For anyone addicted to reading commonplace books ... finding a good new one is much like enduring a familiar recurrence of malaria..., with fever, fits of shaking, strange dreams. Unlike a truly paludismic ordeal, however, the symptoms felt while savoring a collection of one man's pet quotations are voluptuously enjoyable ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... gastronomical perfection can be reached in these combinations: one person dining alone, usually upon a couch or a hill side; t...wo people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a good restaurant; six people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a good home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[Bachelors'] approach to gastronomy is basically sexual, since few of them under seventy-nine will bother to produce a good meal u...nless it is for a pretty woman.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The things men come to eat when they are alone are, I suppose, not much stranger than the men themselves.... A writer years ago to...ld me of living for five months on hen mash.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... most bereaved souls crave nourishment more tangible than prayers: they want a steak. What is more, they need a steak. Preferab...ly they need it rare, grilled, heavily salted, for that way it is most easily digested, and most quickly turned into the glandular whip their tired adrenals cry for.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Life is hard, we say. An oyster's life is worse. She lives motionless, soundless, her own cold ugly shape her only dissipation ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is puzzling to me that otherwise sensitive people develop a real docility about the obvious necessity of eating, at least once ...a day, in order to stay alive. Often they lose their primal enjoyment of flavors and odors and textures to the point of complete unawareness. And if ever they question this progressive numbing-off, they shrug helplessly in the face of mediocrity everywhere. Bit by bit, hour by hour, they say, we are being forced to accept the not-so-good as the best, since there is little that is even good to compare it with.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »