Delicious! Quotes

“I am telling you that if things can change for the worse, the opposite is also true. But only if you open yourself to the possibilities.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“You'll find that historical research is extremely soothing. When you spend all day among old papers, the people come alive for you, and you begin to see the present through different eyes. You'll see. You view young people knowing that this is only one moment in time and it's passing very quickly. It's comforting. You begin to understand that time is no more than a trick of the mind; some days I'm convinced that my young self is still here, somewhere, just walking down a different street." Anne”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“A great meal is an experience that nourishes more than your body.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Change works both ways. You must accept those moments, experience them, and let them go. Because if you allow yourself to get stuck in that minute, nothing will ever change.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Giving people presents is such an intimate act; you’re basically telling them who you think they are,”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I'd rather be a fool than hard-hearted.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I got back into the car thinking how lucky I was to be aware of happiness. Most people don’t recognize their own good fortune until it has departed. And then it is too late.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Lulu writes: “When Mother, Mr. Jones and I were walking through those strange, crowded downtown streets, where people were sticking their hands into pickle barrels, pointing to smoked fish, and eating sliced herring, I saw the scene in a whole new way. They weren’t buying food: They were finding their way home.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I wonder if any of us ever really knows another person?” she replied, sounding wistful.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“That's the most terrible thing about being a child; you're convinced that it's all your fault." Lulu”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Hope can't hurt”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I got back into the car thinking how lucky I was to be aware of happiness. Most people don’t recognize their own good fortune until it has departed. And then it is too late.” “What about Remy? What”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“We were having a class on civics, talking about what makes America a great country. I said I thought one important reason is that we’ve all come from different places in the world and that we learn from one another.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I feel as if there’s a huge gulf separating me from all the lucky people in the world; they have so much to look forward to.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I discovered that endings have their own odd thrill. In the mania of the moment, it’s possible to forget what you are losing.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“We slid along water reds and greens, the changing lights captured in the canvas of wet tar.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Dear Mr. Beard,

On the radio last spring, President Roosevelt said that each and every one of us here on the home front has a battle to fight; We must keep our spirits up. I am doing my best, but in my opinion Liver Gems are a lost cause, because they would take the spirit right out of anyone.
So when Mother says it is wrong for us to eat better than our brave men overseas, I tell her that I don't see how eating disgusting stuff helps them in the least. But, Mr. Beard, it is very hard to cook good food when you're only a beginner! When Mother decided it was her patriotic duty to work at the airplane factory, she should have warned me about the recipes. You just can't trust them! Prudence Penny's are so revolting. I want to throw them right into the garbage.
Mrs. Davis from next door lent me one of her wartime recipe pamphlets, and I read about liver salmi, which sounded so romantic. But by the time I had cooked the liver for twenty minutes in hot water, cut it into little cubes, rolled them in flour, and sautéed them in fat, I'd made flour footprints all over the kitchen floor. The consommé and cream both hissed like angry cats when I added them. Then I was supposed to add stoned olives and taste for seasoning. I spit it right into the sink.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I decided that it wasn’t pretty that I felt, but confident.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“She's always sniffing the bottles in the spice cabinet."
I didn't know she'd even noticed. At first it was just curiosity; why did fennel and cumin, identical twins, have such opposing personalities? I had crushed the seeds beneath my fingertips, where the scents lingered for hours. Another day I'd opened a bottle of nutmeg, startled when the little spheres came rattling out in a mothball-scented cloud. How could something so delicate have such a ferocious smell? And I watched, fascinated, as the supple, plump, purple vanilla beans withered into brittle pods and surrendered their perfume to the air. The spices were all so interesting; it was impossible to walk through the kitchen without opening the cupboard to find out what was going on in there.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I know you're a chocolate lover. I can always tell. I'm about to temper the chocolate. I have my own method; want to watch?"
"Could I?" Inside my head, a little voice was reminding me that I had to get back to the office, but it was drowned out by the scent of chocolate, which flooded all my senses with a heady froth of cocoa and coffee, passion fruit, cinnamon and clove. I closed my eyes, and for one moment I was back in Aunt Melba's kitchen with Genie.
I opened them to find Kim dancing with a molten river of chocolate. I stood hypnotized by the scent and the grace of her motions, which were more beautiful than any ballet. Moving constantly, she caressed the chocolate like a lover, folding it over and over on a slab of white marble, working it to get the texture right. She stopped to feed me a chocolate sprinkled with salt, which had the fierce flavor of the ocean, and another with the resonant intensity of toasted saffron. One chocolate tasted like rain, another of the desert. I tried tracking the flavors, pulling them apart to see how she had done it, but, like a magician, she had hidden her tricks. Each time I followed the trail, it vanished, and after a while I just gave up and allowed the flavors to seduce me.
Now the scent changed as Kim began to dip fruit into the chocolate: raspberries, blackberries, tiny strawberries that smelled like violets. She put a chocolate-and-caramel-covered slice of peach into my mouth, and the taste of summer was so intense that I felt the room grow warmer. I lost all sense of time.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“but when I told her they didn’t cost one penny and were very nutritious (I made that part up, but I’m sure it must be true), she ate them up. She packed them into her lunch pail this morning, and when I looked”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I wish you could have seen the kitchen when I was done: It looked like a hurricane had blown right in the door! But I cleaned it all up, and when Mother came home the whole house smelled warm and spicy, Bing Crosby was singing "White Christmas" on the radio, I was wearing a clean apron, and she called me her "little homemaker."
What would you think about tomato mincemeat cookies? I bet no one else will think of that!”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Tommy and I put on a radio play to entertain everyone while they unpacked their cookies. It was about a girl who saves up money for a prom dress, but at the last minute she says, "It's only clothes," and buys war bonds instead. The play was a big success, and my whole school pledged to buy war bonds, which should have made me happy. But it gave me a queer feeling; it's easy to write propaganda when everyone agrees with you. Do you understand? I think I'd rather bake cookies; it feels more honest.
Your friend,
Lulu


Sammy looked down at me. "A girl after your own heart!" he said. "In my experience it is a rare female who can say, 'It's only clothes,' and when the war came, you discovered who you really were. Women changed. Children grew up overnight. I wonder what happened to this one.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“The weather was gray, the streets filled with that Sunday morning silence that makes you feel like everybody else is home with people that they love.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“That's what I like so much about old libraries - they smell the way we'd like to imagine the past.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Hermione was back, holding out a gossamer dress of rainbow chiffon so airy I thought of fireflies on a moonlight night.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Don't you just love the idea of cooking flowers? I imagine them bursting into bloom, right in the pan.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“I just can’t imagine somebody else in the White House. I’m sure President Truman is a good man, but even the words feel peculiar in my mouth. A world without President Roosevelt seems like a strange and scary place.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“Till I was back in your arms again.” She had a nice voice, and I hummed along”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!

“were unaware that the room was crowded with ghosts who were about to propel us into the present and force us to face the future.”
― Ruth Reichl, Delicious!