Kitchen Quotes

Meridian


First daylight on the bittersweet-hung
sleeping porch at high summer; dew
all over the lawn, sowing diamond-
point-highlighted shadows;
the hired man's shadow revolving
along the walk, a flash of milkpails
passing; no threat in sight, no hint
anywhere in the universe, of that

apathy at the meridian, the noon
of absolute boredom; flies
crooning black lullabies in the kitchen,
milk-soured crocks, cream separator
still unwashed; what is there to life
but chores and more chores, dishwater,
fatigue, unwanted children; nothing
to stir the longueur of afternoon

except possibly thunderheads;
climbing, livid, turreted alabaster
lit up from within by splendor and terror
-- forded lightening's
split-second disaster. ~ Amy Clampitt

I couldn't care less about league tables. I'm more interested in kitchen tables and conference room tables. ~ John Stumpf

The foster home they were leaving was no place to be. The mother, Mrs. Boone, slapped Paris around every time her real daughter did something that called for punishment....After each beating, the daughter, Lisa, would swear she had no clue how her mama got the mistaken notion that Paris was the one who'd smashed a favorite vase, or stained the kitchen tablecloth, or whatever. My name is Paris, not Stupid, Paris would say to herself. ~ Nikki Grimes

You'd better be thinking of me when you smile like that," Cooper said, now standing beside me. I hadn't heard him come into the kitchen. I bumped his hip with mine. "Of course I'm thinking about you." "Then why aren't you hard?" he asked, looking pointedly at my crotch. Before I could say anything, he said, "They have pills now, for old guys who can't get hard. ~ N.R. Walker

Your grandma is a magician. Remember that time when you fell off your bicycle and she lifted you up onto the kitchen counter? She cleaned your bloody knees, washed the tears and snot off your face, told you funny stories and tickled your stomach until you giggled so hard it made you hiccup. The tears, the blood, the pain, your mum's closed bedroom door - all vanished, as if your grandma had waved a wand - sim sala bim! Hard to keep your smile off your face now, no? She did such things. Still does. A trickster, she is. Always full of pranks and laughter. Like now, looking so wrinkled and pale in her bed, not responding. Bet she opens her eyes any moment now with that mischievous grin of hers, pleased she fooled you. You'll both double over in laughing fits. Any moment now.
From: "Grandma's Tricks", In-flight literary magazine issue 4 2015 ~ Margrét Helgadóttir

My worst habit in the kitchen is not allowing anybody to help me. I like to cook by myself. ~ Eva Longoria

He had a gray face. As his sullen eyes, sunken into the shallow holes formed from years of suffering stared at me, from behind the dark lenses, I could feel myself being penetrated. Not in my pussy - though it was wet, stirred by the violent tension - I was being penetrated by his gaze. The gray faced one was fucking me with his mind, and the feeling of abject violation was grotesque. Despite my arousal, I could not deal with the unwanted intrusion on my personhood. I smiled, and gently led him by hand into the kitchen. The wallpaper was floral, in varying shades of orange and light brown. I gently guided one of his hands, to the moist slit between my legs, and I could feel his glee as it slid inside. And at that moment, I hit the switch. His other hand was completely shredded to bits of bone and flesh by the garbage disposal, spurting blood like a broken pipeline, an unstoppable wave of red. He died with 2 fingers inside me. ~ Klusterfvk, Bamafuk

I think shrinks are interesting to write about because you get to see what the character chooses to reveal, and what behaviors or stances the character tries out on the shrink that might not be part of the character's make-up outside of that room. It's an emotional test-kitchen. ~ Jill Davis

The kitchen was the bivouac of an insurgent army. Every surface had been colonised
by objects that had nothing to do with cooking: a rotating globe, illustrations
ripped from anatomy textbooks, toy Ambassador taxis from
India, an obsolete desktop computer, a shelf of floppy disks, miscellaneous
handwritten missives stuffed into folders. Making a cup of
coffee was a philosophical manoeuvre. You had to take a position.
You had to ask yourself, what is coffee? Why is it consumed? How far
would I go for a cup? ~ Jeet Thayil

For an entire year he saved all of his trash. Except for what he actually ate, everything was sorted into bins. At year's end, his living room and kitchen were filled with nearly a hundred cubic feet of stuff. Some was compostable. But the vast majority was leftover food packaging. Derfel's experimentation shows what happens when someone intentionally holds onto everything. The point of his exercise was to raise consciousness about the environmental impact of one individual's consumer waste. At another level, it demonstrates that we readily discard most of what passes though daily life as useless trash. ~ Richard J. Borden

