"...You send a poem, and observe wisely that poems are worth all the cucumber-sandwiches in the world. So they are indeed - and yours most particularly - but you may imagine the perversity of the poetic imagination and its desire to feed on imagined cucumber-sandwiches, which, since they are positively not to be had, it pictures to itself as a form of English manna - oh the perfect green circles - oh the delicate hint of salt - oh the fresh pale butter - oh, above all, the soft white crumbs and golden crust of the new bread - and thus, as in all aspects of life, the indefatigable fancy idealises what could be snapped up and swallowed in a moment's restrained greed, in sober fact."
-- Possession, A. S. Byatt
It must be confessed that few things are as delightful as finding some such recipe in the book one is reading, developing a raging craving for it, and sneaking home with a grocery bag full of things to quell said craving that very night.
And the luxury of adding cream cheese, purple potato Jagabee and a hot mug of tea!
Life cannot get much better.
