Aftertaste Quotes

“You bring out the best of everything--- the sweet, the sour, the bitter. You're the reason to savor things. You're the first seasoning, and the last. You're the sea. You're the stars. Life is built on salt, and I--- I want to build mine with you."
"Say it again," Maura whispered, and he thought for a moment she was teasing, but her eyes were glassy, wet.
"I love you like salt.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“In the end, he doesn't know her by sight, or touch, or sound. Only by taste.
The flavor of her kiss a craving, its quality like coming home.
The best thing he has ever tried. Will ever. Ever could.
A special kind of salt.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Every time I try to process her death, it only makes it worse. Grief's like leftovers that way. Like you made this four-course meal out of your love, but they only got to eat one little bite. So now you're stuck with all this food you can't bear to throw away, and all you can do is shove it in the back of the fridge to rot, or make yourself sick trying to binge it on your own."
"Or maybe," Kostya said gently, "you could invite someone else to dinner. Someone hungry.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Food could do that. It could tell stories. Not just cuisines or component parts, but histories—of the people who’d prepared the dishes, the way they evolved them over time, the way they made them theirs. Leaving behind a recipe was a way to be remembered and savored and loved even after you were gone. A way to live forever.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“I don't adjust the aftertastes to taste good. Sometimes, spirits are bitter. What they need to return, that's what I make. Down to the charred crust.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“I love you, Konstantin. I love you like salt. And I'm going to fix this."
Salt.
More than salt.
Morton's. Himalayan.
Sweat. Blood. Capers. Roe.
Maura.
So much more than salt.
Something shakes loose inside of him. An instinct to feed her.
He only has one memory left, enough for a single ingredient. Something salty--- he was salty in it--- all attitude. But with an undertone of regret, a dash of guilt. A longing for affection.
He recalls it--- the kitchen, the refrigerator door, the way the cold air felt along his skin--- lets it travel along his tongue--- his father and that awful tie, the kids and all of their unkindness, his own fear and shame and loneliness--- rolls it like a marble inside his mouth--- the anger that exploded from his chest, his dad's defeat, his own terrible regret--- and feels it harden, rough and textured, crystalline, saline, its nooks and crannies and hand-harvested flakes seasoned to taste, flavored by this memory--- the ache for attention, for connection, for love.
It's a subtle salt. Delicate.
Fleur de sel.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Some salt gets mined out of the ground, every crystal perfect, its flavor so predictable it graces every kitchen. But other salt comes out of marshes, gets harvested by hand, tastes like the journey it took to find you, including the wrong turns. I love you more because of where I've been, and I'd stay Hungry forever if it would make you believe that loving you was never about not feeling empty. It was about the chance to feel this full.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“He was deeply in love with her. Truly. Madly. A kind of love he'd never dared fathom. It hadn't happened in an instant--- a flash in the pan, quick sear, raw within--- but over time, his initial wallop of attraction so thin and bland beside the concentrated feeling that consumed him now, this love that had simmered slowly, sauce marrying over long, low heat.
Maura with the tarot, shuffling his cards, dashing his dreams, telling him to quit in a way that only drove him to think about her: the tartness of tomato, stewing over flame.
Maura in the dark, pulling down his mask, kissing him in the stairwell of that strange immersion theater: the heat of hot pepper flakes.
Maura in his bed, in his T-shirt, eating grilled cheese in the middle of the night, feeding it to him, crumbs on the comforter, her fingers in his mouth: the sweet emulsion of butter.
Maura arguing with him, one hand on her hip, pissed the hell off: basil, torn.
Maura working through a problem, her forehead furrowed, eyes in such sharp focus: the concentration of tomato paste.
Maura walking into a room, the air shifting, his eyes finding hers: garlic, caramelized.
Maura when she said his name, when she whispered it, when she traced it into his shoulder, gasped it, screamed it, held it in her mouth like a secret: pepper--- red and black and white--- grinding in a mill.
Maura in the world, living with so much life, so much yearning, so much hunger, that all he ever wanted to do was feed her, satisfy her, love her, make her feel as full as she made him: streams of salt and salt and salt.
It had all stirred together inside him until there it was--- love--- and everything else he'd ever tried just fell away, tasteless.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“He drained and sugared the frozen cherries, put them on the stove over medium heat until their juice warmed, thick syrup, sweet-tart and perfectly balanced.
