It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Looser types-people who are not busy weighing and measuring every little thing-are used to accidents, coincidences, chance, things getting out of hand, things sneaking up on them. They are the happy children of life, to whom life happens for better or worse.
Laurie ColwinOn 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 ColwinThe 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 ColwinThat 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 ColwinI do not believe that you have to spend a lot of money to eat well: it is hard to beat a plain old baked potato.
Laurie ColwinMany people eat salad dutifully because they feel it is good for them, but more enlightened types eat it happily because it is good.
Laurie ColwinThere 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