Ashna And Rico Quotes

“Happiness seeps into me when you're around, Rico. Without invitation, without notice, joy finds me. Being around you is being alive, it's breathing, it's home.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“One thing he'd say about her- she blushed like no one else he'd ever met. Her gorgeous skin went from warm brown to an almost fiery pink. It didn't help that Rico knew she was blushing with her entire body right now. He had loved to chase that blush across her skin.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“He tried to catch her eye, but all he got was the slightest nod before she looked away. He had no idea how he knew there was gratitude in that nod, but he did. The loose lock of hair that always seemed to escape the confines of her bun fell across her cheek.
I want to be your hair.
How many times had he said that to her? Not once had she needed to ask him what he meant. Her hair- midnight spun into strands- was always kissing her cheeks, playing with her collarbones, caressing her skin.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“This isn't the first time you two are meeting, is it?"
He didn't answer that. That wasn't his to tell. Ashna would tell her family and China in her own time, if at all. He just had to do this.
China dropped into a chair, then jumped up again. A whole new wave of understanding suffusing her face. "That's why you asked to be on the show. Oh God, you're Frederick Wentworthing her."
He shouldn't know what that meant but he totally did. "I'm half agony, half hope, Ms. Dashwood." He tried to shrug, but she looked in his eyes and her whole face turned into a giant awwww.
She pressed her hands into her face. "You can't do that to me. You can't quote Persuasion to me."
It was his mother's favorite book. It's where his name had come from. "Listen. I'm not going to force her to do anything. I'm just going to ask, and if she says no, I won't pressure her. I promise."
"Why do I get the feeling you're pretty sure she won't say no?"
"As I said, half agony, half hope.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“What do you remember most about what your pai put in his lamb chops?"
"I think it was basically salt, pepper, and garlic." He squeezed his eyes shut and focused so hard that not dropping a kiss on his earnestly pursed mouth was the hardest thing. His eyes opened, bright with memory. "Of course. Mint."
"That's perfect. Since we're only allowed only five tools, simple is good."
"My mãe always made rice and potatoes with it. How about we make lamb chops and a biryani-style pilaf?"
Ashna blinked. Since when was Rico such a foodie?
He shrugged but his lips tugged to one side in his crooked smile. "What? I live in London. Of course Indian is my favorite cuisine."
Tossing an onion at him, she asked him to start chopping, and put the rice to boil.
Then she turned to the lamb chops. The automatic reflex to follow Baba's recipe to within an inch of its life rolled through her. But when she ignored it, the need to hyperventilate didn't follow. Next to her Rico was fully tuned in to her body language, dividing his focus between following the instructions she threw out and the job at hand.
As he'd talked about his father's chops, she'd imagined exactly how she wanted them to taste. An overtone of garlic and lemon and an undertone of mint. The rice would be simple, in keeping with the Brazilian tradition, but she'd liven it up with fried onions, cashew nuts, whole black cardamom, cloves, bay leaves, and cinnamon stick. All she wanted was to create something that tasted like Rico's childhood, combined with their future together, and it felt like she was flying.
Just like with her teas, she knew exactly what she wanted to taste and she knew exactly how to layer ingredients to coax out those flavors, those feelings. It was her and that alchemy and Rico's hands flying to follow instructions and help her make it happen.
"There's another thing we have to make," she said. Rico raised a brow as he stirred rice into the spice-infused butter. "I want to make tea. A festive chai."
He smiled at her, heat intensifying his eyes.
Really? Talking about tea turned him on? Wasn't the universe just full of good news today.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“There's still time. The first episode hasn't aired yet. You can ask for any other chef and they'll give you what you want. I don't think I can do this."
"The habit of walking away from things must be a hard one to break," he said, when the last thing he wanted to think about right now was that particular moment from their past.
She's just a girl I dated in high school.
Her long, incredibly delicate fingers squeezed her temples, her jaw clenched, every inch of her screamed how badly she did not want to be doing this with him.
If she wanted to walk away, she was going to have to be the one to do it. Again. "As for how I behaved with DJ," he said when the silence had stretched out long enough that he knew she wasn't going to respond, "it was an honest mistake." None of this was about DJ.
"Dropping a knife from shock, that's an honest mistake," she said, the new shell she'd grown melting like ice around pine needles after a winter storm. "Being rude to someone because you're angry with someone else? That's just being spoiled and self-centered.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“She had never been the most social person. Rico hadn't either. They'd been two self-contained teenagers who had somehow cracked each other's shells and further destroyed each other's ability to need other people. This version of her, the one who was so acutely aware of people's reaction to her, made him want to break her loose.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“I do appreciate you saving my toes from being severed." Instead of remorse an icy coolness dripped from her tone, a mockery of what he'd done.
The throbbing in his knee spread all through him like rage. He stepped into her space, the memory of betrayal vibrating through him, and leaned close to her ear. "They were the first toes I sucked." His tone was cruel, but he didn't care. "Letting them get severed under my watch would be callous, wouldn't it?"
She stepped away from him, face flaming, her scent flooding his brain. Her hair still smelled like it always had. As though her essence was wrapped up in it, clean and fiery like freshly bloomed roses. He hated how it reached inside him and dug up memories. But like everything else about her, even her scent had become colder. The fire almost snuffed out, even the vibrancy of roses too restrained to be real.
