New York in 1929 on Andalusian music known as cante jondo, or deep voice. ‘The duende,’ he said, ‘is a momentary burst of inspiration, the blush of all that is truly alive, all that the performer is creating at a certain moment.’ The difference between a good and a bad singer is that the good singer has the duende and the bad singer doesn’t. ‘There are no maps nor disciplines to help us find the duende. We only know that he burns the blood like a poultice of broken glass, that he exhausts, that he rejects all the sweet geometry we have learned.’ Some critics say Bob Dylan does not have a great voice. But more than any other performer since the birth of recorded music, Dylan has revealed the indefinable, spine-tingling something captured in Lorca’s interpretation of duende. ‘It is an inexplicable power of attraction, the ability to send waves of emotion through those watching and listening to them.’ ‘The duende,’ he continues, ‘resembles what Goethe called the demoniacal. It manifests itself principally among musicians and poets of the spoken word, for it needs the trembling of the moment and then a long silence.’ painting off hell by Hieronymus Bosch Hell & Hieronymus Bosch Four elements can be found in Lorca’s vision of duende: irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death and a dash of the diabolical. I agree with Lorca that duende manifests principally among singers, but would say that same magic may touch us when confronted by great paintings: Picasso’s Guernica, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, the paintings of heaven and hell by Hieronymus Bosch. The duende is found in the bitter roots of human existence, what Lorca referred to as ‘the pain which has no explanation.’ Artists often feel sad without knowing why. They sense the cruel inevitability of fate. They smell the coppery scent of death. All artists live in a permanent state of angst knowing that what they have created could have been better. Death with Duende It is not surprising that Spain found a need for the word duende. It is the only country where death in the bullring is a national spectacle, the only nation where death is announced by the explosion of trumpets and drums. The bullring, divided in sol y sombre – the light and shade, is the perfect metaphor for life and death, a passing from the light into darkness. Every matador who ever lived had duende and no death is more profound than death in the bullring.”

MatadorBullfightersDuende
Book:Sex Surrealism Dali & Me
Create image