What's a meme? Can you cook it and eat it?

A meme seems to be sort of an Internet chain letter. I've mostly been a chain-breaker except for those "send a postcard to the name at the top of the list and you'll soon receive hundreds of post cards" chain letters I always fell for when the kids were small. (STILL haven't received those post cards!) But I recently got tagged by Ricki, who I really like even though I haven't actually ever met her. So I'm going to do this, even though I only do this blog to write about food and food-related stuff. However, I'm only going to tag four others, not five. Sorry. I just don't get around blog-land enough to know that many bloggers.

The meme Ricki tagged me with requires me to grab the book I'm currently reading, go to page 123, find the fifth sentence and copy out the next three. Why, I'm not sure.

I usually like to read great novels where the writing is as important and thrilling as the story, but the last couple of books have been amazing non-fiction, written by journalists. I read "Mountains Beyond Mountains," by Tracy Kidder and "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner- City Neighborhood" by David Simon and Edward Burns. Currently I'm reading "A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face With Modern Day Slavery" by E. Benjamin Skinner.

Why, you might wonder, am I reading this. It's because I knew the author when he was a young boy. He and my son spent many years singing in a boy choir and I drove the carpool twice a week to rehearsals. I can picture him— a serious, intelligent, polite and charming boy, in the back of my car. Well, he's all grown up. We went to hear Ben give a book talk and he's still serious, intelligent, polite and charming, as well as passionate and extremely handsome. I shared a few words with his mom about how frightening it was for her to have him researching this book for four years under very dangerous circumstances. I'm happy to plug Ben's book and bring more attention to the horrible facts surrounding present day enslavement of children and adults. You could say it's food for thought.

from page 123:
"But accession was not a fait accompli; European parliamentarians warned that problems such as human trafficking might delay the process.

Millions of Romanians had preempted the European vote with one of their own, using their feet. "Fuck Romania," one young woman had said to me, using a word that represented approximately 10 percent of her English vocabulary."

These might not be the precise three sentences that would encourage people to read this book, but I'm just following the rules here.

The four I am tagging:
Claire, my friend who blogs about real life and vegan cooking. The blog is written to keep her traveling and away-from-home children aware of home happenings.
Sangeeta, who beautifully photographs and describes her elegant cooking.
Michael, my friend whose blog is way over my head (no idea what it's about).
Sandy, my niece-in-law, who who takes wonderful photos and who is a designer at heart.