"Yet I still believe in love's possibility, in its presence on the earth; as I believe I can approach the altar on any morning on any day which may be the last and receive the touch that dies not, for me, say: There is not death, but does say: In this instant I recognize, with you, that you must die.  And I believe I can do this in an ordinary kitchen with an ordinary woman and five eggs.  I scramble them in a saucepan, as my now-dead friend taught me; they stand deeper and cook softer, he said.  I take our plates, spoon eggs on them, we set and eat.  She and I and the kitchen have become extraordinary: we are not simply eating; we are pausing in the march to perform an act together; we are in love; and the meal offered and received is a sacrament  which says: I know you will die; I am sharing food with you; it is all I can do, and it is everything."

Andre Dubus, "On Charon's Wharf": one of my favorite essays from The Spirit of Food

"Food does not exist merely for the sake of its nutritional value.  To see it so is…to become, in short, solemn idolaters spiritualizing what should be loved as matter.  A man’s daily meal ought to be an exultation over the smack of desirability which lies at the roots of creation.  To break real bread is to break the loveless hold of hell upon the world, and, by just that much, to set the secular free."

Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb.  Also, in reading just the little bit that I have, I have never laughed out loud so often when reading a book as I have reading this one.   This is one passionate, sharp-witted, sarcastic, and profound writer - I can't get enough.