i scream

"Later that evening, GertrudeStein reported your actions to Miss Toklas over a dish of my best Singapore ice cream. They both could taste the vanilla and the crystallized ginger, but only Miss Toklas could detect that there was something deeper, something that emerged as a lingering lace of a feeling on the tongue.

"Peppercorns, Miss Toklas. Steep the milk from morning till night with ten coarsely crushed peppercorns. Strain and proceed as usual. The "bite" that the peppercorns leave behind will make the eater take notice, examine this dish of sweet anew. Think of it as an unexpected hint of irony in a familiar lover's voice."

from The Book of Salt by Monique Truong (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, page 186.)