If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promise of life.

I really love the original cover. Plus, my pants matched that day!

The Great Gatsby
By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The first time I read The Great Gatsby, I was a sophomore, maybe a junior, in high school. Didn't like it, didn't "get it." "Read it again when you're in your 20s," my English professor said. OK. The major motion picture, starring Leonardo DiCaprio comes out in theaters today, hence my decision to choose earlier this month to finally re-read it. (Very excited for the movie, btw, despite the negative early reviews.) (I also highly, highly recommend the movie soundtrack.)

Not sure where my head was when reading this in high school; I felt as if now I was absorbing the plot and prose for the first time. Fitzgerald was a fantastic writer. Old news, but it was a revelation to me. I hope to one day achieve the same impact, sophistication, and beauty with words that Fitzgerald did.

I didn't mark any pages or phrases. (There were so many! And I feel a little lazy and too pressed for time to skim through the book again and find all the ones I liked.) Instead, I'm going to copy and paste a few excerpts from Goodreads' Gatsby quotes page, assembled over the years by Goodreads members. All lovely. I could read it all over again.

In no particular order:

*“He smiled understandingly--much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”   

*“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

*“Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.”

*“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

*“So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.”

*“I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.”

*“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

*“He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about...like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”

*“For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened -- then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.”

*“A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”

*“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promise of life, as if he related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the 'creative temperament'-it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No - Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”

*“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world.”

*“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”

*"We shook hands and I started away. Just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around.  

“They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”

I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we’d been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time. His gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against the white steps, and I thought of the night when I first came to his ancestral home, three months before. The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption—and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them good-by."

And, of course, the end, right?

*“And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

I think we needed that librarian to follow us around the hallways for every minute of every school day, reading us her story of our lives.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove
By Karen Russell

I couldn't decide how I felt about this book comprised of short stories, whether I liked it or didn't, and I think my final opinion is that I didn't, though two or three of the stories lingered with me for a while after.

Excerpt from "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis," at the part when a school librarian finds the main characters in the story bullying and beating a fellow classmate, Eric Mutis.

"Larry Rubio," she said, in a neutral voice, as if she were remarking on the weather. "You are better than this.
"Now you go back to your classrooms," she said, in this funny rehearsed way, as if she were reading our lives to us from one of her books.
"Now you go to Geometry, Gus Ainsworth--" She pronounced our real names so gently, as if she were breaking a spell.
"Now you go to Spanish, Juan Carlos Diaz and Mondo Chu--
"Now you go to Computers, Larry Rubio..." Her voice was as nasal as Eric's but with an old person's polished tremble. It was a terribly embarrassing voice--a weak white grasshopper species that we would have tried to kill, had it belonged to a fellow child.
"Remember, boys," the librarian called after us. "I know you and you know better. You are good boys," she insisted. "You have good hearts.
"Now you, Eric Mutis," I heard her saying softly. "You come with me."
I remember feeling jealous--I wanted to go with Mrs. Kauder, too. I wanted to sit in the dark library and hear my name roll out of her red mouth again, like it was the Spanish word for something good. I think we needed that librarian to follow us around the hallways for every minute of every school day, reading us her story of our lives, her fine script of who we were and our activities--but of course she couldn't do this, and we did get lost.

Birdhaus Bao, Taro Fries, and Ai Yu Jelly Lemonade.

Tried Baohaus for the first time yesterday! Fucking delicious. I want to return soon to try the other baos.

All the things instilled in me from a young age by my family and home, rehydrated and brought to life like instant noodles.

Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir
By Eddie Huang

"There wasn't a section in the library titled "Books for Abused Kids" but there was black history and somehow, some way, it made sense to me. I listened to 2Pac. I remember when "Me Against the World" came out, Emery and I would just sit by the radio reading comics listening to that song over and over. People in Orlando never understood why two Asian kids were rocking Polo, Girbauds, and listening to hip-hop. We didn't do it because it was cool. At private school, teachers, parents, and other kids looked down on us for listening to hip-hop. It was a "black thing," downward assimilation. They didn't understand why we had flattops and racing stripes in our heads, but we did.

