On an unrelated-to-food note, my student is studying The Great Gatsby, and I felt compelled to share with you some of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s genius:
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 external 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.
How F. Scott Fitzgerald can take a single moment and transform it both into an idea you have never heard of and an idea that is completely familiar and relatable is pure talent…
