One

He was teaching me the art of patience, the luxury of slowing down and taking the time to think through everything I did

Cooking was a passion and sometimes a serious art form, to be shared with a select few

In hindsight, I realize he was forcing me to deconstruct my own life, to cut it back to the bone and examine the entrails, no matter how messy that proved to be

“How I ever got you is beyond belief. So don’t wake me up at this date—just let me go on thinking that I’m special enough to deserve you!”

His assertions never veered too far from certain fundamental themes—he spoke about recognizing “the stranger in all of us” and achieving what he liked to call “a resting place of the soul,” by which I now realize he meant self-­assurance and being happy in your own skin. Or as he put it, “a place in your head where you are at peace with your life, with your decisions.”

sometimes I would go to the best restaurant I knew about, and order dishes and good wines as if I were a guest of myself, to be treated with infinite courtesy.”

I said to my father that I did not believe you could die of a laugh and he looked over at me and said, “Poor daughter, you can die of nearly anything.”

Maybe it was okay to have some outsized faith in yourself.

A special proof of scientific as distinguished from aesthetic interest is to care for the hidden and insignificant.

Rufus’s compass-like eyes were lolling and loose, barely able to focus