And when you get stranded
And things don't go the way you planned it
Dreamin' of riches, in a position of makin' a difference

Pac made sense to us. We lived in a world that treated us like deviants and we were outcast. There was always some counselor or administrator pulling us out of class to talk. We stayed in detention and we were surrounded by kids who had no idea what we were going through. We listened to hip-hop because there wasn't anything else that welcomed us in, made us feel at home. I could see why Milli wanted to pull a pistol on Santa or why B.I.G. was ready to die. Our parents, Confucius, the model-minority bullshit, and kung fu-style discipline are what set us off. But Pac held us down."
(p. 60)

"Justin called me "Gourmet," 'cause every time we got high, I couldn't just eat the chips or cookies. I made ill stoner food, like Doritos sandwiches, where I took ham, turkey, and cheese and rolled it up on plates, then sandwiched them between Doritos. I'd microwave cookies and eat them with ice cream, bake macaroni and cheese with crushed Cheetos on top, real disgusting Scooby snacks. A few years later at a bachelor party in Miami, after hitting Miami Gold, pissing off the VIP balcony onto the dance floor at Voodoo, and copping frozen chimichangas at 7-Eleven, we went back to our hotel. Total fail, because we didn't have a microwave in the room, but I didn't give up. I told my homies, "Ay yo, let me get the ironing board and iron!"
I put the frozen chimichangas on plates and started ironing the shits. Fifteen minutes later, we were eating chimichangas with crispy exteriors and I was officially the Iron Chef."
(p. 111)

"When people don't give you the time off work or school to celebrate the most important day of the year for your people, you lose yourself. How are you supposed to maintain your identity in America without your holidays? If not all of them, then how about one? It wasn't just about Chinese New Year, though. I was sick and tired of half-assed potlucks thrown by ABCs (American Born Chinese) who didn't even know how to cook Chinese food. These same ABCs couldn't speak Chinese and didn't care -- but you don't have shit without your native tongue. African slaves were forced by threat of physical punishment to abandon their native languages, but a lot of us just gave ours up with a shrug--these Uncle Chans convinced us to assimilate, shut the fuck up, and play the part. What they didn't understand is that after you have the money and degrees, you can't buy your identity back. I wasn't worried about degrees, but I cared about my roots. Even if I hated what it meant to be an Asian in the American wilderness, I respected the Chinese home I was raised in. Usually I wasn't so vocal about Asian identity, but without my parents around, I felt a sudden duty to say something myself. It's funny how annoying I thought my mom was, but as soon as she wasn't around, I carried the torch for her."
(p. 157)

"Ning also got me back in touch with my identity. While I was out drinking Mad Dog 40/40 and running over frat boys with Mitsubishi Monteros, she went to Chinese school on weekends all the way up until her senior year of high school. Instead of sneaking into bars or clubs, she was going to Bubble Island with her girlfriends. We kept making fun of each other, but as they say, opposites attract. I had become so obsessed with not being a stereotype that half of who I was had gone dormant. But it was also a positive. Instead of following the path most Asian kids do, I struck out on my own. There's nature, there's nurture, and as Harry Potter teaches us, there's who YOU want to be. Every part of me was something I sought out and encountered. And that summer in Taipei, I looked around and saw myself everywhere I went. Pieces of me scattered all over the country like I had lived, died, burned, and been spread throughout the country in a past life. Here I was coming home to find myself again in street stalls, KTV rooms, and bowls of beef noodle soup. All the things instilled in me from a young age by my family and home, rehydrated and brought to life like instant noodles. They never left, they just needed attention."
(p. 198)

Food at its best uplifts the whole community, makes everyone rise to its standard.

Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir
By Eddie Huang

Lately, I've been instagramming covers of the books I read. No real reason, except that I'm reading so much now and I still prefer a book in my hand and an artistic cover. So that explains the picture above.

Absolutely loved this book. Gave it five stars on Goodreads because I enjoyed it so much. It was written in a language that while, not exactly mine, I could understand. He reminded me of some people I grew up around. (Not with -- our lifestyles were pretty different). I appreciated Eddie's honesty and the profundity of his revelations -- about his parents, peers, society, self. And his humor! I laughed a lot while reading this book. I saw him speak at a Skillshare event last year and thought he was cool, but have to say, definitely a Eddie Huang fan now. Going to try to make it out to Baohaus sometime this week; really craving some gua bao.  In the beginning, I jotted down lots of page numbers -- I wanted to blog everything. Then I stopped doing that because I just wanted to keep reading. Anyway, I don't guarantee everyone will like this memoir but I recommend it.

