Among these writings was De Anima, which examined the life force in plants and animals, and it was in this book that Aristotle attempted to parse the nature of taste. He was fond of creating lists, and first and foremost on his list of tastes was sweet, which he described as pure nourishment. -Michael Moss (Salt,…
Several weeks ago when I was reading Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, I discovered one of the most comforting meals you could ever have: Aushak, i.e. Afghan dumplings that are stuffed with scallions, served on a layer of garlic-spiked Greek yogurt and then topped with a gingery tomato sauce and roughly torn mint leaves. While…
I asked the apple merchant for another,jaunty as Cezanne's still-life reds and yellows, having more life than stillness, telling us, uncut, unpeeled, they are not for the feastbut for themselves, and building strength to flyat any moment, leap from a skewed bowl,whirl in the air and roll off a tilted table. -Grace Shulman ("Apples")After weeks of teasing…
When I emerged from the train station into the city of Brussels this past summer, I was transfixed by its old world beauty and the storybook quality that the Gothic architecture imparted to the landscape. Although a part of me felt that I had stumbled into some kind of magical kingdom of waffles, frites and…
Melancholy, I think, is a sort of default vagueness, a get-out clause, a smothering lack of focus. -Edmund de Waal (The Hare with the Amber Eyes) To be without a job is both exhilarating and depressing. On the one hand, you suddenly have time to do the things you've been dreaming of doing for months: reading…
Dining with Dostoevsky 