mad maddie: I GOT ACCEPTED TO SANTA CRUZ!!!!
SnowAngel: omg!!!
zoegirl: maddie!!!! yay!!!!!
mad maddie: i know! it's incredible!
SnowAngel: *squeals and hugs sweet maddie*
SnowAngel: tell us every single detail!!!
mad maddie: well, i got home from school and saw this big thick envelope on the kitchen counter, with "Santa Cruz Admissions Office" as the return address. i got really fidgety and just started screaming, right there in the house. no one was there but me, so i could be as loud as i wanted.
zoegirl: omg!!!
mad maddie: i took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but my hands were shaking. i opened the envelope and pulled out a folder that said, "Welcome to Santa Cruz!" inside was a letter that said, "Dear Madigan. You're in!"
mad maddie: isn't that cool? i LOVE that, that instead of being all prissy and formal, they're like, "you're in! yahootie!"
SnowAngel: oh maddie, i am sooooo happy for u!
mad maddie: i ran out to my car all jumping and hopping around and drove to ian's, cuz i knew neither of u would be home yet. i showed him my letter and he hugged me really hard and lifted me into the air. it was AWESOME.
zoegirl: i'm so proud of u, maddie!
SnowAngel: me 2! ~ Lauren Myracle

It's amazing the relationships you forge in a kitchen. When you cooperate in an environment that's hot. Where there's a lot of knives. You're trusting your well-being with someone you've never before met or known. ~ Alexandra Guarnaschelli

That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas. ~ Alan Rickman

In the kitchen, I turn on a TV set that has hundreds of channels devoted to every conceivable subject including celebrity bunion removal (This week: David Hasselhoff). I tune in to one of the literally dozens of news shows, all of which feature a format of 55 percent celebrities promoting things, 30 percent emails from viewers, and 15 percent YouTube videos showing bears jumping on trampolines. While I'm catching up on these developments, I turn on the programmable coffeemaker, which I hope that someday, perhaps by attending community college, I will learn to program. ~ Dave Barry

The steam of the kitchen felt like a form of amnesia, which Hazel liked. She decided she'd recommend working in a restaurant to anyone who was trying to forget everything they'd ever done. ~ Alissa Nutting

I've been worried about you, she says when they're settled in the kitchen. She has the bright, inquisitive gaze of a crow with its eye on a freshly squashed chipmunk. ~ Stephen King

At home I walked through a haze of belongings that knew, at least vaguely, who they belonged to. Grampar's chair resented anyone else sitting on it as much as he did himself. Gramma's shirts and jumpers adjusted themselves to hide her missing breast. My mother's shoes positively vibrated with consciousness. Our toys looked out for us. There was a potato knife in the kitchen that Gramma couldn't use. It was an ordinary enough brown-handled thing, but she'd cut herself with it once, and ever after it wanted more of her blood. If I rummaged through the kitchen drawer, I could feel it brooding. After she died, that faded. Then there were the coffee spoons, rarely used, tiny, a wedding present. They were made of silver, and they knew themselves superior to everything else and special.

None of these things did anything. The coffee spoons didn't stir the coffee without being held or anything. They didn't have conversations with the sugar tongs about who was the most cherished. I suppose what they really did was physiological. They confirmed the past, they connected everything, they were threads in a tapestry. ~ Jo Walton

Toward the end of February 1954, James Beard was at work in his Greenwich Village kitchen doing what he most loved to do: cooking delicious meals. ~ Laura Shapiro

Kid 1: *examining my gorgeous strawberry and blueberry pies*: Wow, Mom, your pies don't look awful this time.
Me (Ilona): ...

~A little later~

Kid 2: *wandering into the kitchen*
Kid 1: Hey, you've got to see these pies. *opening the stove*
Kid 2: Wow. They are not ugly this time.
Kid 1: I know, right? ~ Ilona Andrews

I cooked with so many of the greats: Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert, Wylie Dufresne, Grant Achatz. Rick Bayless taught me not one but two amazing mole sauces, the whole time bemoaning that he never seemed to know what to cook for his teenage daughter. Jose Andres made me a classic Spanish tortilla, shocking me with the sheer volume of viridian olive oil he put into that simple dish of potatoes, onions, and eggs. Graham Elliot Bowles and I made gourmet Jell-O shots together, and ate leftover cheddar risotto with Cheez-Its crumbled on top right out of the pan.
Lucky for me, Maria still includes me in special evenings like this, usually giving me the option of joining the guests at table, or helping in the kitchen. I always choose the kitchen, because passing up the opportunity to see these chefs in action is something only an idiot would do. Susan Spicer flew up from New Orleans shortly after the BP oil spill to do an extraordinary menu of all Gulf seafood for a ten-thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raising dinner Maria hosted to help the families of Gulf fishermen. Local geniuses Gil Langlois and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard joined forces with Gale Gand for a seven-course dinner none of us will ever forget, due in no small part to Gil's hoisin oxtail with smoked Gouda mac 'n' cheese, Stephanie's roasted cauliflower with pine nuts and light-as-air chickpea fritters, and Gale's honey panna cotta with rhubarb compote and insane little chocolate cookies. Stephanie and I bonded over ~ Stacey Ballis

I liked the way he handled himself in the kitchen. I like men who cook. Men who cook are generally good lovers. ~ Janice Dickinson

There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family. ~ Gordon Ramsay

