Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life

by Tom Robbins

I cannot honestly say that any food item, with the possible exception of a perfect tomato sandwich, has had a greater impact on my palate and my eye or generated richer, more varied imagerial associations than the jelly doughnut, that plump pastry Pantheon, that unbroken circle, that holy tondo, that doughy dome of heaven, that female breast swollen with sweetness, that globe of glorious goo, that secret round nest of the scarlet-throated calorie warbler, that sun whose rays so ignite the proletariat palate, that hub of the wheel of sustenance, that vampire cookie gorged with gore, that clown in an army overcoat, that fat fried egg with a crimson yoke, that breakfast moon, that bulging pocket, that strawberry alarm clock, that unicorn turd, that jewel pried from the head of a greasy idol (a ruby as big as the Ritz), that Homeric oculus (blind yet all-seeing), that orb, that pod, that crown, that womb, that knob, that bulb, that bowl, that grail, that . . . well, you get the picture.

The French say that the best part of an affair is walking up the stairs. I say that it’s probably better to imagine heaven than to go there.