Noise about food

• Coming out of the cafeteria today I overheard three black women who were clustered and listening attentively to one another: "For that recipe I usually use the brick cream cheese, but this time I used the whipped, and I tell you..."
  
  
• Not to be outdone, at the top of the escalator a pair of white ladies discussed their own baking "And that's the recipe I'm going to take to the competition..."
  
  
• Tonight at the sushi restaurant, the Grouse found himself the sole gringo eating the raw guy, set off against a couple of tables of Japanese businessmen as if cut from the frames of Tampopo, slurping their noodles demonstratively, segmenting off fine little pieces of eel with chopsticks and then popping them in their mouths