Today's cooking extract is from Lord Adron's army kitchen outside Dragaera City. "The two gentlemen set to work on the comestibles in their particular fashions: Adron attacked his food as if it were the enemy, and disposed his knife and his teeth as if they were the forces with which he intended to rout the roasted duck, drive back the hard-crusted bread, scatter the long-bean and rice, and force the confection of apple, cream, and plum wine to surrender unconditionally. Aerich, meanwhile, treated these same dishes as if each were an honored guest, and he did not so much devour them as hold conversation with them, treating each with the courtesy and respect he thought it deserved. It is difficult to say which of them enjoyed his meal the more, yet certainly Adron enjoyed his more quickly--he was sipping strong wine and wandering contentedly about the tent (if we may be permitted such unfortunate euphony) while the Lyorn was contemplating the whipped, frothy confection we have already mentioned, and wondering at the best way to address it with the sweet biscuits at hand. 'A most laudable repast,' he remarked and looked upon the dishes, full and empty, and recalled their contents. Adron bowed, and gave the subaltern an approving look that she would in due course take back to the chief of Adron's kitchen. When she had a last gathered up the dishes, napkins, and wine bottles, Aerich sat back contentedly, signed, and said, 'Will You Highness entertain a question?' 'Gladly, my dear Lyorn,' said Adron, looking up from the patterns of purple stones upon which he had, perhaps as an aid to digestion, begun working once more. 'I must apologize that this question is not related to the duck who has given his life for our palates, nor, indeed, to the elegant and thoroughly mysterious manner in which Your Highness's chef has managed to season and prepare it over the spit with only the tools of a traveling army at his disposal.' Five Hundred Years After, Chapter the Nineteenth, page 282 Merry Christmas! Bye. Linda G.