Once I entered the house late at night and overheard Mark and my mom having sex by the fireplace. She was moaning like she was flying on a magic carpet. I almost puked into the kitchen sink. I would give anything for her to dump him. Jade's mom says it will never happen because women over 45 have a better chance of getting blown up by a terrorist than finding a man. Haha! If I ever get that desperate, I will buy a giant vibrator and never leave the house. ~ Allison Burnett

Success is created in studio apartments and garages, at kitchen tables, and in classrooms across the nation, not in government conference rooms in Washington. ~ Tim Scott

Addie Moore had a grandson named Jamie who was just turning six. In the early summer the trouble between his parents got worse. There were bad arguments in the kitchen and bedroom, accusations and recriminations, her tears and his shouts. They finally separated on a trial basis and she went off to California to stay with a friend, leaving Jamie with his father. He called Addie and told her what happened, that his wife had quit her job as a hairdresser and had gone out to the West Coast. ~ Kent Haruf

I'm goin' to find out where he lives and fuckin' kill him!" Branna screamed then turned and stormed out of the kitchen. Him? What the hell? "Branna, a girl did this, not a lad," I shouted after her. Her steps paused then pattered back into the kitchen. "That Dominic kid didn't do that or cause it?" she asked, boring her eyes into mine to see if I was lying. She thought Dominic did this to me or was the cause of it? Not surprising since the only times I ever had bruises or got into trouble, he was usually involved. ~ L.A. Casey

I was once making a burger for myself at my boyfriend's house and a lyric started pouring out and I had to catch it, so I ran to another room to write it down, but then the kitchen caught fire. His cabinets were charred, and he was furious. But it was worth it for a song. ~ Jill Scott

Soon enough my mind hooked onto the missing guitars and the locked door and the hole filled up with clues and suspects and all the detective stuff and I could pretend it was just another case.
The guitars. The lock. The keys. The gun. The musician in the drawing room with the gun. The duchess in the kitchen with the guitar. I let my mind fill with the case. It was only a case. Only another case. Another sentence of words to arrange.
Maybe that was all there was to life. One long case, only you kept switching roles. Detective, witness, client, suspect. Then one day I'd be the victim instead of the detective or the client and it would all be over. Then I'd finally have a fucking day off. ~ Sara Gran

I am one of those lucky marvels whose husband has banned them from the kitchen, the last and now permanent ban was during an Everton Three (door slamming on hand) when he'd lamented, in a crazed manner to no one in particular after my failed tomato soup experiment, 'She'd burn air, so she would,' accompanied by wild pacing around the tomato splattered linoleum. ~ Lily Graham

Did you get me that movie about Genghis Khan?
'It's in the Netflix queue, but that's not the surprise. You don't need to worry, it'll be something good. I just don't want you to feel depressed about going home.'
Oh, I won't. But it would be cool to have a stream like this in the backyard. Can you make one?
'Ummm... no.'
I figured. Can't blame a hound for trying.
Oberon was indeed surprised when we got back home to Tempe. Hal had made the arrangements for me and Oberon perked up as soon as we were dropped off by the shuttle from the car rental company.
'Hey, smells like someone's in my territory,' he said.
'Nobody could be here without my permission, you know that.'
'Flidais did it.'
'That isn't Flidais you smell, believe me.'
I opened the front door, and Oberon immediately ran to the kitchen window that gazed upon the backyard. He barked joyously when he saw what was waiting for him there.
'French poodles! All black and curly with poofy little tails!'
'And every one of them in heat.'
'Oh, WOW! Thanks Atticus! I can't wait to sniff their asses!'
He bounded over to the door and pawed at it because the doggie door was closed to prevent the poodles from entering.
'You earned it, buddy. Hold on, get down off the door so I can open it for you, and be careful, don't hurt any of them.'
I opened the door, expecting him to bolt through it and dive into his own personal canine harem, but instead he took one ~ Kevin Hearne

The non-utility of my kitchen could be transformed into its utility for art. To do a show there would mix art and life, naturally. ~ Hans Ulrich Obrist

Poets are sitting in my kitchen.
Why do these poets lie?
Why do children get children and
Did you hear what it said? ~ Anne Sexton

hair. He's bald now. But he still looks like he could ride a bull ragged." I jump at the sound of the garage door. Mom gives me a little wave, then crosses the kitchen as silently as if she were floating on a magic carpet and disappears down the hall. Moments later, my father walks through the kitchen door, his face drawn and tired. "I figured you'd be waiting for me." "Dad, we've got to talk." Dread seems to seep from the pores in his face. "Let me get a drink. I'll meet you in the library. ~ Greg Iles

Bumblebee," he said as the kitchen went dark. "I want you to thank your friend next time you see him."
"My friend?"
"Yeah. The boy who was with you last night. What's his name?"
"Wesley," I muttered.
"Right," Dad said. "Well, I deserved it. He was brave to do what he did. I don't know what's going on between you two, but I'm glad you have a friend who's willing to stand up for you. So please tell him I said thanks. ~ Kody Keplinger

