When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.

It's a pleasure to talk to the farmers. That's my favorite part, always was. It's really the communication and exchange that builds communities. It's not something you can legislate. It's that you're giving me the best bread I ever had and I'm so happy to give you money for it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than stand in line and give money for your bread.

If our public school system is a truly democratic institution. It's the place where we can reach every child in this county from kindergarten. What an opportunity to edibly educate them. I don't just mean a glorified cooking class. I've never thought of it that way. I have always thought of it as a way to empower students to learn, to give them confidence, and to nourish them. So, I think the centerpiece has to be a free, sustainable school lunch for every child.

We have to bring children into a new relationship to food that connects them to culture and agriculture.

The biggest thing right now, is supporting the people who take care of the environment. We must take care of the people who take care of the land. And so, if 20% of the population is in school, and they are asked to buy this food from farms. I mean at the real cost without a middleman, it could be amazing. It could change farming overnight.

We're, as Carlos Petrini says, we're on a train and it's going off the edge of the cliff. We have to stop the track and get off. Now we're in a jungle. We don't know how we're going to get out but we'll find a way. I've always believed in people power. I saw it happen when we organized around the AIDS crisis... We made an AIDS quilt that covered the entire mall. Everybody had a part in it and we can do this.

When you have the best and tastiest ingredients, you can cook very simply and the food will be extraordinary because it tastes like what it is.