Monday, February 01, 2010

Correspondence with a friend

Here are two recent emails from ongoing daily correspondence between a friend and I. There are the actual emails word for word. I'll let you wonder which is mine.

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To this simpleton's palate there reside yet few foods that can register true epicurean delight. Loftiest among them is the meatball. How grand a vision you delivered to me of steaming pots bristling with a battalion of these pan-fried crumbling concoctions slithering amongst one another within a hot tomato bath. Neither the armed will of spartan soldiers nor the entreaties of greek philosophers could compel this aging revolutionary away from a kitchen so enlivened as yours must have been on that day. My dearest Abigail, observing me in this state, has deemed me lost to Lucifer's will, the insidious devil having, with the greatest alacrity, traded away from the dangling of tobacco and spirits in favor of that singular vice from which this Achilles suffers - the meatball.

Your humble servant.

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Dear Sir, — The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I send you a Meatball, to evoke the exclamation of `mon Dieu! jusque à quand'! would make me immortal. I can never send half a meatball in addressing you when only a whole not the part would suffice. Indeed I think that every culinary pallet gives a great handle to sauced meatball that, without a revelation, there would be tomoato sauce on their cravat. Please give my best to dearest Abigail.