But If I Must Be Alone, I

Wine And Cheese Are Ageless Companions, Like Aspirin And Aches, Or June And Moon, Or Good People And Noble Ventures.

Between The Ages Of Twenty And Fifty, John Doe Spends Some Twenty Thousand Hours Chewing And Swallowing Food, More Than Eight Hundred Days And Nights Of Steady Eating. The Mere Contemplation Of This Fact Is Upsetting Enough.

People Ask Me: "why Do You Write About Food, And Eating, And Drinking? Why Don't You Write About The Struggle For Power And Security, And About Love, The Way The Others Do?" . . . The Easiest Answer Is To Say That, Like Most Other Humans, I Am Hungry.

The Oyster Leads A Dreadful But Exciting Life. Indeed, His Chance To Live At All Is Slim, And If He Should Survive The Arrows Of His Own Outrageous Fortune And In The Two Weeks Of His Carefree Youth Find A Clean Smooth Place To Fix On, The Years Afterwards Are Full Of Stress, Passion, And Danger.

There Is A Mistaken Idea, Ancient But Still With Us, That An Overdose Of Anything From Fornication To Hot Chocolate Will Teach Restraint By The Very Results Of Its Abuse.