Blueberry Muffins ~ America's Test Kitchen

Your new kitchen should look like it was "born there." That doesn't mean it has to be the exact same style as the house. (You can put a modern kitchen into a Victorian, for example.) It just means that it has to complement the spaces around it. ~ Jamie Gold

And you're too hard on him because he reminds you of your father."
"From the time he was twenty winters I kept finding him with my father's kitchen staff."
"He's lusty."
"He's a whore. ~ G.A. Aiken

None of us had been in love, not really, until now. Anything we had called love came back to us as mockery in the face of this sudden flight from reason. Andy had said he was in love with Missy, and it was a shame Missy was not in love with him. A daily lament rose from him like the steam of the heat from the pipes at school. Andy's mother hit the counter with her fist. "They're too young," she said, talking about Natalie and Dion, and we knew she was talking about their tongues running along the inside of each other's teeth and the suddenly anxious too-tight grip of her hand between his legs, and the taste of each other's skin, and the smell of each other's bodies, and the feel of him slipping inside her and her settling down over him, the shape of her mouth, the shape of his. She was talking about their bodies but thinking about the words they had used. Everyone knew. "Love," she finally growled, as if the creature itself had risen from her dreams to take over her kitchen. She gripped a package of spaghetti as if it was a club and stared at the wall, paralyzed by the idea of them out there. ~ Jason Brown

Curiously enough, though, it was Jeanette who came home one day with a C on a test. Prior to that, B was the lowest grade any of us had gotten, and even a B caused Mommy to shake her head and ask, 'Did anyone in the class get an A? Then you can get an A, too. You just have to study harder.' But this time she looked at the C on Jeanette's paper and said nothing. Wasn't she going to lay into Jeanette? Was Doc so special that she could get away with anything? The rest of us were stunned. I, for one, resolved that if that's the way it was going to be, I was darned if I was going to work so hard at studying from then on.
Then Saturday came. Mommy roused Jeanette at 6:00 A.M., told her to dress in old clothes, and ordered her to the kitchen, where she handed Jeanette a bucket and scrub clothes. 'You and I are going to clean the kitchen from top to bottom,' Mommy announced. 'I'm going to teach you how to do it and do every bit of it right because that's what you're going to be doing for a living when you grow up'.
Jeanette was outraged. 'I'm going to be a doctor'!
'Anybody who gets a C on a test is either too dumb or too lazy to be a doctor. You're going to end up working in somebody's kitchen, so you'd better know how to do it. Now, start by scouring the oven. And I want it spotless'. ~ Yvonne S. Thornton

It wasn't until I worked in the Perth Hospital kitchen in the 1970s that I began hearing stories about the ghosts that haunted their halls at night. ~ Arlene Stafford-Wilson

Yet Laudan's mother had no choice about whether to be a good cook or not. It was simply what was expected of her, and of every other farmer's wife in England at that time. She did not cook because she 'loved' cooking but because this was the role that life had allotted her.
There was nothing unusual in the way that Laudan's mother cooked. If anything, her life in the kitchen was easy by the standards of the day. At least a farmer's wife had access to plentiful meat and vegetables, whereas city cooks in early twentieth-century Britain were expected to produce the same quantity of meals but with meagre ingredients and limited equipment, often in single-room dwellings where there was no kitchen and no escape from cooking. We idealise the homespun meals of the past, imagining rosy-cheeked women laying down picturesque bottles of peaches and plums. But much of the art of 'cooking' in pre-modern times was a harried mother slinging what she could in a pot and engaging in a daily smoke-filled battle to keep a fire alive and under control, on top of all the other chores she had to manage.
Before we offer too many lamentations for the cookery of the past, we should remember how hard it was – and still is, for millions of people – to cook when you have no choice in the matter. ~ Bee Wilson

Here's the hell of it: madness doesn't announce itself. There isn't time to prepare for its coming. It shows up without calling and sits in your kitchen ashing in your plant. You ask how long it plans to stay; it shrugs its shoulders, gets up, and starts digging through the fridge. ~ Marya Hornbacher

Show me a woman who is prouder of her clean kitchen than of her collection of lingerie and I'll show you a woman with enlarged pores. ~ Cynthia Heimel

With plastic siding that was cracked and fading, the trailer squatted on stacked cinder blocks, a temporary foundation that had somehow become permanent over time. It had a single bedroom and bath, a cramped living area, and a kitchen with barely enough room to house a mini refrigerator. Insulation was almost nonexistent, and humidity had warped the floors over the years, making it seem as if he were always walking on a slant. The linoleum in the kitchen was cracking in the corners, the minimal carpet was threadbare, and he'd furnished the narrow space with items he'd picked up over the years at thrift stores. Not a single photograph adorned the walls. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Virginia returned home, followed by the cats. There, in the kitchen, she gave birth to seven little boars. Out of sentiment she kept the one most like Igname, and boiled the others for herself and the cats, as a funeral feast. ~ Leonora Carrington

