The New Yorker, 2013-11-04

[fiefoe]

"Fire-Eaters" / Lauren Collins
Chili growing is to gardening as grilling is to cooking, allowing men to enter, and dominate, a domestic sphere without sacrificing their bluster.

"Just Add Sugar" / Rebecca Mead
The yogurt.. topped with peach, almonds, thyme, and lemon zest- was inspired.

"The Man Who Invented the Calendar" / B. J. Novak

• Finally, I asked if anything was wrong, and she said, “Do you know what day it is today?” I said, “Yes, of course I do, I invented the calendar. It’s February 14th. Why?” She smiled a really tight smile, said, “Yes. Yes, it is,” and then walked out. What’s that about?
• But I guess it’s good when your invention takes on a life you never expected. That’s what the inventor of the scarf told me—it was originally supposed to be a weapon.
• November 6th—Things with Jane are better. I think we’re going to work this out. I love her, and that’s all that matters.November 11th—They sacrificed Jane today. Really happy for the Sun God.
• “Well, you know what tomorrow is?” I said, “Yes, November 24th.” He said, “No. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life.” And everyone said, “Aww,” and I was, like, Are you kidding me? Do you know how long it took me to get people to stop talking like that?

"Bread and Women" / Adam Gopnik

• After many years of marriage, you tend to focus your curiosity not on the spectacular moments that might yet happen but on excavating the stranger, smaller ones that did.. As Proust knew, all love depends not just on current infatuation but on retrospective jealousy.
• Like most good cooks, my mother is sweet-tempered in the run-up to the cooking, short-tempered in the actual event.
• We imagine that our existence is thank-you enough. Children always reinterpret their parents' sense of obligation as compulsion.. In order to supply the unique amount of care that children demand, we have to enter into a contract in amnesia where neither reside is entirely honest about the costs.

Gopnik: All facts in all inquiries come at us with their own shakiness, their own shimmer of uncertainty. The threads of evidence usually seem separate and and sure only because life mostly comes at us in finished fabrics, and nothing requires us to pull the thread. When we do, whenever we do, there's a tangle waiting.