I once worked for a pastry chef who, when he tasted pastry, would just impassively wallow it around in his mouth, then spit it out (I should mention that this guy was over 6 ft. tall and weighed 105 lbs). It was quite evident from other aspects of his behavior that we weren’t going to get along, but somehow this one little thing seemed to sum it all up for me. Here was someone in a trade that exalts sensuality, but who was himself totally impervious to its charms. When I understood that, I began to see that this was indicative of a generalized deadness to life’s most basic joys, and that my time with him would be singularly dreary.