Something I didn't even know was on my bucket list has been achieved. I have cooked Thanksgiving dinner with Martha Stewart. I vow to follow the gospel of her teachings and do my very best in the remarkably less glamorous kitchen of my own home ... without the luxury of magically appearing prep bowls filled by a staff of sous chefs. ~ Jesse Tyler Ferguson

I AM RAPHAEL, ONE OF THE SEVEN ARCHANGELS WHO PASS IN and out of the presence of the Holy One, blessed be he. I bring him the prayers of all who pray and of those who don't even know that they're praying. Some prayers I hold out as far from me as my arm will reach, the way a woman holds a dead mouse by the tail when she removes it from the kitchen. Some, like flowers, are almost too beautiful to touch, and others so aflame that I'd be afraid of their setting me on fire if I weren't already more like fire than I am like anything else. There are prayers of such power that you might almost say they carry me rather than the other way round - the way a bird with outstretched wings is carried higher and higher on the back of the wind. There are prayers so apologetic and shamefaced and halfhearted that they all but melt away in my grasp like sad little flakes of snow. Some prayers are very boring. ~ Frederick Buechner

Pink Balloons

My name is Olivia King

I am five years old

My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist. She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand.

"Here Livie, I bought this for you."

She called me Livie.

I was so happy. I'd never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloon wrapped around other kids wrist in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, but I never dreamed I would have my very own.

My very own pink balloon.

I was excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! I couldn't believe my mother bought me something! She'd never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours. It was full of heliu and it danced and swayed and floated as I drug it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it in the bathroom, the closet, the laundry room, the kitchen, the living room. I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother's bedroom!

My mothers

Bedroom?

Where I wasn't supposed to be?

With my pink

balloon...

I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off her nose! She slapped me across the face as she told me how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never ~ Colleen Hoover

I used to stalk this dude I went to high school with. I would close up the bread shop where I worked, take one of the loaves that was intended for donation to the soup kitchen, then drive my car to his parents' house and park close enough to see inside, but far enough away to be inconspicuous. Then I would sit there with the engine running, tearing off chunks of apple-cinnamon bread and listening to De La Soul while imagining our life together.
I am a deeply troubled person ~ Samantha Irby

But what sent his face clear down off his skull and broke him in two, though, was he said when he saw the Pam-shiny empty biscuit pan on top of the stove and the plastic rind of the peanut butter's safety-seal wrap on top of the wastebasket's tall pile. The little locket-picture in the back of his head swelled and became a sharp-focused scene of his wife and little girl and little unborn child eating what he now could see they must have eaten, last night and this morning, while he was out ingesting their groceries and rent. This was his cliff-edge, his personal intersection of choice, standing there loose-faced in the kitchen, running his finger around a shiny pan with not one little crumb of biscuit left in it. He sat down on the kitchen tile with his scary eyes shut tight but still seeing his little girl's face. They'd ate some charity peanut butter on biscuits washed down with tapwater and a grimace. ~ David Foster Wallace

There is balance in taste, too, and an unbalanced taste can't captivate the eater. In order to create harmony, you have to think about balance, and to get balance in the kitchen you have to follow seemingly insignificant but crucial rules. ~ Kyung-ran Jo

Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement! ~ John Piper

Don't be upset," he whispered.
"I couldn't stop it from happening," she said in a plaintive voice.
"You weren't supposed to," he said tenderly. "I was playing with you. Teasing you."
"But I wanted it to last longer. It's our wedding night, and it's already over." Pausing, Beatrix added glumly, "At least my part of it is."
Christopher averted his face, but she could see that he was struggling to contain a laugh. When he had mastered himself, he looked down at her with a slight smile and smoothed her hair back from her face. "I can make you ready again."
Beatrix was quiet for a moment as she evaluated her spent nerves and limp body. "I don't think so," she said. "I feel like a wrung-out kitchen mop."
"I promise to make you ready again," he said, his voice threaded with amusement.
"It will take a long time," Beatrix said, still frowning.
Gathering her into his arms, Christopher crushed his mouth over hers. "I can only hope so. ~ Lisa Kleypas

So, no, when I mention "tolerance", I'm not talking about learning how to stomach pure awfulness. What I am talking about is learning how to accommodate your life as generously as possible about a basically decent human being who can sometimes be an unmitigated pain in the ass. In this regard, the marital kitchen can become something like a small linoleum temple where we are called up daily to practice forgivenessm as we ourselves would like to be forgiven. Mundane this may be, yes. Devoid of any rock star moments of divine ecstacy, certainly. But maybe such tiny acts of household tolerance are a miracle in some other way - in some quietly measureless way - all the same? ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

She stood in his kitchen, watching him toy with the ring in his lip. It wasn't quite that he was biting it, but sucking it into his mouth. He did that when he was concentrating. It isn't sexy. He's not sexy. But he was, and she was staring at him like a fool. "wow" she whispered ( ... )"Wow, huh?" His voice was low, husky. His chair creaked as he stood. His footsteps seemed strangely loud as he closed the couple yards between them. Then he was beside her. "I can work with wow ~ Melissa Marr

