Life From Scratch Read Online Free

to sop up all of that lovely yolk. They were, even without bread, the best damn eggs I had ever had. Like I said, I love Fernand Point.
     
Eggs are delicate things. They deserve this much attention, if not more. Oh, and butter is my new best friend.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Juicing the Lemon
     
    I push my way up the street, against the steady stream of traffic that is walking across the city towards Rockefeller Plaza and the enormous tree.   Christmas is the only time of year where New Yorkers slow down and walk like zombie tourists, unable to drag their eyes away from store displays and the siren song of twinkle lights.   It drives me crazy when people walk slowly.  
    A few flakes of snow drift in the air, as if they’re unsure whether or not they have permission to land.   If I didn’t need cake flour this badly as well as have to give Arianna back the purse that I borrowed for my date with Rob Zuckerman, I would never step outside my apartment during prime weekday shopping hours.   Within three blocks, my knees are already bruised from getting thwacked by tourists’ shopping bags.
    I buzz the front desk at Arianna’s apartment building and step into the warm lobby, unwrapping my scarf as I make my way across the marble flooring.   Her building always smells like too much perfume, as if they have washed the floors in Shalimar, and it’s much older than mine.   It has a delightfully creepy, Red-rum feel to the place.
    Someone has wedged a plastic Santa from a Happy Meal into the ashtray by the elevator bay, and it stares at me with a frozen smile while I wait for the lift beside a mother and her preschool-aged child.  
    “I ate toilet paper,” he whispers to me, apropos of nothing.
    “Honestly, Henry!” his mother exclaims, rolling her eyes as if telling a stranger that he has eaten toilet paper is the last straw.   She yanks his hand to lead him into the open elevator, and he remains silent the rest of the ride until I get off on Arianna’s floor.
    The truth is that I want a little boy who eats toilet paper.   Food would obviously be better, but I’d take toilet paper if push came to shove.
    Arianna is breathtakingly lovely, dressed more for the front row of Stella McCarthy’s next runway show rather than an outing to Zabar’s on the Upper West Side .   Arianna is a finisher for a major fashion designer. She doesn’t design anything or cut the patterns, but she does all of the hand-stitching and bead work. The designer’s staff is thrilled to have her work out of her apartment rather than give her space in their crowded loft. So she has set up her life to be a full-time mother to Beckett as well as a full-time seamstress.   She is currently wearing three inch kitten slides paired with a pair of expensive-looking designer jeans she probably got as a free sample from a friend in the industry.   She kisses me on the cheek while she lets me into the apartment, taking her purse out of my hands.
    “It’s terrible out there,” I warn.   “Swarms of tourists, all carrying shopping bags.   Seriously, every last one of them.”
    She shrugs a baby Bjorn over her shoulders and loads Beckett into it so he’s facing outward, his matching jean-clad legs dangling in front of her.   She yanks a stocking cap over his head, blindly tying the strings underneath his chin, which is sticky with drool that he has dragged out of his mouth via his hand.   She puts on her own coat—a delicious, soft, moss-green pea coat, hand-sewn for her by one of her designer friends.   I spend a lot of time coveting her wardrobe.
    “I know Christmas isn’t supposed to be a big deal if you’re Jewish,” I tell her as we step out of her apartment, and she locks her door.   “I mean, the biggest thing I have to do that day is order Chinese food.   But every single commercial is about what your husband is going to buy you.”
    “Diamonds,” Arianna agrees.
    “Or sitting on your Stainmaster carpet and opening Christmas