“Life was always easier, reflected Issy, when you were carrying a large Tupperware full of cakes. Everyone was happy to see you then.”

“Baking is...Life. So when you describe what you're making, you must describe life. Do you see? It's not just recipes..”

“We'd even devised the Buffy scale of life relationships: you start off wanting Xander, spend your twenties going out with Spike and setttle down with giles.”

“I think love is caramel. Sweet and fragant; always welcome. It is the gentle golden colour of a setting harvest sun; the warmth of a squeezed embrace; the easy melting of two souls into one and a taste that lingers even when everything else has melted away. Once tasted it is never forgotten.”

“Turkish DelightTurkish delight has had a bad reputation since that man C.S.Lewis - a positive genius in other ways - linked it for ever with one of the most terrifying creations in literature, the White Witch of Narnia, and that naughty, sticky, traitorous Edmund. But with the sensuous pleasure imbued in its melting, gelatinous texture, and, when made in the proper way, delicately perfumed with rose petals, flavoured with oils and dusted with sugar, it reclaims its power as a sweet as seductive as Arabian nights. The fact that it now carries with it a whiff of danger merely adds to its pleasure. It is not, truly, a sweet for children. They simply complain, and get the almonds stuck up their noses,”

“No, I would say they are more arseholey than you.”

“I want to go to the party!’‘I said no.’‘I’ve been totally good.’‘You shot me with an arrow.”