Just One Taste Quotes

“I want to take you into the kitchen and ravish you."
"Where all the best love affairs begin," I say, turning and jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist as he kisses me and leads me, slowly and deliberately, to the kitchen.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Sicily--- Oranges, pistachios, and/or aubergine. Sicilian food a product of immense, diverse history. Have sardines! Try the orange cake. You'll find it all over, but there used to be a good one in Taormina.

I shake my head in amazement. Somehow, it feels like Dad had been quietly guiding me.

Tuscany--- Wild boar is good but tomatoes are better. Nothing else! Please say something with Chiara's tomatoes. I want to help her. Farm is a century old and sells some obscure varieties. Tomato salads, tomato bread soup, panzanella.

And here too, Leo and I had organically found the path my father laid out for us. The notes on Liguria are less specific, but when I read his scrawled handwriting, I smile to myself.

Liguria--- Was thinking about beans, but basil a good opinion.

Oh boy, I cannot wait to show that note to Leo. Basil a good option!
Leo.
I sit and write with an open heart, not shying away from treacly memories of cut oranges shared in the sea. Pushing my cynicism to the side and allowing the love I have for food, for Italy, for my father, to run from my heart down my veins to my fingers and onto the page.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“The smells of barbecued seafood waft through the air, and I think about the crazy difference between here, with its blue sea and salty air; luscious, green Tuscany; and sun-burnished Sicily.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“My first encounter with the bittersweet taste of the Moro, a Sicilian blood orange, was sitting outside under a gnarled olive tree, during the height of a June heat wave. Small puffs of cloud the only blemish in the otherwise perfect blue sky, the bloodred flesh yielding a juice so refreshing it felt as close to perfect as I've ever come. The second encounter came at a fish market in Catania, where a group of men in flat caps spooned red-orange mounds of Moro granita into their mouths between games of cards. I was back in my dad's world, and the memories of oranges were everywhere.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“I stand up and pull my dress off and wander, yawning, into the bathroom. Then I hear a yelp.
I spin around, naked, and there is Leo, in my bathroom. Standing on the bath mat dripping wet, just out of the shower.
Also completely naked.
There is a moment where our eyes meet, then his flicker down my body and mine down his, tracing the lines of his chest and the curving muscles on his stomach, beads of water trailing down to pool on the floor. I feel an instant reaction inside, a coiling of a spring that pulls tight from my chest to my thighs.
I stare at him and the whole universe narrows to this moment. His stomach flexes, and his hands clench, his eyes on the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, and then they drop to my breasts and I feel all my blood rush to where his gaze rests, my breath shallowing to tiny gasps for air.
I am drawn to him. I lift my hand just a fraction, my fingers reaching forward, and he spots the signal, his eyes once again locking with mine. But now they are dark, his pupils dilated, his face tense with desire.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“I am completely stunned by the beauty of it.
The villa, which will be our home for the next ten days, is nestled on the side of a hill, down a short gravel drive flanked by poplars, grapefruit trees, apricot trees, and a huge cherry tree, already showing plump black fruit. We stand for a moment taking it in, the sounds of a warm breeze rustling the leaves, the chirp of crickets, the cooing of a pair of turtledoves.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“And this is Isabella's nonna's, made with the whole Moro orange from her grove--- pulped into the mix and no dusting, no glaze. Plain."
"You mean perfect," says Isabella, scolding Luca.
There was no doubting Isabella's would win. The pulp added something even softer and more luscious to the crumb. If the cake we had yesterday, warm from the oven, was divine, this was magic.
"I told you," says Luca. "The orange."”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“It is, without a doubt, the most delicious orange I've ever eaten. Notes of raspberry give it a tartness and complexity that leave the classic supermarket navel orange in the dust.
"It's sunshine. It's bittersweet. It's perfect. My god," I say, gasping. "I think I just fell in love. I'm going to have a civil partnership with an orange."
Leo, who has been fairly quiet for the last half hour, leans forward onto his elbows. "They're not for everyone," he says, taking a segment. "Very fleshy, delicately juicy, and not obscenely sweet."
"Fleshy?" Luca says, tipping his glass toward us, playing with his mustache.
"Delicately juicy?" I say, raising an eyebrow. I expect Leo to feel embarrassed, but instead he shoots Luca a cheeky grin, eyes buzzing with mischief.
"Seriously, Olive," Luca says. "For me, the orange is so special to Sicily. We juice it, we ice it, we bake it, we zest it. It's an aperitif, a pasta dish, a dessert. It's the color of sunset on the outside, and a bleeding heart inside.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Then his brows lower a little as he's slightly taken aback by the eye makeup.
"I know I look like Robert Smith," I say before he has a chance.
"I wasn't going to---"
"It was my thing once upon a time. Didn't you have a teenage subculture? LARPing or whatever?"
"You look at me and think Dungeons and Dragons?" he says, smirking.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Time and bravery will get you through anything”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“The second dish is so inviting. I plunge my fork into a piece of soft squid, devouring too much of the North African-influenced couscous dish. There are so many potential key ingredients in here: any one of the different seafoods, even the flecks of marigold-orange zest that add a hit of tangy citrus.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Taormina sits on a natural platform above the coast, its small streets and tiny staircases climbing to the summit of Mount Tauro, where an ancient Greek theater looks out across the sea. Stunning views aside, its coral-colored stone houses with wrought-iron balconies climb above elegant piazzas lined with cafés and filled with people. Deep green bushes with their bright pink flowers seem to grow everywhere, straight from the baking-hot stone. The town is beautiful, the pearl of the Ionian Sea, recently made famous by the show The White Lotus.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Our holidays began here in Catania, this loud, bustling city pulsing with memories. I know these scenes, like a movie once adored and now almost forgotten. I know the large square lava-stone pavers that line the footpaths. I can smell salty, fishy air coming from the fish market I think is just down the far end of the square. I remember this intense heat, the sea breeze flowing like water between the buildings, down the alleyways, never quite cooling enough.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Although Sicily in July can be a furnace, there can be cool nights by the sea, and up in the hills of Mount Etna. I allow myself to feel a tantalizing hope we might head up there. There is something thrilling about the pull of the volcano towering over the Sicilian coastline, constantly puffing steam and fiery red ash like a sleeping dragon, while farmers and villagers quietly live and work, aware that she can wake at any moment.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste