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Quote by Mary Jane Clark

“As Piper walked inside, she surmised that the place was part restaurant, part delicatessen, part butcher shop. One long wall was taken up with a sprawling glass-front refrigerated case housing all sorts of meats and cheeses waiting to be sliced. There were aisles of shelves lined with balsamic vinegars, oils, rice, pastas, salts, and seasonings. Customers sat eating sandwiches at several round tables to the side of the room. "What'll it be?" asked the teenager behind the counter. "I'm not sure," said Piper. "What's in a muffuletta?" The young man recited the ingredients. "Salami, pepperoni, ham, capicola, mortadella, Swiss cheese, provolone, and olive salad.”

Quote by Mary Jane Clark

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That Old Black Magic

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Mary Jane Clark

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“Walking into the Milkfarm cheese store and café at lunchtime, I was greeted by the pungent funk of melting aged Gruyère. Helen Harland was in town for a seminar and I was meeting her for lunch. I found her studying the sandwich case. "Gosh," she said. "I don't know what half these things are. Speck? Guanciale? Taleggio? Just pick one for me, please. Nothing too strong or spicy." I ordered her a grilled cheese made with Irish cheddar and French ham on pain au levain, and for myself, speck and young pecorino on a baguette.”

“This particular shop uses three types of Sicilian pistachios and slow roasts them for twenty-four hours. Forty-seven judges from a gelato university crossed the world trying to find the absolute best, and they picked this one. So how could I not do that?" "'Gelato university'?" He chuckles. "I know, right? I definitely missed my calling," I reply, and I love how his laugh gets a little deeper. "But at least you didn't miss the gelato." "Exactly!" I smile, relishing the lightness between us once again. "What else is on your list?" he asks. "Definitely more lentils, and this region is known for truffles, so I have to do that. But they're also known for their meats here, which is interesting. Obviously the cured meats we're used to when we think of Italian charcuteries is here, but also a lot of roasted pork as well, and boar. And sausage! I read a recipe for amatriciana with sausage instead of guanciale. Umbria's actually one of the few regions of Italy without any coastline---" "So you did no research at all before coming?" he says, sarcasm peppered in with a smile. "Please, I'm just getting warmed up. I haven't even gotten into the olive oil varietals. And pesto! That pesto we had at the dinner last night on the lamb chops--- that pesto that has marjoram and walnuts instead of the one we're used to from Liguria, with basil and pine nuts.”

“I smoke. It's expensive. It's also the best option. You see, I am always, always exhausted. It's a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can smoke and go for another hour. When I am enraged and beaten down and incapable of accomplishing one more thing, I can smoke and feel a little better, just for a minute. It is the only relaxation I am allowed.”

“Some people smoked when they were upset, some did yoga, or drank, or paced, or picked fights, or counted to one hundred. Georgia cooked. As a small girl growing up in Massachusetts, she'd spent most of her time in her grandmother's kitchen, watching wide-eyed as Grammy kneaded the dough for her famous pumpernickel bread, sliced up parsnips and turnips for her world-class pot roast, or, if she was feeling exotic, butterflied shrimp for her delicious Thai basil seafood. A big-boned woman of solid peasant stock, as she herself used to say, Grammy moved around the cramped kitchen with grace and efficiency, her curly gray hair twisted into a low bun. Humming pop songs from the forties, her cheeks a pleasing pink, she turned out dish after fabulous dish from the cranky Tappan stove she refused to replace. Those times with Grammy were the happiest Georgia could remember. It had been almost a year since she died, and not a day passed that Georgia didn't miss her. She pulled out half a dozen eggs, sliced supermarket Swiss and some bacon from the double-width Sub-Zero. A quick scan of the spice rack yielded a lifetime supply of Old Bay seasoning, three different kinds of peppercorns, and 'sel de mer' from France's Brittany coast. People's pantries were as perplexing as their lives.”

“Couples will no longer spend their nights in their houses dedicated to habitation and reception, the customary social reason for banalization. The chamber of love will be more remote from the center of the city: it will completely naturally re-create for the partners the notion of ex-centricity, in a place less open to the light, more hidden, in order to return to the atmosphere of the secret. The contrary move, the search for a center of thought, will proceed by the same technique.”

“...devices keep them occupied, and like babies given a pacifier or a breast, they fall silent and begin to entertain themselves quietly with them. However, when those devices are taken away, their addicted selves transform them into beings who make nothing but noise. Their minds are so utterly empty—yet so utterly stubborn—that when silence arises, the only thing they do is suppress it and return to making noise.”