Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

When a person has lived generously and fought fiercely, she deserves more than sadness at the end.

While cooking demands your entire attention, it also rewards you with endlessly sensual pleasures... The seductive softness of chocolate beginning to melt from solid to liquid. The tug of sauce against the spoon when it thickens in teh pan, and the lovely lightness of Parmesan drifting from the grater in gossamer flakes. Time slows down in teh kitchen, offering up an entire universe of small satisfactions.

A thousand years ago the Chinese had an entirely codified kitchen while the French were still gnawing on bones. Chopsticks have been around since the fourth century B.C. Forks didn't show up in England until 1611, and even then they weren't meant for eating but just to hold the meat still while you hacked at it with your knife.

My yogurt was nestled into a bag, waiting to turn into aushak, and all around us were sausages and pastry, lollipops and spices, chicken and cheese. Any world that contained all this, I thought surveying our loot, was a very fine place. I felt reinvigorated, alive, optimistic. The though of getting back to work suddenly seemed like fun.

You look like a cat touching a mirror,” said Carol, watching me. “You know the way they look at themselves and then reach out a paw as if they can’t believe it’s glass and not another cat?

But when people flatter you constantly it is very tempting to think that you deserve it.

The celebration had to be postponed: Carol had ovarian cancer. She refused to be gloomy about it.

I love all these people; they have so much passion. They’re a little bit crazy, but they use their craziness for their business. They live right.