"Ms Amelung reveals details such as how she cooked his favourite meat dishes such as leg of mutton with rosemary and garlic, brawn, entrails soup, calf's brains and artichokes in vinaigrette. She produced the dishes for him on demand to keep him sustained while he wrote. On peeling the onions, a task he avoided, she writes: "The tears were shooting out of my eyes. Herr Grass was showing signs of schadenfreude and said to his wife: 'Look at our Margarethe, she's crying tears of joy - over the onions.'""