When I came to 'Gourmet,' I had no clue how to run a magazine; for television, I am fascinated to learn about editing.

I think it's hard, when you're someone who likes to please people, as I am, to be a boss. I had to learn how to rein myself in and not terrify people.

The thing I like most in my kitchen is my marble counters. Everybody said not to use marble because it's fragile, it stains, it cracks, and it doesn't remain beautiful. But I love marble.

My mother really would make these dreadful concoctions. She really prided herself on something called 'Everything Stew,' where she would take everything in the refrigerator, all the leftovers, and put them all together.

Writing about food is my default.

World War II really fascinated me because it's the only time that everybody in this country sat down at the same table, because eating on rations was your patriotic duty.

I don't think I hate any food trends.

I meet people, and we can get past small talk pretty quickly if they've read my books. It's a great shortcut.

I think of fiction as the highest calling. I'm kind of addicted to it. It's the thing that has gotten me through all the hard points in my life.

There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.

One of the things I really love about restaurants is that in many ways, they are the ultimate democratic institutions, where you get to walk in the door, plunk down your money, and for however long that you're there, you can be anyone you want to be.

Really, the only way to face the biggest problems we have is for the government to change the way they subsidize food. The way we subsidize food makes it cheaper to go to McDonald's and get a hamburger than a salad, and that's insane.

The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we've made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying.

We in the media have been guilty about not doing a better job of making people understand how really simple cooking is. We've made everyone feel like they have to be a chef.

My kitchen was built for my body. It forms a 'U' in the middle of the living room and dining room. It's not huge, because I don't like huge kitchens.

My mother's father was a doctor, and she desperately wanted to be a doctor.

What was so extraordinary to me about going through this box of my mother's letters and diaries was meeting my mother not as my mother, but as a real person. And what breaks my heart is that I had no idea how self-aware she was and how protective of me she was.

It takes a great deal of strength to be an optimist.

Anybody who believes Yelp is an idiot. Most people on Yelp have no idea what they're talking about.

We in America have gotten addicted to cheap food. The result of that is antibiotic-laden fish, foods that are bred to be portable.

One of the effects of cheap food is, we have food that is so unsatisfactory. We need to go back to flavor.

You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one, you need to know about life.

The implications of Americans devoting their lives to fast food are more profound than the fact that our kids aren't eating well. There are real repercussions that we need to know about and think about.

The truth is, as much as I loved writing restaurant reviews, it always felt very self-indulgent to me. It was so much fun, I loved doing it, but there's so much else to say about food.

I like to work. I believe that work helps us find our self worth.

What I like best is the challenge of learning something I didn't know how to do, going beyond my comfort level.

Some magazines are run from the top down, where the editor-in-chief decides what every article is going to be and who's going to write them, and then they're doled out. My idea is to do it the opposite way, to do it from the bottom up.

I came from a family where, you know, we sat down at the table every night, and you better have a story to tell. My father never wrote his stories down. And you know, I learned that they went farther if you wrote them down.

Let's face it: my life tends to revolve around food, and I love feeding people.

If you're going to tell stuff, you might as well tell the real stuff.

You look at the Barefoot Contessa or Lydia Bastianich, and it's just like watching your mother cooking.

In really good times, you say, 'No, I'm not taking that ad.' But in bad times, you'll take anything.

Anyone who has ever been an ugly adolescent - and we are legion - knows that the feeling of being unlovely and unlovable never goes away; it is always there, lurking just beneath the surface.

Hunger, I discovered, is very much a matter of the mind, and as I began to study my own appetites, I saw that my teenage craving had not really been for food. That ravenous desire had been a yearning for love, attention, appreciation. Food had merely been my substitute.

To me, cooking is man's natural activity. But I think writing is really hard. Certainly writing fiction is the hardest thing I've ever done.

It was through cooking food and sharing it with each other that our ancestors learned how to become social animals.

I'm not a big turkey fan, but my husband loves it. Thanksgiving is his favorite meal.

The secret to life is finding joy in ordinary things. I'm interested in happiness.

The first time you make something, follow the recipe, then figure out how to tailor it to your own tastes.

If we make it national policy that we will support small farmers the way we support agribusiness, we'll suddenly see it change in terms of the cost of organic food.

A real woman is someone who knows what she wants. If you want to stay home, that's fine, but you have to be clear-eyed.

If you really taste a doughnut, it's pretty disgusting. They taste of grease.

If you have caviar, the way to eat it is by the spoonful. Don't combine it with shrimp, pomegranate seeds and huitlacoche.

Ask people to pitch in - hand them a spoon and ask them to stir. Doing things together, having everyone help, makes for a nicer party.

Sharing food has always had a central place in civilized societies; it's no accident that so many of our cultural, religious and patriotic rituals are involved with eating.

I have to admit I've never had a Fruit Loop.

One of mom's greatest acts of generosity was that she trained me to be defiant. Her great gift to me was encouraging me to be the person that I wanted to be, not the one that she and my father wished I was.

I love to make pies - pot pies, quiches, savory tarts, fruit pies. I use an old-fashioned pastry blender with wires and a wooden handle. I never use a recipe.

By the time I met Julia Child, her husband, Paul, was little more than a ghost of a man, so diminished by old age and its attendant diseases that it was impossible to discern the remarkable artist, photographer and poet he once had been.

I learned so much in Laos. I learned that fried silkworm larvae are delicious. I learned how to make ant-egg salad.