'Blue Plate Special' is the autobiography of my first half-century of life, with food as the subject.

In 1990, when I had just arrived in New York City as a wet-behind-the-ears 20-something girl from Arizona, I spent a year or more working as the personal secretary and secret ghostwriter to an American-born countess in her apartment on the Upper East Side.

Living in New York City is one constant, ongoing literary pilgrimage. For 20 years, I lived among the ghosts of great writers and walked where they had walked.

At first blush, it seems odd that loser lit books are rejected initially, then go on to be fiercely loved by legions of readers. This apparent contradiction might be due to the fact that if they didn't screw up their lives, most losers would be the kind of power-elite, Type A go-getters whom readers love to hate.

Loser lit antiheroes aren't well intentioned or earnest; they don't care whether you like them or not. They're self-mocking, ironic and inventive; they narrate their downfalls with manic wordplay, rampant metaphors, wisecracks, and escalating flights of spleen-fueled lyricism.

Now that I'm 50 and respectably settled in New England and markedly happier and more contented than I was in my youth, I modestly hope there's time to realize some of my youthful goals before I croak, but I'll take what I can get.

Eating by myself in my own apartment, single and alone again for the first time in many years, I should have felt, but did not feel, sad. Because I had taken the trouble to make myself a real dinner, I felt nurtured and cared for, if only by myself. Eating alone was freeing, too; I didn't have to make conversation.

I regretted the solitary nature of the writer's life - other people, normal working people, spent their days with co-workers, rode the subway home with a crowd, walked through thronged streets. I worked at home, all by myself.

The New Nordic diet originated in 2004, when the visionary chefs Rene Redzepi and Claus Meyer called a symposium of regional chefs to address the public's increasing consumption of processed foods, additives, highly refined grains, and mass-produced poultry and meat.

Reminded of what a diet really is, I began eating more slowly, being more conscious of when I was full. I started to enjoy my buckwheat bread with goat cheese and pureed butternut-squash soup as a response to real hunger.

I grew up in an all-female family - two sisters and a mostly single mother - and we often bonded, in part, by disparaging men and feeling superior to them.

Even after he was gone, I still loved my father. I looked Norwegian, like him, with a long face, strong jaw, thin mouth, and flashing eyes. And, like him, I was verbal, easygoing, and low-key on the surface, and, deep down, proud, socially paranoid, full of self-loathing, and prone to rage at injustice.

'American Music' is an inventive, passionate, pithy novel whose major theme is love itself and whose minor theme, music, is an emotional, meaningful counterpoint. Like Count Basie and His Orchestra, this book swings.

Littlenecks and cherrystones are chewy and sweet on the half shell with mignonette, served raw. But a well-cooked clam is a toothsome, tender thing, full of that magical stuff known as clam liquor.

My favorite way to cook a clam is in chowder. I was a New Yorker for 20 years, and I always loved tomato-based, celery-heavy Manhattan chowders.

I procrastinate all morning. That's when I get my office work done and answer e-mails and see what's on the Internet and do laundry.

It's really hard for me, every day, to confront my writing. It never gets easier over time.

To eat passionately is to allow the world in.

To taste fully is to live fully.

It's interesting to try to imagine how early humans discovered what was edible and what wasn't. Who figured out that when you cooked stinging nettles, the sting would go away completely? How many people had to die before the relative toxicity of wild mushrooms became widely known?

There's almost nothing you can't do with a cashew. Not only does it lend its nutty sweetness to savory dishes, it also gives desserts a deep richness.

Across the Atlantic, in the scattered, far-flung, rural settlements of colonial America, hospitality had become a central concern, and hostesses, like peacocks displaying their iridescent plumage, tried to outdo one another with their creative food displays.

If there's a rift in the marriage - if someone feels neglected, frustrated, tempted by others, or unsure - then trouble can easily arise.

I wrote my first novel in eighth grade for a boy named Kenny on whom I had an unrequited crush and who sat behind me in social studies.

I think holidays come in all sizes - sometimes you just need to relax.

I had the biggest dry-cleaning bill on 'Daybreak' because I was always on the run and spilling coffee on myself.

Much is written about parenting - its joys and tribulations - and then about the transition into hot flushes, night sweats and (if we're lucky) a new life as a grandmother.

I am older than most of my on-screen colleagues, and the ones behind the scenes, too.

Sequin trousers can be scary and many women may worry they will be unflattering on their legs.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to keep things clean. It's just the neatness I struggle with.

The more I go to Australia, the more I realise how enormous the country is and how much there is to see. There's really nowhere like it.

Wallace and Gromit's Children's Charity does a fantastic job, raising funds to improve the lives of sick children in hospitals and hospices throughout the U.K.

After my first marriage ended in 2002 I went out with someone who made me feel very sexy. He was ten years younger than me and full of the joy of youth, which was wonderful after all the sadness of divorce, and a great confidence boost.

My worst habit is my untidiness. It bewilders my family, the degree to which I can create absolute chaos around me.

The clever thing about the designs on 'Strictly' is that the razzle-dazzle comes from the materials used in making the dresses rather than because the cut or style is plunging or revealing.

Well we have a tiny garden, it's like a postage stamp, so generally we try to get out to the parks in London as much as possible.

I don't want to look old in my advanced years so I go on a power walk for half an hour every day, and it helps to keep the pounds off.

Looking back on my early romantic life, I was more worried about what impression I made on my dates than what I thought of them. I would approach them as though they were job interviews, trying to wow the man so that he would ask me out again and I got the 'job.'

Of course, I could try IVF. But having watched my friend TV presenter Clare Nasir go through it, I know how tough the journey is. Emotional fool I may be, but even I can see that's too selfish a course of action to impose on my family.

You can't beat a British holiday for rock pooling and sandcastles with fish and chips on the seafront - perfect.

I think I learned I'm braver than I think I am.

I used to be chaotic and unkempt.

My husband is very much of the ilk that expects to waited on hand and foot during the festive season.

If you said, 'I'm giving up smoking,' people would put on a parade. If you said, 'I'm going to eat more healthily,' people would say, 'Good for you.' If it's drinking, the first reaction is, 'That's so boring. You're going to be so boring.'

When you're juggling children, a marriage and a couple of jobs, something has to give - and, for me, it's living in a perfectly tidy home.

It's a bit of a joke among my friends that, although I'm very busy, active and constantly rushing around all over the place, I've always struggled to fit any 'real' exercise into my life.

A friend puts body moisturiser on every day because it makes her feel desirable. I have started doing it, too, and it really works.

When you've been in a relationship for a long time, the physical side of things can be very unspontaneous.

I have always felt so bombarded with dietary advice that always seemed to make me feel guilty about the 'naughty' food I secretly preferred, that I switched off and ate what I fancied.

In some ways it's hard not to be a bit cynical when a friend tells you about their fantastic new diet, because there's a fresh eating fad in the press every day.