DOWN WITH PANTS!

You know a book is going to be good when it starts with the line "It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute." I was taking a drink of soda on the airplane and nearly blew it all over the seat in front of me when I read that line. I closed the book, opened it again and reread that line to see if I might have been imagining it but I wasn't, that is really how Villa Incognito starts. I doubt there has ever been a book to open with such a great line. But that is what I have come to expect when reading anything by Tom Robbins.

I especially love this loving tribute to mayonnaise that I just have to share...

"The mystery of mayonnaise-and others besides Dickie Goldwire have surely puzzled over this-is how egg yolks, vegetable oil, vinegar (wine's angry brother), salt, sugar (earth's primal grin-energy), lemon juice, water, and, naturally, a pinch of the ol' calcium disodium EDTA could be combined in such a way as to produce a condiment so versatile, satisfying, and outright majestic that mustard, ketchup, and their ilk must bow down before it (though, at two bucks a jar, mayonnaise certainly doesn't put on airs) or else slink away in disgrace. Who but the French could have wrought this gastronomic miracle? Mayonnaise is France's gift to the New World's muddled palate, a boon that combines humanity's ancient instinctive craving for the cellular warmth of pure fat wit the modern, romantic fondness for complex flavors: mayo (as the lazy call it) may appear mild and prosaic, but behind its creamy veil it fairly seethes with tangy disposition. Cholesterol aside, it projects the luster that we astro-orphans have identified with well-being ever since we fell from the stars."

Not since Maya's wine speech in Sideways have I heard anyone wax so poetically about their love for a foodstuff. And I'm with Tom Robbins on this one, Mayo is amazing. Death? was touched by the wine speech because it nearly described how she felt about wine. Well, I have found my wine speech. Only it's about mayonnaise and not nasty ass wine.

Now if only I could find someone to wax poetic about Chocolate Lucky Charms.