"I walked up to Jeff's room -- they called it a loft because it was upstairs and had a low ceiling; I couldn't believe my eyes. Everywhere you walked: toys, games, huge television, stuffed animals, it was like living in a Toys 'R' Us. I remember thinking to myself that if I died, I wanted to come back a white man. These fuckers had EVERYTHING. I didn't know what to play first, I was so confused. I literally rolled around in video games, read the instructions, looked at all the GamePro magazines, and then went to the bathroom and wiped my ass with their fancy toilet paper just to see how it felt. When you washed your hands, they had hand towels so you didn't have to wipe your face with the towel your brother wiped his balls with ten minutes ago. For real, if you are a broke-ass kid, you are wiping your face with your brother's balls. I felt like some wild gremlin child living in Chinese hell after going to their house.
By that point, I was ready to convert. I wanted to be white so fucking bad. But then dinner happened. All of us sat down. I had never eaten at a white person's house, but I just figured they ate pizza, hot dogs, or something like that. After a few minutes, Jeff's mom came out of the kitchen with two bowls. One bowl was filled with goopy orange stuff. For a second, I thought they might be little boiled intestines in an orange sauce, which I could get down with, but on closer inspection they were unlike any intestines I'd ever seen. The other bowl was gray and filled with a fibrous material mixed with bits of celery. I thought to myself, These white people like really mushy food.
She also gave us each two pieces of bread, the same plain Wonder Bread I saw at school. Jeff started wiping the gray stuff on the bread. I didn't want to come off like an idiot so I did the same thing. I put the other slice on top, lifted up, and went to take a bite, but holy shit, that smell. What the fuck was in this? Jeff and his brothers couldn't get enough but I was scared. I took a deep breath, clutched my orange juice, and forced myself to take a bite. Right on cue, gag reflex, boom went the orange juice. I couldn't hide it anymore. I had to ask.
"What is that, man?"
"You've never had tuna fish sandwiches?"
"No, never. Where do you get it?"
"At the grocery store, you want to see the can?"
"OK, but what's the orange stuff?"
"Macaroni and cheese."
"What's macaroni?"
"It's pasta."
I didn't know what pasta was, but was really starting to feel like a dumb-ass so I didn't ask. That shit was so nasty. We never ate cheese and it stunk like feet. A lot of Chinese people are lactose intolerant, so it's just not something we eat normally. We drink soy milk instead of cow's milk and stir-fry our noodles instead of covering them with cheese. I suddenly realized that converting to white wouldn't be easy, but still, that toilet paper was like silk. I tried to force myself to eat the macaroni and cheese but literally barfed it through my nose. Jeff and his brothers couldn't believe it. I realized no matter how many toys they had, I couldn't cross over. I'd much rather eat Chinese food and split the one good dinosaur with my brother. Macaroni is to Chinamen as water is to gremlins, teeth are to blow jobs, and Asian is to American. It just didn't fit."
(pp. 39-41)

"We walked up to the cart and I didn't say a word. I knew where we were. My dad had told me about this man for years. Every few months or so at home, Pops had to have Taiwanese 'Mian. Not the Dan-Dan Mian you get at Szechuan restaurants or in  Fuchsia Dunlop's book, but Taiwanese Dan-Dan. The trademark of ours is the use of clear pork bone stock, sesame paste, and crushed peanuts on top. You can add chili oil if you want, but I take it clean because when done right, you taste the essence of pork and the bitterness of sesame paste; the texture is somewhere between soup and ragout. Creamy, smooth, and still soupy. A little za cai (pickled radish) on top, chopped scallions, and you're done. I realized that day, it's the simple things in life. It's not about a twelve-course tasting of unfamiliar ingredients or mass-produced water-added rib-chicken genetically modified monstrosity of meat that makes me feel alive. It's getting a bowl of food that doesn't have an agenda. The ingredients are the ingredients because they work and nothing more. These noodles were transcendent not because he used the best produce or protein or because it was locally sourced, but because he worked his dish. You can't buy a championship.
Did this old man invent Dan-Dan Mian? No. But did he perfect it with techniques and standards never before seen? Absolutely. He took a dish people were making in homes, made it better than anyone else,  put it on front street, and established a standard. That's professional cooking. To take something that already speaks to us, do it at the highest level, and force everyone else to step up, too. Food at its best uplifts the whole community, makes everyone rise to its standard. That's what that Dan-Dan Mian did. If I had the honor of cooking my father's last meal, I wouldn't think twice. Dan-Dan Mian with a bullet, no question."
(pp. 51-2)