The full blast of her jet-black glare met his. "Since when is being callous a problem for you?"
It was Rico's turn to stiffen, but he had spent too much time in the spotlight to let it show.
What about chasing her around like a puppy had been callous? Or about begging her not to leave him?
Please, Ash. I'll do whatever you want to make myself worthy of you. Don't leave me.
How had he had so little self-respect?”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“You'll be fine," she said to Rico when they got back, because he was still studying her and trying to make sense of her bizarre swings. "Cooking eggs is a standard test of basic cooking skill."
"I know I'll be fine," he said, the full blast of his focus mapping her relief. The emeralds in his eyes were too bright. The way they had been that first time they'd met under the bleachers. The need to see what no one else cared to see inside her, intense and naked. It had disarmed her then.
Today, it infuriated her. Made her brain forget the camera. Made her hands fly. She broke the eggs in a clean one-handed crack, whipped them ruthlessly into a thick froth, chopped the onions, cilantro, and green chilies in an unrelentingly brutal rhythm. All without breaking a sweat or sparing him a glance.
With minutes to spare from the mere twenty they were given, she turned out a fluffy and perfectly moist omelet with garlic-infused oil rolled into a crisp, flaky paratha.
Until they stood in front of the judges, she had forgotten where she was, who she was with.
The only place the livid energy inside her seemed to have manifested itself was in what the judges declared "abject underseasoning."
This made Ashna smile. When she looked at Rico, he was having the same reaction. For one quick meeting of their eyes, the ridiculously overdramatic statement joined them together with shared humor. His lips tilted up on one side. For the first time since they'd lined up to hear the challenge, she took a full breath.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“He grew up in Rio de Janeiro. So, it could be so many things. Such a rich tradition of comfort foods. Maybe not something entirely traditional. Umm... churros?" She said it exactly the way he had taught her to say it, many moons ago, while feeding the crisp-on-the-outside, pillowy-on-the-inside confection into her mouth and then tasting the sticky sweetness on her lips.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“What was wrong with people? Ashna didn't understand this obsession with other people's lives. Jonah pulled up Twitter and Instagram on his tablet and waved it about, parroting all the hashtags she and Rico now were: #knifegate #churrosolimp, and the one that made Jonah the giddiest: #Ashico, which when said out loud sounded far too much like the Hindi word ashiquo which, disastrously enough, meant "lovers.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“When her parents screamed at each other in front of the whole family, in front of her cousins, she had learned not to care about the shame. This had been different. Rico saw her as strong. With Rico she got to be self-possessed, like her mother. Droll and humorous, like her father. She got to be a version of herself unstained by irreparable pathos, because he gave her the gift of not coloring his vision with sympathy like everyone else in her life.
It had meant everything. Especially when all the stories of his childhood had felt so wholesome, his parents' love for each other and him so undamaged.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“These are good." Rico popped an extra piece in his mouth.
"As good as the ones they sold at your fiera livre?" As soon as she said it, they both froze. This was all on camera. At least she wasn't holding a knife.
"No." Rico smiled at the camera. "Better."
The skip of joy in her heart brought with it a shadow of fear, but she ignored it and grabbed square black platters and started to plate the bright white pancakes in delicate quarter folds to form a clover. She handed spoons to Rico and he poured doce de leite into them and placed them next to the pancakes.
They were done a good two minutes before the rest of contestants, but they would still have to act like they were rushing at the end because it made for better television.
"It looks a little plain," Rico said, taking in everyone else's workstations, where everything from empanadas to elephant ears and patajones (Danny, naturally) were being tossed up. "Should I cut up some strawberries? It could use some fruit, and maybe whipped cream?"
He was right. It needed something. Plain would definitely get them hammered by the judges. But not strawberries and whipped cream. Not anything so predictable.
Ashna raced to the pantry, picked up a mango, and tossed it at Rico. Then without waiting to see if he would catch it, she turned to grab some saffron and ran back to their station.
"Can you dice the mango?" Before the question was even out of her mouth, he was slicing.
DJ called out the one-minute warning.
Ashna pinched out a fat clump of saffron into a metal spoon, mixed in a few drops of milk, and held it over the fire. The saffron dissolved into the milk, turning it orange, and despite the smells from all the workstations, the aroma of saffron permeated the air.
DJ started to count down the last ten seconds.
Ashna drizzled the saffron milk onto the four spoons of doce de leite just as Rico arranged the mango at the center of each plate.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“She soaked up his taste. Sunshine would taste like this. A fresh summer stream with a hint of melting sugar. Crisp and sweet.
She wanted to bottle it up, blend it into a tea, drink from him until the day she died.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“It had been six hours since Ashna had seen Rico, but it felt like a lifetime. She missed him something fierce. The worry in his eyes when she'd left that morning, the determined hope, had been burning inside her. The fact that it hadn't occurred to him to push her to stay or to try to figure things out for her made her want to climb into his arms and never let go.”
― Sonali Dev, Recipe for Persuasion

“Rico wasn't just a friend, wasn't just Yash's media wiz. He was dating Yash's sister. Technically Ashna was his cousin but Yash only ever thought of her as his sister. Rico was family. Ashna was happy. It had been years since Yash had seen her happy. Just this morning Yash had teased Rico about his intentions toward his sister.
I intend to let Ash use my body for her shagging pleasure for the rest of my life, mate.”
― Sonali Dev, Incense and Sensibility