Dave Bry Recommends...

“I recommend dipping salted almonds (not smokehouse almonds, just dried, salted almonds) into Nutella hazelnut spread and eating them like that. I tried this for the first time yesterday, and it was delicious. My best friend from growing up is Sicilian,

and his grandmother used to tell him that he should eat three almonds every day—exactly three, no-more-no-less—because it would make him smarter. (I picture her covering one eye and spitting at the ground.) I know it sounds nuts. (Sorry.) I would have liked to use this very writing exercise to try to test the theory scientifically, but there was no way, considering the addictive combination of salty and sweet and chocolate and umami, that I would have been able to eat only three. So here we are. I do think that inspiration can come from anything and everything in the world around us. So that good writing, or any kind of art, is as likely to be sparked by sensual perception as by other good writing or art. Jeez. That sounds like a boneheaded combination of Proust and Jim Morrison, doesn’t it? I should have stopped at three.”
—Dave Bry, author of Public Apology (Grand Central, 2013)