You're Destroying the Chocolate!!!

I'm re-reading Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto for probably the 100th time. The first book I'd read of Yoshimoto was Hardboiled/Hardluck. Kitchen I like better...anything that revolves around food and its place of creation scores more points with me, but this book is really great. It comforts and allows you to sink deep into any emotion you're feeling right now. The play of words, inanimate objects having a life of their own and their own personalities...a kitchen being a refuge from the outer world and its worries, I could list down many things about this book that I love experiencing over and over again every time I pick it up from the book case.

Anyhow, the above paragraph was just an excuse to write something I associate with the book. I'd lent it to a friend of mine (also my ex-boss). She didnt like it as much as I did; she found it too depressing. I remember walking with her to her temporary house (a friend had asked her to move in while she was away for a few months) for a snack and coffee. We stopped at a bakery on the way for some fudge brownies (chocolate sauce topped off on plain brownies). While talking, she suddenly turned to the owner who was taking brownies from the counter and told him very plainly, "Don't lift it that way, you're destroying the chocolate!!" Instead of using the tongs to lift the cake's sides, one of the tongs ends was scraping into the chocolate topping. She made him drop the one he had picked up and asked him to lift the brownies from their sides. He did it quietly and we went home with two "perfect" brownies which were demolished in a few minutes.