Many years ago, for a Christmas dinner, we decided to make an old-fashioned mince pie the traditional way.

I started weeks in advance, preparing the mincemeat. This mostly consisted of periodically replenishing the alcohol content as everything was absorbed.

Well, when it came time to eat the baked mince pie, it was inedible to almost everyone. It tasted like pure turpentine. Our modern American taste buds were just not used to the real, traditional, homemade mince pies the way they were made back in the time of Charles Dickens. One woman did say that she would like to bring any and all leftovers to her elderly father. He was Irish, and hadn't had something like this in many years; this would absolutely remind him of what he grew up enjoying. So, she took pretty much the entire pie home with her, with our blessing. Her dad loved it.

Signor V.

"For me, there's only my wife..."

"Sure I cook with wine - sometimes I even add it to the food!"

"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?"

"It was a grass harp... And we listened."

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"

"No. Saints and poets, maybe... they do some."