"Pops had only told me about the noodles and the old man, but I had no idea they were that close. It was as if they were each carrying something for the other. A secret, a burden, a past, but I knew better than to ask. Within minutes, two bowls of noodles appeared for us. Huge melamine bowls with khaki noodles, steaming soup, and a gremolata-like mixture of crushed peanuts, pickled radish, and chopped scallions. Of course, my pops put chili oil in it immediately, but I wanted to taste the broth: intense, deep, and mind-numbing. It was one of those bites that make you think maybe, just maybe, your taste buds carry a cognitive key that can open something in your mind. Like the first time I heard Lauryn Hill's voice scratch over "Killing Me Softly," I felt that I just had a mental breakthrough via sound; there has to be something like that with taste. It was then and there that I realized, you can tell a story without words, just soup."
(p. 52)

To be separated from what's around you by a pane of glass would be to miss -- everything.

Medium Raw
by Anthony Bourdain

"The only way to see Hanoi is from the back of a scooter. To ride in a car would be madness -- limiting your mobility to a crawl, preventing you from even venturing down half the narrow streets and alleys where the good stuff is to be found. To be separated from what's around you by a pane of glass would be to miss -- everything. Here, the joy of riding on the back of a scooter or motorbike is to be part of the throng, just one more tiny element in an organic thing, a constantly moving, ever-changing process rushing, mixing, swirling, and diverting through the city's veins, arteries, and capillaries. Admittedly, it's also slightly dangerous. Traffic lights, one-way signs, intersections, and the like -- the rough outlines of organized society -- are more suggestions than regulations observed by anyone in actual practice. One has, though, the advantage of the right of way. Here? The scooter and motorbike are kings. The automobile may rule the thoroughfares of America, but in Hanoi it's cumbersome and unwieldy, the last one to the party, a woolly mammoth of the road -- to be waited on, begrudgingly accommodated -- even pitied -- like the fat man at a sack race."
(p. 78)

"What is not debatable is that a perfect bowl of Hanoi pho is a balanced meeting of savory, sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and even umami -- a gentle commingling of textures as well: soft and giving, wet and slippery, slightly chewy, momentarily resistant but ultimately near-diaphanous, light and heavy, leafy and limp, crunchy and tender. There -- and nearly not there at all. Were this already not enough to jerk a rusty steak knife across your grandma's throat, empty her bank account, and head off to Hanoi, consider the colors: bright red chilies; the more subdued, richer-red toasted-chili paste; bright green vegetables; white sprouts. Pinkish-red raw meat, turning slowly gray as it cooks in your bowl, the deep brown colors of the cooked meat, white noodles, light amber broth. Nearly all God's colors in one bowl."
(p. 83)

Perhaps omelet skills should be learned at the same time you learn to fuck.

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
By Anthony Bourdain

"At no point in Kitchen Confidential, that I can find, does it say that cocaine or heroin were good ideas. In fact, given the book's many episodes of pain, humiliation, and being constantly broke-ass, one would think it almost a cautionary tale. Yet, at readings and signings, I am frequently the inadvertent recipient of small packets of mysterious white powder; bindles of cocaine; fat, carefully rolled joints of local hydro, pressed into my palm or slipped into my pocket. These inevitably end up in the garbage -- or handed over to a media escort. The white powders because I'm a recovered fucking addict -- and the weed 'cause all I need is one joint, angel dust-laced by some psycho, to put me on TMZ, running buck-naked down some Milwaukee street with a helmet made from the stretched skin of a butchered terrier pulled down over my ears.
Smoking weed at the end of the day is nearly always a good idea -- but I'd advise ambitious young cooks against sneaking a few drags mid-shift at Daniel. If you think smoking dope makes you more responsive to urgent calls for food from your expeditor, then God bless you, you freak of nature you. If you're anything like me, though, you're probably only good for a bowl of Crunchberries and a Simpsons rerun.
On the other hand, if you're stuck heating up breakfast burritos at Chili's -- or dunking deep-fried macaroni at TGI McFuckwad's? Maybe you need that joint.
Treating despair with drugs and alcohol is a time-honored tradition -- I'd just advise you to assess honestly if it's really as bad and as intractable as you think. Not to belabor the point, but if you look around you at the people you work with, many of them are -- or will eventually be -- alcoholics and drug abusers. All I'm saying is you might ask yourself now and again if there's anything else you wanted to do in your life.
I haven't done heroin in over twenty years, and it's been a very long time as well since I found myself sweating and grinding my teeth to the sound of tweeting of birds outside my window.
There was and is nothing heroic about getting off coke and dope.
There's those who do -- and those who don't.
I had other things I still wanted to do. And I saw that I wasn't going to be doing shit when I was spending all my time and all my money on coke or dope -- except more coke and dope.
I'm extremely skeptical of the "language of addiction." I never saw heroin or cocaine as "my illness." I saw them as some very bad choices that I walked knowingly into. I fucked myself -- and, eventually, had to work hard to get myself un-fucked.
And I'm not going to tell you here how to live your life.
I'm just saying, I guess, that I got very lucky.
And luck is not a business model."
(pp. 57-8)