When I was a child, I pretended that I had my own cooking show. I would stand at the kitchen counter with an empty bowl and spoon and talk in a silly voice, explaining the concoction I was creating. ~ Kimberly Schlapman

Fifty thousand dollars' worth of cabinets isn't going to make you a better cook; cooking is going to make you a better cook. At the end of the day, you can slice a mushroom in about three inches of space, and you can carve a chicken in a foot and a half. So it doesn't matter how big the kitchen is. ~ Tyler Florence

Suddenly, it hit me. Why not do a talk show that featured not one, but four engaging female hosts of varying ages and perspectives. . . create a "kitchen table" forum for discussion. If it was on their minds, ya gotta figure that it's on the minds of half of American women, right? ~ Jamie Collins

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

They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans ... So when the bread didn't rise, and the fish wasn't quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

Can't make the world alcohol-free, and I wouldn't try. Those are things I can't control. But I control my home. And when I walk into the dining room or the kitchen and find an open bottle of booze in my living space, that's over the line. It has nothing to do with judging anybody else. I just know how I want to live in my own home. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

I don't remember when I stopped noticing - stopped noticing every mirror, every window, every scale, every fast-food restaurant, every diet ad, every horrifying model. And I don't remember when I stopped counting, or when I stopped caring what size my pants were, or when I started ordering what I wanted to eat and not what seemed "safe," or when I could sit comfortably reading a book in my kitchen without noticing I was in my kitchen until I got hungry - or when I started just eating when I got hungry, instead of questioning it, obsessing about it, dithering and freaking out, as I'd done for nearly my whole life.

I don't remember exactly when recovery took hold, and went from being something I both fought and wanted, to being simply a way of life. A way of life that is, let me tell you, infinitely more peaceful, infinitely happier, and infinitely more free than life with an eating disorder. And I wouldn't give up this life of freedom for the world.

What I know is this: I chose recovery. It was a conscious decision, and not an easy one. That's the common denominator among people I know who have recovered: they chose recovery, and they worked like hell for it, and they didn't give up. Recovery isn't easy, at first. It takes time. It takes more work, sometimes, than you think you're willing to do. But it is worth every hard day, every tear, every terrified moment. It's worth it, because the trade-off is this: you let go of your eating disorder, and you get ~ Marya Hornbacher

With Naoko gone, I went to sleep on the sofa. I hadn't intended to do so, but I fell into the kind of deep sleep I had not in a long time, filled with a sense of Naoko's presence. In the kitchen were the dishes Naoko ate from, in the bathroom was the toothbrush Naoko used, and in the bedroom was the bed in which Naoko slept. Sleeping soundly in this apartment of hers, I wrung the fatigue from every cell of my body, drop by drop. I dreamed of a butterfly dancing in the half-light. ~ Haruki Murakami

My son called to me that God was inside his red fire engine. He wanted to show me. I did move as fast as I could, spilling like water through the kitchen door into a summer day, but God had left by the time I got there. My son smiled, told me I'd missed him by seconds. ~ Deborah Keenan

I've had some terrible jobs, but working in a kitchen at Cracker Barrel is probably the worst I've ever had. I was a grill cook - awful! It wasn't the smell, it was the people. The music, too. We had to be 'country fresh,' so they played this terrible country music eight hours during the shift. It was a bleak existence - a very dark time. ~ Brittany Howard

I want to die."
May shook her head. "Let me get a knife."
"I've made a horrible mess of things."
"Haven't we all? If you don't want your supper burned, die quietly while I get back to the kitchen. ~ B. J. Daniels

It didn't smell so great, and pizza boxes and empty Coke cans had overflowed the trash can and spilled over a significant portion of the kitchen floor. You could barely walk without stepping on clothing that needed to be washed. My furniture was covered with scribbled-on papers and discarded pens and pencils. ~ Jim Butcher

Our mornings were never "rise and shine." They were "rise and fight." They were loud and ravaging. They were heavy and unnerving, like the after-math of a war, with unresolved territorial disputes.
They were never serene, but they were beautiful. More beautiful than the smile you wear when you step out of the shower, more tempting than the sight of you brewing coffee from across the kitchen bar, more promising than a glorious victory, bigger than all our tumultuous past. Bigger than you. Bigger than I. ~ Malak El Halabi

You know you, two can snog in the kitchen. It will be sick, but we'll get used to it. ~ Kristen Ashley

They were eating in the kitchen. Looking at the spoonfuls of pea soup entering Mama's mouth, she decided to shift her focus to Papa. "There's something ~ Markus Zusak

My recipe for dealing with anger and frustration: set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, cry, rant, and rave, and at the sound of the bell, simmer down and go about business as usual. ~ Phyllis Diller

This could get a little hairy," I tell them in interruption.

Seriously, I don't want to know this secret. I've got too much other shit going on.

