It is not just the Great Works of mankind that make a culture. It is the daily things, like what people eat and how they serve it. Laurie Colwin More Quotes by Laurie Colwin More Quotes From Laurie Colwin I will never eat fish eyeballs, and I do not want to taste anything commonly kept as a house pet, but otherwise I am a cinch to feed. Laurie Colwin pet house food When I was alone, I lived on eggplant, the stove top cook's strongest ally. I fried it and stewed it, and ate it crisp and sludgy, hot and cold. It was cheap and filling and was delicious in all manner of strange combinations. If any was left over, I ate it cold the next day on bread. Laurie Colwin eggplant hot-and-cold next-day For the socially timid, the kitchen is the place to be. At least, it is a place to start. Laurie Colwin kitchen Both happy and sad people can be cheered up by a nice meal. Laurie Colwin meals nice people Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam. Laurie Colwin men lying people The sharing of food is the basis of social life. Laurie Colwin social-life bases social On Saturday mornings I would walk to the Flavor Cup or Puerto Rico Importing coffee store to get my coffee. Often it was freshly roasted and the beans were still warm. Coffee was my nectar and my ambrosia: I was very careful about it. I decanted my beans into glass...and I ground them in little batches in my grinder. Laurie Colwin glasses coffee morning Fulfillment leaves an empty space where longing used to be. Laurie Colwin longing empty space We know that without food we would die. Without fellowship, life is not worth living. Laurie Colwin fellowship life-is knows It is always wise to make too much potato salad. Even if you are cooking for two, make enough for five. Potato salad improves with age - that is, if you are lucky enough to have any left over. Laurie Colwin wise food two That family glaze of common references, jokes, events, calamities-that sense of a family being like a kitchen midden: layer upon layer of the things daily life is made of. The edifice that lovers build is by comparison delicate and one-dimensional. Laurie Colwin layers kitchen events I come from a coffee-loving family, and you can always tell when my sister and I have been around, because both of us collect all the dead coffee from everyone's morning cup, pour it over ice, and drink it. This is a disgusting habit. Laurie Colwin ice coffee morning I was taught in my Introduction to Anthropology [course in college], it is not just the great works of [hu]mankind that make a culture. It is the daily things, like what people eat and how they serve it. Laurie Colwin college culture people [On television:] It's made people moronic, it's robbed people of their ability to think. It's done tremendous damage, and every single household that has a small child should take it and throw it out the window. Laurie Colwin children people thinking Woe to those who get what they desire. Fulfillment leaves an empty space where your old self used to be, the self that pines and broods and reflects. You furnish a dream house in your imagination, but how startling and final when that dream house is your own address. What is left to you? Surrounded by what you wanted, you feel a sense of amputation. The feelings you were used to abiding with are useless. The conditions you established for your happiness are met. That youthful light-headed feeling whose sharp side is much like hunger is of no more use to you. Laurie Colwin self dream success It is a fact of life that people give dinner parties, and when they invite you, you have to turn around and invite them back. Often they retaliate by inviting you again, and you must then extend another invitation. Back and forth you go, like Ping-Pong balls, and what you end up with is called social life. Laurie Colwin party giving people The sharing of food is the basis of social life, and to many people it is the only kind of social life worth participating in. Laurie Colwin meals kind people Lentils are friendly - the Miss Congeniality of the bean world. Laurie Colwin cooking missing food There is really a je ne sais quoi about turkey cooking - the air of festivity, the family squabbles, the constant basting - that does not apply to the turkey breast, which is, really, a convenience of food... A turkey without seasonal angst is like a baseball game without a national anthem, a winter without snow, a birthday party without candles. Laurie Colwin funny-inspirational party baseball The best way to eat crabs, as everyone knows, is off newspaper at a large table with a large number of people. Laurie Colwin numbers food people