"That smells like Heaven."
"Taste it." He fished a spoonful of soft, warm fruit from the saucepan and fed it to her.
"Marry me."
"We gotta seal these first.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“A memory that costs you something," he said aloud, almost to himself. "One that hurts to remember. That makes you regret what you did or didn't do. Or makes you remember how happy you used to be when they were here. Something that makes you really feel your grief."
Those were the memories that summoned the ghosts: the ones that came at a price, that took a little something from the person remembering. These were emotions complex as flavors, sweet articulated by bitter, acid cutting through umami, fat neutralizing heat.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“The Food Hall is a feast.
For the eyes. For the tongue. For the mind.
It is vast as desire, an ocean of food. Its edges a horizon you could approach for all eternity and never actually reach.
It's also really freaking fun.
There are groves of sun-ripe fruit, air thick with the scent of peaches and plums, lemons and limes, deep-jungle soursop, grapes on the vine, pitaya and stink nut and green mangosteen, pomegranates descended from Persephone's own pips.
There are city-sized mazes of street meat, umami smoke rising in columns, the sizzle of griddles and grills caramelizing everything from anticucho to bún chả, lamb gyro to pani câ mèusa, dodo wing to Tyrannosaurus thigh.
There are islands of cheese--- actual islands--- afloat in whey, burrata barges shuttling souls through a paneer pass to an ivory ibérico coast, an isthmus of ricotta connecting it back to a Muenster mainland.
In the Food Hall, the world is an oyster! A Kushimoto white as sky, an undiscovered varietal untouched by human hands. A bowl of cherries! Amarainier, Montmorello, cross-bred juices sluicing down your chin. A box of chocolates! Clustered coconut, stickjaw caramel, a heart-shaped Whitman Sampler Wonka Wonderball Surprise.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Maura was so still he could barely hear her breathe.
He spooned whipped cream into her mouth, a cherry varenyk, another sprinkle of salt. He watched the flavors marry as she chewed, saw that smile, spread across her face.
He wanted to kiss her, to taste what she tasted.
"There it is," she whispered.
Fleur de sel," he said, holding up the little jar.
"Flowers of salt." She opened her eyes. "That's beautiful."
"You're beautiful. It's just salt." He felt his face burn as soon as he said it. He wasn't good at this part. "And I, apparently, am mostly cheese."
"I like cheese.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“He knew immediately what he should cook for Maura, the journey he would take her on.
They could make them together--- varenyky. Thin-skinned dumplings bursting with lightly sugared sour cherries, their warm, dark juice flooding your mouth. Or the cheese kind--- soft, sweet kernels of curd luxuriating in a pool of liquid butter. The meat ones, his dad's take on pelmeni, beef and pork and black pepper and onion, boiled first and then pan-fried, brown and crispy, doused in a poultice of white vinegar and sinus-clearing Russian mustard and thick sour cream.
Hell, he'd cook all three.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“I'm Ukrainian, actually. And I'm making my signature dish," he said slowly, meeting Ibáñez's stare. "More shocking than Rocky Mountain oysters." He nodded to Volière. "Rarer than ortolan. Maybe just as taboo, though." He turned to Katsuki. "And it does more than just dance around death. It reverses it."
There was silence in the kitchen as they waited for the punch line, anxious to learn if the things they'd heard through the grapevine were true.
"Well?" Volière prompted. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"
"I don't know." Kostya shrugged. "The Dead haven't fed it to me yet.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Most of my life, I've felt more connected to the Dead than the Living."
Maura moved closer. "Maybe you just need to live a little more."
He breathed her in, her smell intoxicating. "Maybe you can show me."
She swallowed the space between them, kissed him slow. The sensation of her mouth was honey, sweet and sticky and thick. He kissed her back, and it was agony, this kiss, the way it consumed him. She pulled him in, close, closer, desire pushing every other thought to the back of his mind.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Careful! Ms. Pac-Man only gets to stay on this side as long as Pac-Man survives on his. True love, right? If I don't find the portal before you die," Maura warned him, "I vanish. Literally. We'll have to reset the game to get her to show up again."
"Happy Meal, huh? To bring a ghost back from the Dead?" Kostya maneuvered Pac-Man around a corner. "That's kind of on the nose."