I grimace at the very questionable intestines that belong to some fabled creature that surely can't exist under the radar if all that fit inside it. "If you're a respawner instead of an unkillable being, get out of the kitchen and at least a mile from the house."

Mom assured me there's a five mile seclusion radius.

Damien starts speaking to me, almost as though he's too tired to deal with my tinkering right now. "Violet, that potion has to be fresh. There's no need-"
...
There's a loud, bubbling, sizzling noise that cracks through the air, and I drop to the floor, as a pulse shoots from the pot.

Damien yelps, as he and Emit are thrown into one wall, and Mom curses seconds before she and Arion are launched almost into each other, hitting opposing walls instead, when they manage to twist in the air to avoid touching.

Everyone crashes to the ground at almost the same time. Groans and grunts and coughs of pain all ring out in annoyed unison.

"I warned you," I call out, even as most of them narrow their eyes in my direction.

Damien shoots me a look of exasperation, and I shrug a shoulder.

"She did warn us," Mom grumbles as she remains lying on the floor, while everyone else pushes to their feet.

"No one fucks up a potion ~ Kristy Cunning

Winter was come indeed bringing with it those pleasures of which the summer dreamer knows nothing - the delight when the fine and glittering day shows in the window, though one knows how cold it is outside; the delight of getting as close as possible to the blazing range which in the shadowy kitchen throws reflections very different from the pale gleams of sunlight in the yard, the range we cannot take with us on our walk, busy with its own activity, growling and grumbling as it sets to work, for in three hours time luncheon must be ready; the delight of filling one's bowl with steaming café-au-lait - for it is only eight o'clock - and swallowing it in boiling gulps while servants at their tasks come in and out with a, 'Good morning: up early, aren't you?' and a kindly, 'It's snug enough in here, but cold outside,' accompanying the words with that smile which is to be seen only on the faces of those who for the moment are thinking of others and not of themselves, whose expressions, entirely freed from egotism, take on a quality of vacillating goodness, a smile which completes that earlier smile of the bright golden sky touching the window-panes, and crowns our every pleasure as we stand there with the lovely heat of the range at our backs, the hot and limpid flavour of the café-au-lait in our mouths; the delight of night-time when, having had to get up to go shiveringly to the icy lavatory in the tower, into which the air creeps through the ill-fitting window, we later return ~ Marcel Proust

Since war often enters homes through the "kitchen door," we need to understand women's attempts to keep life going in the face of shortage of food, closing of schools and reduced freedoms. ~ Zainab Salbi

I did want to share with you one of the greatest lessons I've learned over the years cooking for my kids - there is enormous value in bringing children into the kitchen. ~ Michael Mina

Suddenly, as Avis clung to her father's neck and ear while, with a casual arm, the man enveloped his lumpy and large offspring, I saw Lolita's smile lose all its light and become a frozen little shadow of itself, and the fruit knife slipped off the table and struck her with its silver handle a freak blow on the ankle which made her gasp, and crouch head forward, and then, jumping on one leg, her face awful with the preparatory grimace which children hold till the tears gush, she was gone - to be followed at once and consoled in the kitchen by Avis who had such a wonderful fat pink dad and a small chubby brother, and a brand-new baby sister, and a home, and two grinning dogs, and Lolita had nothing. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Now is the time when men work quietly in the fields and women weep softly in the kitchen; the legislature is in session and no man's property is safe. ~ Daniel Webster

Going to a party uninvited always has been a negative action. It never has been acceptable. At the very least, it upsets kitchen preparations, parking arrangements, and even details such as space for hanging coats and depositing dripping umbrellas. ~ Letitia Baldrige

Marcus mumbles something about PMS and to my surprise, from the kitchen, Bo says, "Why can't she just be having a shitty day? You don't need to make up some bullshit reason why. ~ Julie Murphy

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. ~ Elizabeth Berg

You soft-skulled, marbel-balled motherf*cker. I´m going to kick your ass next time I see it." Cam laughed. "You know, my grandmother always said no woman with a decent vocabulary would resort to profanity."
Kori huffed. "My grandmother said, ´Get the hell out of my house, bitch, before I throw you out on your ass."
"Well, you did set the kitchen on fire. Twice. With her in it."
"I fail to see how the facts are relevant here. ~ Rachel Vincent

Nothing got more serious than allowing a tortoise to crawl across your kitchen floor. ~ J. Lynn

America's leaders should be examples of integrity and high moral standards. When their behavior evokes shame rather than pride and becomes something that we don't want to discuss in front of the children at the kitchen table, we should consider impeachment. ~ Ben Carson

Poetry is my life, my postmark, my hands, my kitchen, my face. ~ Anne Sexton

I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again. (Kitchen, 103) ~ Banana Yoshimoto

After years of working in professional kitchens, and then spending so much time in a lot of different home kitchens, I realized that there's a huge gap in the market where you have people who develop cookware but who don't actually cook. ~ Curtis Stone

