What advice would I give the young? I have trouble answering this question. Here's why.
Just before Christmas I was in a cheese store, purchasing some cheese, when a very young man of oh, say, between 40 and 50-entered, manifesting bewilderment. His wife had sent him out to get something called 'meringue sugar, with strict instructions to buy no other kind, and he didn't know what the stuff was and couldn't find it, and nobody in any of the shops he'd so far wandered into had any idea either.
He didn't say this to me. He said it to the cheese shop person. She too appeared to be without a clue as to the meringue sugar mystery. None of this was any concern of mine. I could have should have-simply pursued my own personal goal of cheese acquisition. Instead I found myself saying: "Don't buy icing sugar; that isn't what your wife wants. What she probably wants is something like fruit sugar or berry sugar, which is sometimes called powdered sugar but it isn't really powdered. It's a finer grind than ordinary white sugar, though you'll have a hard time finding it at this time of year. But really, ordinary white sugar works just fine for meringues as long as you beat it in very slowly. I use it all the time myself, and it helps if you add just a tiny bit of cream of tartar and maybe a half teaspoon of white vinegar, and ..." At this point my daughter-who'd succeeded in identifying the required cheese-got me in a hammerlock and dragged me over to the cash register, where a line was building.
"The white vinegar, not the brown!" I called in closing. But I was already appalled at myself. Why had I spewed out all this unasked-for advice to a complete stranger, albeit a helpless and confused one?
Denne historien er fra August 2022-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
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Denne historien er fra August 2022-utgaven av Reader's Digest India.
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Calendar Girls
After Molly Baker’s husband died suddenly, her friends organized a year’s worth of support
THE GREAT WILDEBEEST MIGRATION
It's a spectacular sight when countless ruminants cross the Serengeti in search of greener pastures
Soumitra Chatterjee's Tryst with Destiny
The encounter that led a budding actor to a legendary filmmaker, and sparked an iconic creative partnership during the golden age of Bengali cinema
Frozen in Time
The life and work of Vittorio Sella, a pioneer of early mountain photography and the man behind some of the very first images of the Himalayas
HALLUCINATIONS
There was a monkey perched on the IV drip stand to the right of my hospital bed. It scowled at me, but I wasn’t afraid: A brief simian visit was part of my daily routine. I never questioned why there was a monkey in the hospital. I wasn’t lucid enough to recognize that my mind was playing tricks on me.
Music in the Air
Cuba is bursting with sound, and each region moves to its own defining rhythm
SHOULD YOU TRY A DETOX TREATMENT?
It's a popular new-year health habit. But science doesn't support it
Ringing True
He thought his late parents' wedding bands were gone forever
14,000-FOOT MIRACLE
The skydiver fully expected to die when her parachute failed to open. Instead, she's writing the next chapter of her life
I SURVIVED!
THREE UNUSUAL MEDICAL EMERGENCIES, AS TOLD BY THE PEOPLE WHO NEARLY DIED FROM THEM
