We currently reside in the wealthiest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world. The idea that someone should go hungry or be without the bare essentials of life is, to me... It's not shameful, I actually think it's criminal.

It's just starting. I think it's going to take another year and a half to get up to critical mass, but everybody loves Chinese food, Thai food, Japanese food, and it's all been exploited. The Filipinos combined the best of all of that with Spanish technique. The Spanish were a colonial power there for 500 years, and they left behind adobo and cooking in vinegar - techniques that, applied to those tropical Asian ingredients, are miraculous.

The food stamp program is the largest piece of the Farm Bill, it's a massive amount of money, but not only has it been good for families that need it, but it's been fantastic for local economies.

Your worst parts of your life, the things that you're ashamed of will become your strongest assets in a very quick amount of time. And the implication in that is your story is all that you have so passing it on to someone else who is struggling behind you coming up the ladder helps them. And so in the spirit of service in recovery we often talk about the power of our own stories to connect with other people and show them that they too can get well. I have found that not only is that true in the recovery world, but it is true in the social world in the social milieu in which I exist.

Being honest about where you come from and what your story is is the only way to connect to other people, to really connect with them.

There's a great book by my friend Nate Garvis called Naked Civics that was very important in my development as someone with a social conscious and that has become, I guess, something of an activist.

I was just thrown out of the barista parlor. Came to close to the Slayer. Amazing place!