"Well, Hungry Ghosts are the kind that come back." Maura grinned. "Feeding the Dead to help them cross--- it's a whole thing in, like, a dozen different traditions. Japan. China. Mexico. Ancient Egypt. I figured it'd be up your alley.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“The maze reappeared, in ghostly blue this time, the pellets punctuated by countless miniature foods--- not only fruits but pixelated pizza slices, tiny sushi rolls, petite hamburgers. Ms. Pac-Man faded onto the screen, not in the bottom half, where she usually started, but in the central box, where the ghosts usually did. Instead of her trademark yellow, she appeared blinking, in blue.
"She's--- she's one of the ghosts?"
Maura took up the controls again. Kostya watched her move through the maze, eating everything in sight.
"It's a secret level," Maura told him. "Only available in the 1983 rerelease of the Japanese cabinet. It's called the Hungry Ghost Maze."
"So it's a bonus round? The point's just to... get more points?"
"The points don't matter in the ghost realm. To clear this level, you have to find the Happy Meal. Hidden in one of these fruits is a portal that gets you back to the real world.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Aperitif--- Spectral Sour (Library of Spirits, Fall 2016)
Amuse-bouche--- Sautéed Liver and Onions (Saveur Fare, Winter 2016)
Potage--- Buffalo Chicken & Baked Potato Chowder (Hell's Kitchen, Winter 2017)
Entrée--- Fried Sardines with Preserved Lemon on Toast (Hell's Kitchen, Winter 2017)
Special Seatings--- Chef's Tastings (Limited)


Once he realized what it was, Kostya had to take a minute.
They were all aftertastes, dishes rooted in the Dead that he, Konstantin, had shepherded back to life. Frankie had seen the possibilities; he'd believed in him. Always. So much, apparently, that he'd imagined what a restaurant serving Kostya's food would look like. How he could structure his courses.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“He’d be the maker of their dreams, the miner of their memories, the mouthpiece for their taste buds and tongues and every gut feeling. Their Chef d’Esprit.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“You won’t believe this shit—this biz is ruthless! But, uh, I didn’t sign the paperwork, so I’ll go ahead and spill some tea. Let’s head up to the dining room—tell you ’bout the service from a real special night. And I hope you like drama, because this part—it is jui-cy!”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“I like the hustle. The ball-busting. That half-life we got going on at Wolfpup, just shit talking and bullshitting and dicking around. We charge forty bucks an entrée, and we’re just a bunch of fuckers hanging out debating who’s got the biggest man nuts.” He took another bite of his bagel. “And it’s me, by the way. In case you were wondering.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Hilario Torres—Rio—was the executive chef at Wolfpup, and Frankie was his sous. Their relationship, Frankie liked to say, was like having a wife he’d never get to fuck or fuck over.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“I,” Kostya scoffed, “am no virgin. I’m extremely experienced. An expert.” “Oh.” She looked surprised. “Okay. Cool! In that case, do you have a favorite way in? Or should we just start slow? Sometimes you can get deeper that way.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“And… done!” she announced. “Sorry. There was a piece on the new Zelda, and I couldn’t stop once I started.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Lemme tell you something, Bones.” He wrapped a muscular, tattooed arm around Kostya’s neck. “We oughta get down on our knees right now and pray to the God of Bathroom Sex, ’cause he just did me a solid party favor!”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“It isn’t fair,” he gasped. “That you got sick. That I got to live.” “You don’t have to feel guilty,” she told him, “for wanting your life. My death—none of it was your fault. I died, babe. I just… died. You didn’t kill me.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“all I-see-dead-people style, only without the crazy color-coding. Was this what the ghosts had been waiting for all these years? A fucking snack?”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Just now, there were dark rings of sweat migrating down from his armpits, where even the antiest of perspirants couldn’t penetrate. If Kevin were there, he would have murdered Konstantin on the spot, wrung him out with his own dishrag. But Kevin was probably doing lines of coke off somebody’s bikini wax in the Hamptons, so fuck him and fuck his rules.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“Close icebox,” his father tsked. “You break like this. Spoil produce. Expensive to fix.”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste

“How do you make lemonade out of fucks?”
― Daria Lavelle, Aftertaste