How are you feeling Sweet Peach?" he enquires as he walks across to the chest of drawers, selects a pair of socks and pulls them on.
Sweet Peach? What the hell?
He's definitely gay ...
I shrug. "Er ... okay, I guess. I really don't remember much though. How did I get here ... and why am I wearing your t-shirt?" I ask hesitantly, afraid of the answer.
Hagen laughs nervously. "I brought you home when you couldn't tell me where you lived. And don't worry, you got changed all by yourself ... in the kitchen ... for like an hour. ~ Joanne McClean

A surprising fact about the magician Bernard Kornblum, Joe remembered, was that he believed in magic. Not in the so-called magic of candles, pentagrams, and bat wings. Not in the kitchen enchantments of Slavic grandmothers with their herbiaries and parings from the little toe of a blind virgin tied up in a goatskin bag. Not in astrology, theosophy, chiromancy, dowsing rods, séances, weeping statues, werewolves, wonders, or miracles. What bewitched Bernard Kornblum, on the contrary, was the impersonal magic of life, when he read in a magazine about a fish that could disguise itself as any one of seven different varieties of sea bottom, or when he learned from a newsreel that scientists had discovered a dying star that emitted radiation on a wavelength whose value in megacycles approximated π. In the realm of human affairs, this type of enchantment was often, though not always, a sadder business - sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel. Here its stock-in-trade was ironies, coincidences, and the only true portents: those that revealed themselves, unmistakable and impossible to ignore, in retrospect. ~ Michael Chabon

No chaos, no creation. Evidence: the kitchen at mealtime. ~ Mason Cooley

Everything seems different now. The room I am in looks no more familiar to me than it did this morning when I woke up and stumbled into it, trying to find the kitchen, desperate for a drink of water, desperate to piece together what happened last night. And yet it no longer seems shot through with pain, and sadness. It no longer seems emblematic of a life I cannot consider living. The ticking of the clock at my shoulder is no longer just marking time. It speaks to me. Relax, it says. Relax, and take what comes. ~ S.J. Watson

If you can kill it in the bedroom, chances are you can kill it in the kitchen, too - and studies have shown that men who help out more with the chores have more sex with their wives (really!). We know, gender roles run deep, which is why women in hetero relationships still end up doing the vast majority of the domestic work despite being the breadwinners in two-thirds of American homes, leaving them burned out, resentful, and, nope, not really in the mood. But it doesn't have to be this way - and, in fact, we might want to borrow a page from our LGBTQ sisters and brothers (or those who identify as neither): research shows they split chores, decisions, and finances more evenly ~ Jessica Bennett

I was born on the kitchen table. We were so poor my mother couldn't afford to have me; the lady next door gave birth to me. ~ Mel Brooks

As it baked, the blessed casserole smelled just like it did when I was a child, which was likely the last time I'd eaten it. I marveled that the scent of a specific dish could remain in one's consciousness for over two decades. Except for the dark brown hair and the crumbling marriage, I'd officially become my mother.
Marlboro Man, happy to have something warm to eat, declared it the best thing he'd ever eaten. I looked at the mess in the kitchen and felt like moving.
Marlboro Man and I watched movies that night. Our TV satellite hadn't been hooked up yet, so he'd transported his movie collection and VCR from his old house. And I didn't have to get up and drive home when they were over, because I already was home. ~ Ree Drummond

All I really want is a three-room house. The home I have designed at my new farm in Bedford, New York, is a three-room house: bedroom on top, living room in the middle, and kitchen on the ground. ~ Martha Stewart

Soon the cottage was filled with the familiar, homely smell of frying onions. It escaped from the stove, crept through the kitchen, sniffed along the bottom of the closed front room door and wound its way stealthily up the crooked staircase, even under the door of Anna's bedroom. But even this, the most delicious, hungry-making smell in the world, was unable to rouse her. ~ Joan G. Robinson

Andy and Terry went into the kitchen to serve out the Neapolitan (which we called van-choc-straw . . . funny how it all ~ Stephen King

The air in my home is heavy with my mom's unhappiness. And her exhaustion. And her sheer dissatisfaction with her life. And I hate it. I can be up in my room when she's in the kitchen below and I feel her despair seeping up through the floorboards. You can hear her banging pots and pans or cursing the vacuum cleaner ~ Laura Buzo

Angles from their former lofty positions in the sky. Their absence made everything look different, like a fresh haircut exposing a band of untanned skin on a forehead. Even from deep inside the kitchen, Luke could tell the trees were missing because everything was brighter, more open. Scarier. ~ Margaret Peterson Haddix

Maybe that's enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom ... is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain ~ Anthony Bourdain

S and M is only the expression in the bedroom of an oppressive-submissive relation which can happen also in the kitchen or at the factory, can happen between people of any gender. There is obviously something titillating about these relationships, but it isn't the sexual components that makes them ugly, they're uglier elsewhere. Nothing sexual is depraved. Only cruelty is depraved, and that's another matter. ~ Marilyn French