Most of the time, I'm fighting guys who are 22 years old, former college wrestlers, athletes, kids who are in much better shape than me. Often people who are much bigger and wider than me. It can be dispiriting at first.

Thinking that your story is so interesting that other people will want to listen to it or read it or pay to hear it, that's - what kind of person thinks that? A monster of self-regard. It's not normal thinking.

I've sat in sushi bars, really fine ones, and I know how hard this guy worked, how proud he is. I know you don't need sauce. I know he doesn't even want you to pour sauce. And I've seen customers come in and do that, and I've seen him, as stoic as he tries to remain, I've seen him die a little inside.

Being a vegan is a first-world phenomenon, completely self-indulgent.

I'm excited by any food that's prepared by someone who's proud of what they're doing, who puts a personal imprint on food.

If you go to chefs all across America and ask them, 'What's your biggest problem right now?,' It is finding people to cook in their restaurants. They're having an enormous, countrywide problem here staffing their operations.

We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.