People cooked with a certain integrity before fast food, 50 or 60 years ago. When the cheap food arrived, and we didn't have the education and deep cultural roots to hold on, we got swept away by fast, cheap and easy.

If Ive gone to the market on Saturday, and I go another time on Tuesday, then Im really prepared. I can cook a little piece of fish; I can wilt some greens with garlic; I can slice tomatoes and put a little olive oil on. Its effortless.

I feel it is an obligation to help people understand the relation of food to agriculture and the relationship of food to culture.

This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.

Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.

Always explore your garden and go to the market before you decide what cook.

The things most worth wanting are not available everywhere all the time.