"What specific tasks should every young man and woman know how to perform in order to feel complete?
What simple preparations, done well, should be particularly admired, skills seen as setting one apart as an unusually well-rounded deceptively deep, and interesting individual?
In a shiny, happy, perfect world of the future, what should every man, woman, and teenager know how to do?
They should know how to chop an onion. Basic knife skills should be a must. Without that, we are nothing, castaways with a can -- but no can-opener. Useless. Everything begins with some baseline ability with a sharp-bladed object, enough familiarity with such a thing to get the job done without injury. So, basic knife handling, sharpening, and maintenance, along with rudimentary but effective dicing, mincing, and slicing. Nothing too serious. Just enough facility with a knife to be on a par with any Sicilian grandmother.
Everyone should be able to make an omelet. Egg cookery is as good a beginning as any, as it's the first meal of the day, and because the process of learning to make an omelet is, I believe, not just a technique but a builder of character. One learns, necessarily, to be gentle when acquiring omelet skills: a certain measure of sensitivity is needed to discern what's going on in your pan -- and what to do about it.
I have long believed that it is only right and appropriate that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able -- if called upon to do so -- to make them a proper omelet in the morning. Surely that kind of civility and selflessness would be both good manners and good for the world. Perhaps omelet skills should be learned at the same time you learn to fuck. Perhaps there should be an unspoken agreement that in the event of loss of virginity, the more experienced of the partners should, afterward, make the other an omelet -- passing along the skill at an important and presumably memorable moment.
Everyone should be able to roast a chicken. And they should be able to do it well.
Given the current woeful state of backyard grilling, a priority should be assigned to instructing people on the correct way to grill and rest a steak. We have, as a nation, suffered the tyranny of inept steak cookery for far too long. There's no reason that generation after generation of families should continue to pass along a tradition of massacring perfectly good meat in their kitchens and backyards.
Cooking vegetables to a desired doneness is easy enough and reasonable to expect of any citizen of voting age.
A standard vinaigrette is something anyone can and should be able to do.
The ability to shop for fresh produce and have at least some sense of what's in season, to tell whether or not something is ripe or rotten might be acquired at the same time as one's driving license.
How to recognize a fish that's fresh and how to clean and filet it would seem a no-brainer as a basic survival skill in an ever more uncertain world.
Steaming a lobster or a crab -- or a pot of mussels or clams -- is something a fairly bright chimp could do without difficulty, so there's no reason we all can't.
Every citizen should know how to throw a piece of meat in the oven with the expectation that they might roast it to somewhere in the neighborhood of desired doneness -- and without a thermometer.
One should be able to roast and mash potatoes. And make rice -- both steamed and the only slightly more difficult pilaf method.
The fundamentals of braising would serve all who learn from them -- as simply learning how to make a beef bourguignon opens the door  to countless other preparations.
What to do with bones (namely, make stock) and how to make a few soups -- as a means of making efficient use of leftovers -- is a lesson in frugality many will very possibly have to learn at some point in  their lives. It would seem wise to learn earlier rather than later.
Everyone should be encouraged at every turn to develop their own modest yet unique repertoire -- to find a few dishes they love and practice at preparing them until they are proud of the result. To either respect in this way their own past -- or express through cooking their dreams for the future. Every citizen would thus have their own specialty.
Why can we not do this? There is no reason in the world.
Let us then go forward. With vigor."
(pp. 62-4)

I have a lot of work to do.