The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz Page A

fries.
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    Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.
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    Water chestnuts are supposed to go in a thing, not to be the thing itself.
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    White grapes are very attractive but when it comes to dessert people generally like cake with icing.
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    Candied violets are the Necco Wafers of the overbred.
    There are a number of restaurants in New York that cater primarily to the confirmed bachelor. These establishments share many characteristics with the summer hostess and then some.
    One such local eatery is a remodeled diner that looks like what Busby Berkeley would have done if only he hadn’t had the money. It is open twenty-four hours a day—one supposes as a convenience to the hungry truck driver who will belly up to the takeout counter and bellow, “Two cucumber soups—good and cold; one endive salad—red wine vinaigrette; and one order of fresh asparagus—hold the hollandaise.”
    Saffron should be used sparingly if at all. No matter how enamored one might be of this seasoning, there are few who would agree that it is equal to salt in the versatility department.
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    A native-born American who has spent the entire day in what he knows to be New York City and has not once stepped aboard a ship or plane is almost invariably chagrined and disoriented by a menu that uses the French counterpart for the perfectly adequate English word
grapefruit.
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    Watercress is pleasant enough in a salad or sandwich, but when placed alongside a hamburger it is merely an annoyance.
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    While it is undeniably true that people love a surprise, it is equally true that they are seldom pleased to suddenly and without warning happen upon a series of prunes in what they took to be a normal loin of pork.
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    People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding fresh lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand that there must be a reason for this.
    Technological innovation has done great damage not only to reading habits but also to eating habits. Food is now available in such unpleasant forms that one frequently finds smoking between courses to be an aid to the digestion.
    A loaf of bread that is more comfortable than a sofa cannot help but be unpalatable.
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    The servant problem being what it is, one would think it apparent that a society that provides a Helper for tunabut compels a writer to pack her own suitcases desperately needs to reorder its priorities.
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    Chocolate is an excellent flavor for ice cream but both unreasonable and disconcerting in chewing gum.
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    Breakfast cereals that come in the same colors as polyester leisure suits make oversleeping a virtue.
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    When one asks for cream one should receive either cream or the information that the establishment in question favors instead a combination of vegetable oil and cancer-causing initials.
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    Cheese that is required by law to append the word
food
to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit.
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    Thoroughly distasteful as synthetic foods might be, one cannot help but accord them a certain value when confronted with the health food buff. One is also ever mindful of the fact that the aficionado of whole foods is a frequent champion of excessive political causes.
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    Brown rice is ponderous, overly chewy, and possessed of unpleasant religious overtones.
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    Civilized adults do not take apple juice with dinner.
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    Inhabitants of underdeveloped nations and victims of natural disasters are the only people who have ever been happy to see soybeans.
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    Bread that must be sliced with an ax is bread that is too nourishing.
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    Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who live in hutches