Ex Libris Kirkland

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Subtitle A Culinary Reflection
First Written 1969
Genre Nonfiction
Origin US
Publisher Modern Library
My Copy cheap paperback
First Read January 13, 2023

The Supper of the Lamb



I was utterly, utterly charmed by this book before I was done reading page 3. Just gold. Who has been keeping this from me????

Noted on January 13, 2023

That is the unconsolable heartburn, the lifelong disquietude of having been made in the image of God. All man's love is vast and inconvenient. It is tempting, of course, to blunt its edge by caution. It is so much easier not to get involved- to thirst for nothing and no one, to deny that matter matters and, if you have the stomach for it, to make your bed with meanings which cannot break your heart. But that, it seems to me, is neither human nor Divine. If we are to put up with all other bothers out of love, then no doubt we must put up with the bother of love itself and not just cut and run for cover when it comes.

First of all, such faintness is unworthy of true men. We are the lords, the priests, and the lovers of the world: It is by our hands that its cities will be built if they are built at all. But anything to which we lie so close cannot be a matter of cool detachment and scientific indifference. If I am to lift music, I must lay such hands upon it as not only give me power over it, but also give it power over me. If I am to be the priestly agent by which some girl with high cheekbones enters the exchanges of the city, I must be prepared for the possibility that she may wind my clock beyond all mortal hope of repair. Love is as strong as death.

Quoted on January 20, 2023

With that, I leave you. From this point on, a well-made dinner party is on its own. With only minor nudging from time to time to prevent its running aground in the shoal waters of disagreement or bad taste, it should come, with fags flying and bands playing, to a happy berth. I wish you welil May your table be graced with lovely women and good men. May you drink well enough to drown the envy of youth in the satisfactions of maturity. May your men wear their weight with pride, secure in the knowledge that they have at last become considerable. May they rejoice that they will never again be taken for callow, black-haired boys. And your women? Ah Women are like cheese strudels. When first baked, they are crisp and fresh on the outside, but the filling is unsettled and indigestible; in age, the crust may not be so lovely, but the filling comes at last into its own, May you relish them indeed. May we all sit long enough for reserve to give way to ribaldry and for gallantry to grow upon us. May there be singing at our table before the night is done, and old, broad jokes to fling at the stars and tell them we are men.

Quoted on January 20, 2023

That is not a warning; it is a compliment. If you are still with me at this point, it can only be because you are a serious drinker of being: a man who will walk back ten paces to smell privet in bloom; a woman who loves to rap sound turnips with her knuckles. Let us congratulate one another: The party has taken a distinct turn for the better. The busybodies with late meetings to attend have long since departed. The fidgeters who yawned their way through the evening have flaunted their early rising and vanished mercifully into outer darkness. Rejoice, dear heart; the ribbon clerks are finally out of the game. At last we may speak freely of the things that matter. (Have you ever looked at the thousands of five-pointed stars on the underside of blossoming spirea?) Put away the cooking Sherry, Margaret, only the real ones are left. The good stuff is in the right-hand end of the sideboard.

Quoted on January 13, 2023

Economy is not one of the necessary principles of the universe; it is one of the jokes which God indulges in precisely because He can afford it. If a man takes it seriously, however, he is doomed forever to a middle-income appreciation of the world. Indeed, only the very poor and the very rich are safe from its idolatry. The poor, because while they must take it seriously, they cannot possibly believe it's a good; and the rich, because, though they may see it as a good, they cannot possibly take it seriously. For the one it is a bad joke, for the other, a good one; but for both it is only part of the divine ludicrousness of creation- of the sensus lusus which lies at the heart of matter. And that is why all men should hasten to become very poor or very rich-or both at once, like St Paul, who had nothing and yet possessed all things. The world was made in sport, for sports; economy is worth only a smile. There are more serious things to laugh at.

Quoted on January 13, 2023

Food is the daily sacrament of unnecessary goodness, ordained for a continual remembrance that the world will always be more delicious than it is useful. Necessity is the mother only of cliches. It takes playfulness to make poetry.

Quoted on January 13, 2023

Do you see what that means? In a general way we concede that God made the world out of joy: He didn't need it; He just thought it was a good thing. But if you confine His activity in creation to the beginning only, you lose most of the joy in the subsequent shuffle of history. Sure, it was good back then, you say, but since then, we've been eating leftovers. How much better a world it becomes when you see Him crating at all times and at every time; when you see that the preserving of the old in being is just as much creation as the bringing of the new out of nothing. Each thing, at every moment, becomes the delight of His hand, the apple of His eye. The bloom of yeast lies upon the grape skins year after year because He likes it; C6H12O6=2C2H5OH+2CO2 is a dependable process because, every September, He says, That was nice; do it again.

Let us pause and drink to that.

Quoted on January 13, 2023

Ah Kidneys! And all those other distinct species of goodness so aptly named variety meats: tongue, brain, sweetbreads, tripe, heart, liver, and, last of all, the oxtail, which, when glorified with a little Madeira and good bread, can wag any meal into an occasion of joy…

Quoted on January 13, 2023

[this is straight-up Sternian]

You see, I hope, how hard it is to rush past even a single detail. The world is such an amiable place. There is a distinct possibility that a properly attentive cookbook might never get through even one recipe.

Quoted on January 13, 2023

[this is straight-up Trahernian]

Between the onion and the parsley, therefore, I shall give ether summation of my case for paying attention. Man’s real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God’s image for nothing. The fruits of his attention can be seen in all the arts, crafts, and sciences. It can cost him time and effort, but it pays handsomely.

Quoted on January 13, 2023

First, I am an amateur. If that strikes you as disappointing, consider how much in error you are, and how the error is entirely of your own devising.

Quoted on January 13, 2023


Ex Libris Kirkland is a super-self-absorbed reading journal made by Matt Kirkland. Copyright © 2001 - .
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