Rosewater Quotes

“She couldn't see the homemade colored sprinkles, the tender yellow cake, or the pale pink frosting made with strawberry syrup enhanced with a little rosewater. Although our local strawberries weren't in season yet, I had conjured the aroma and taste of juicy berries warmed by the sun. I hoped this flavor would help the two old people return once more to their youth and the carefree feeling of a summer day.”
― Judith Fertig, The Cake Therapist

“A cookie, Avis told her children, is a soul. She held up the wafer, its edges shimmering with ruby-dark sugar. "You think it looks like a tiny thing, right? Just a little nothing. But then you take a bite."
Four-year-old Felice lifted her face. Avis fanned her daughter's eyes closed with her fingertips and placed it in Felice's mouth. Felice opened her sheer eyes. Lamb slid his orange length against her ankles. Avis handed a cookie to eight-year-old Stanley, who held it up to his nose. "Does that taste good?" she asked. Felice nodded and opened her mouth again.
"It smells like flowers," Stanley said.
"Yes." Avis paused, a cookie balanced on her spatula. "That's the rosewater. Good palate, darling."
"Mermaids eat roses," Felice said. "Then they melt.”
― Diana Abu-Jaber, Birds of Paradise

“Are there flowers here, your ladyship?' he asked when Pole had gone.
'Flowers?' Lucretia touched a hand to her cheek. 'Surely you have smelt rose water before?'
In the Solar Gallery, remembered John. The scent teased his nostrils as he bent to prise open the first dumpling. The soft dough parted and a puff of steam carried a second sweet smell into the chamber. Lucretia peered at the glistening mass then looked up curiously. 'What dish is this?'
'"Let me feed thee Honey-sugared Creams,"' John recited. '"As cool the Quodling's 'scaping Steam."'
She stared at him, amazed. 'The verses? You can read?'
'Is it so strange in a cook?'
'I... no.' Lucretia gathered herself. 'Of course you must read your receipts.'
'They are our verses, your ladyship. We give each other recitals down there in our kitchens.'
John brought a corked flask from inside his doublet and poured sweetened cream over the apple. He watched her dig into the apple's oozing flesh, swirl the thick cream then slip the marbled mixture into her mouth.
'Your honey-sugared cream is as sweet as the verses claim,' Lucretia told him, swallowing. 'It all but conquers the sourness of the quodling.”
― Lawrence Norfolk, John Saturnall's Feast

“Hold on," Marjan said, reaching behind a tin of pistachio nougats. She found the bottle, unscrewing the cap as her back was turned to her sisters. She upended it, letting the rosewater, the priceless tears of that queen of blossoms, pool in her cupped hand.
She turned back to Bahar and smiled. "Better late than never," she said, showering her sister with a brand-new day.”
― Marsha Mehran, Rosewater and Soda Bread

“Gulab jamun, am I right?" Puffy Fay asked with his mouth full. "The inspiration for this cupcake?"
Vik nodded. "A friend once told me she loved to take her favorite desserts and make them into something else." He glanced at me briefly.
Gulab jamun. I'd had it plenty of times in India. Creamy fried dumplings soaked in a sugar syrup, flavored with cardamom and-
"Rosewater," said Puffy Fay, "can be a tricky ingredient. But-" he smacked his lips- "you've done an excellent job. And you somehow managed to mimic the flavor of that very sweet dessert without making your cupcake too sweet. Fascinating."
"I coated rose petals in sugar and salt," said Vik. "Sugar for laughter, and salt for tears.”
― Rajani LaRocca, Midsummer's Mayhem

“Nobody can work with the poor and not fall over Karl Marx from time to time — or just fall over the Bible, as far as that goes.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“After showering I like one of the oldest concoctions in the world—rosewater and glycerin. I once asked a lovely lady in her eighties how she kept the skin of a baby, and that was what she used. I carry around little tubes of rosewater and glycerin to use on my hands EVERY TIME I WASH THEM, and I always work it up my arms and into my elbows. Women hardly ever look at their own elbows, but other people do! I pay attention to my knees and ankles, too. All the joints seem to dry out faster than the fleshy parts of the body.”
― Joan Crawford, My Way of Life

“And the smell was so... thick, you know? Best way I can describe it. Like honey cake, and fresh watermelon and treacle all rolled into one. I could taste it in the air, it was so strong. I bought so many bottles of rosewater on that trip I must have looked like some kind of smuggler at customs.”
― Nadia El-Fassi, Best Hex Ever

“I arrive back at my lodgings to a battered-tin dish of dried apricots in syrup. Small and plump, round rather than oval, and freckled with rust. I dip a spoon into the syrup, a pretty spoon battered and bent from years of service, and sip the heavily chilled, sweet liquor. Lighter than that used to soak gulab jamun, the heavy, sticky balls of dough I have consumed with nothing short of gluttony on this trip, but thinner and less cloying and with the faintest breath of rosewater. I sit in peace on the cool veranda with my tin dish of apricots like dumpy cherubs and with the dry citrus dust of ground ginger still in my hair.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“The fruits scorch in the fierce heat. The smell of plum jam fills the kitchen. Flesh bubbles, edges blacken, plum juices burst from their skins and mingle with the honey and lemon. Twenty minutes later they emerge, collapsed in a pool of deepest purple-red. I twist the lid from a bottle of rosewater, hand-made, no label, and shake drops over the scorched fruit. A scent of rose, sweet fruit and honey. We let the fruit rest for ten minutes.
The roasted plums are served on an old tin dish, a mound of salted labneh at their side, the juices seeping into the soft, thick yoghurt like lipstick into a pantomime dame's pancake make-up. I rain a pinch of dried rose petals over the surface and offer them up. We spoon the soft fruit and labneh into our mouths, then lift the dishes to our lips to drink the last drop of rose-perfumed juice.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts

“Tilting their heads over the pot, they sniffed the almost buttery sweetness of the jam.
"One final touch to make it perfect," her grandmother said, pulling a little brown glass jar out of a cupboard. "The trick to the perfect strawberry jam is a teaspoon of rosewater."
The heady scent of roses wafted through the kitchen.”
― Nadia El-Fassi, Love at First Fright