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S Quotes

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“She decided to make salmon baked in a touch of olive oil, topped with pine nuts, and served over spinach flash-fried in the salmon-and-olive-oil drippings. She added brown rice that she had slow-boiled with the herb hawthorn. Just as she finished, Cordelia arrived with a woman she had found standing in the sidewalk out front. "My husband has high blood pressure," she explained, negotiating the stairs down into Portia's apartment with care. "He's never happy with anything I make for supper, so I should tell you that you probably don't have anything that will work for me." Cordelia took a look at the meal, raised an eyebrow at Portia, and then turned to the woman. "This is the perfect meal for your husband's high blood pressure. Fish oil, nuts, hawthorn, whole grains." Next, a pumpkin pie went to a woman who couldn't sleep. "Pie?" she asked in a doubtful tone. "Pumpkin," Portia clarified, "is good for insomnia." An apricot crumble spiced with cloves and topped with oats and brown sugar went to a woman drawn with stress. Then a man walked through the door, shoulders slumped. Cordelia and Olivia eyed him for a second. "I know the feeling," Olivia said, and fetched him a half gallon of the celery and cabbage soup Portia had found herself preparing earlier. The man peered into the container, grew a tad queasier, and said, "No thanks." "Do you or don't you have a hangover?" Olivia demanded, then drew a breath. "Really," she added more kindly. "Eat this and you'll feel better." He came back the next day for more. "Cabbage is no cure for drinking too much," Cordelia told him. He just shrugged and slapped down his money for two quarts of soup instead of one.”

“She decided to start them off with a Sweet Corn Bisque with Crab "Souffle." The pureed texture of this deeply penetrating soup gave it a rich, suede-smooth mouth-feel, and the stack of jumbo lump crabmeat mounded in the center, warm and bound together with a whisper of mayonnaise and coriander, told someone immediately that you were excited they came. The main course would be center-cut Filet Mignon in a Grand Marnier Reduction, with Chestnut Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans Amandine. Romantic encounters had been preceded by bold yet classically inspired meals like this since Casanova's day. She advised Pettibone in no uncertain terms that the steaks needed to be done just to the brink of medium-rare, then finished with butter and allowed to carry-over cook their last five minutes for the best results. Dessert would be a delicate Flan with Sauternes Caramel, a velvety, infused custard that finished with a rapturous, dulcet swirl of caramel on the tongue.”

“She deigned to asked me how ice queens reproduce. I grinned, and her mother looked horrified. “We procreate by way of ice cubes, of course. We put them in our nests and let them incubate for the period of about four months, and when the temperature is right, we put them out to roost and let them flake off into billions of snowflakes, rather like tadpoles breaking in droves from their eggs. And that, child,” I said, with a simulacrum of glee, “is how winter is born.” “Does it hurt?” “No more than the approach of Monday does to most of the world. It is a natural process, you understand, but it is dreadful hard work.”

“She designed the cakes and I worked out the recipes. The first year we each created a signature cake. Genie's was called the Goddess: really tall, all white on the outside, wrapped in mountains of coconut and whipped cream, with a passion-fruit heart." "And yours was called the Shrinking Violet. Unassuming on the outside but pretty special once you worked your way in." She reached over and squeezed my wrist. "Wish I'd thought of that. You'd understand if you knew my sister." By now I was a little drunk. "One year Genie came up with Melting Cakes. You know, like flourless chocolate, the kind that are melted in the middle? They were gorgeous neon colors, and I made the flavors intense- blood orange, blueberry, lime, hibiscus, and caramel.”

“She did feel everything she’d said. The despair. Who wouldn’t, if they were paying attention? But you didn’t feel it all the time. You walled it up with purpose. With friendship. With vows and work. And you reminded yourself that it was not just you who felt this way, that there were others out there with their own pits and walls and vows and love and work, and you tried to let that make you kind.”

“She did get put through the system with a lot of the hit songwriters, who were great songwriters, but it was more like 'This is how it's done here. It turned her off - not specific people, but the whole system turned her off. And she wanted to do something, I think, that she could play for her friends in Texas and they would say, Okay, well you're still Miranda.”

“She did like books and reading, but sometimes she just wanted to talk to her mom. She listened, though, because her mother never failed to find the exact-right perfect book, and she read it in a way that made you want to listen forever. As always, her mother was right. There was a book for everything. Somewhere in the vast Library of the Universe, as Natalie thought of it, her mom could find a book that embodied exactly the things Natalie was worrying about. And sure enough, Maya Running, about a girl from India whose family didn't fit in, did make her feel better. Like she wasn't the only kid in the world with a different kind of family. You're never alone when you're reading a book, Mom liked to say.”

“She did not belong to the healthy group of widows and widowers who, after mourning, would nurture the seed of their grief into growing from loss—perhaps continuing the dreams of the lost, or learning to cherish alone the things they’d cherished together. She belonged instead to the sad lot who clung to grief, who nurtured it by never moving beyond it. They’d shelter it deep inside where the years padded it in saudade layers like some malignant pearl.”

“She did not choose to become a wanderer. She did not take a conscious decision that she wants to become a wanderer. Destiny chose her to wander. And then she became a wanderer. The wanderings keep on happening on their own. And the wanderer keeps on wandering! The wanderer does not have a final home. She does not have a certain destination. She keeps on drifting from place to place. And wanderings become her destiny! And she becomes the wanderer!”

“She did not know how long he stood caressing her before he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed his mouth to the bare skin of her wrist. Her eyes closed against the flood of sensation that came with the touch- the softness of his lips, parted just enough to breathe a hot, moist kiss upon her before he scraped his teeth against the sensitive spot. She heard her own gasp and opened her eyes just in time to feel his tongue soothing the skin. He boldly met her gaze as he wreaked havoc on her senses, and she couldn't help but watch him, knowing that he knew exactly what he was doing to her.”