One thing that improved my cooking skills was being a poor student in California... If you don't have much money, you have to learn to cook.

I'm always astonished to see how badly people can behave when they think no one is noticing.

I like cream cheese in just about anything.

In a mystery, the sleuth must be believably involved and emotionally invested in solving the crime.

I wanted to be a literary writer, so I wrote story after story and sent them to 'The New Yorker.'

What one's goal should be is just to become a better writer and to tell different kinds of stories.

When I started to write culinary mysteries, I did it because nobody was doing it anymore.