How did Italy manage to end up with no Caribbean islands at all? Christopher Columbus took the trouble to discover the Caribbean personally before the end of the fifteenth century. Try to get a decent plate of spaghetti there now.

The ceiling on taxation of capital gains reflects the national belief that speculation is a more worthwhile way to make a living than work.

When it comes to Chinese food I have always operated under the policy that the less known about the preparation the better. A wise diner who is invited to visit the kitchen replies by saying, as politely as possible, that he has a pressing engagement elsewhere.

There is no question that Rumanian-Jewish food is heavy. One meal is equal in heaviness, I would guess, to eight or nine years of steady mung-bean eating.

I've written three books you could think of as memoirs.

I never eat in a restaurant that's over a hundred feet off the ground and won't stand still.

I don't mind being interviewed on television or radio.