A Well-made Martini Or Gibson, Correctly Chilled

In Spite Of My Conviction That A Group Of Deliberately Assembled Relatives Can Be One Of The Dullest, If Not Most Dangerous, Gatherings In The World, I Am Smugly Foolhardly Enough To Have Invited All My Available Family, More Than Once, To Dine With Me.

I Live With Carpe Diem Engraved On My Heart.

It Must Not Simply Be Taken For Granted That A Given Set Of Ill-assorted People, For No Other Reason Than Because It Is Christmas, Will Be Joyful To Be Reunited And To Break Bread Together.

It Was There [dijon], I Now Understand, That I Started To Grow Up, To Study, To Make Love, To Eat And Drink, To Be Me And Not What I Was Expected To Be. It Was There That I Learned It Is Blessed To Receive, As Well As That Every Human Being, No Matter How Base, Is Worthy Of My Respect And Even My Envy Because He Knows Something That I May Never Be Old Or Wise Or Kind Or Tender Enough To Know.

Brioches Are A Light, Pale Yellow, Faintly Sweet Kind Of Muffin With A Characteristic Blob On Top, Rather Like A Mushroom Just Pushing Crookedly Through The Ground. Once Eaten In Paris, They Never Taste As Good Anywhere Else.