I`ve always felt a kinship with Willy Wonka. Even at that age, I could tell that he was a flawed hero, an icon for the forbidden. The forbidden in this case was chocolate, a metaphor for indulgence and anything you`re not supposed to have, be it sex, drugs, alcohol or pornography.

A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men,” Mr. Wonka said.

[My mom's] funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it's her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.

They should make bubblegum that tastes like mashed potatoes. You know, for lovers.

EATABLE MARSHMALLOW PILLOWS

LICKABLE WALLPAPER FOR NURSERIES

HOT ICE CREAMS FOR COLD DAYS

COWS THAT GIVE CHOCOLATE MILK

FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS

SQUARE SWEETS THAT LOOK ROUND

común o algo particularmente delicioso.” — Nicholson Baker

...he was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods <em>that had already been prepared</em> (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient.

tender escargots bobbing in garlicky butter were one of my happiest discoveries!

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

There'll never be a perfect breakfast eaten until some man grows arms long enough to stretch down to New Orleans for his coffee & over to Norfolk for his rolls, & reaches up to Vermont & digs a slice of butter out of a spring-house, & then turns over a beehive close to a white clover patch out in Indiana for the rest. Then he'd come pretty close to making a meal on the amber that the gods eat on Mount Olympia.

Is the Waffle House universally awesome? It is indeed, marvelous, an irony-free zone where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts; where everybody, regardless of race, creed, color, or degree of inebriation, is welcomed — its warm yellow glow a beacon of hope and salvation, inviting the hungry, the lost, the seriously hammered all across the South to come inside. A place of safety and nourishment. It never closes, it is always faithful, always there for you.

So, when I read of a recent study that found that children are significantly more inclined to eat “difficult” foods like liver, spinach, broccoli — and other such hard-to-sell “but-it’s-good-for-you” classics — when they are wrapped in comfortingly bright packages from McDonald’s, I was at first appalled, and then … inspired. Rather than trying to co-opt Ronald’s all-too-effective credibility among children to short-term positive ends, like getting my daughter to eat the occasional serving of spinach, I could reverse-engineer this! Use the strange and terrible powers of the Golden Arches for good — not evil! I plan to dip something decidedly unpleasant in an enticing chocolate coating and then wrap it carefully in McDonald’s wrapping paper. Nothing dangerous, mind you, but something that a two-and-a-half-year-old will find “yucky!” — even upsetting — in the extreme. Maybe a sponge soaked with vinegar. A tuft of hair. A Barbie head. I will then place it inside the familiar cardboard box and leave it — as if forgotten — somewhere for my daughter to find. I might even warn her, “If you see any of that nasty McDonald’s … make sure you don’t eat it!” I’ll say, before leaving her to it. “Daddy was stupid and got some chocolate … and now he’s lost it…” I might mutter audibly to myself before taking a long stroll to the laundry room. An early, traumatic, Ronald-related experience can only be good for her.

She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother’s milk and Drogo’s seed, like red meat and hot blood and molten gold. It was all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them… and then the glass was empty.