If you have never tasted a braised vegetable, you'll find it is a revelation.

It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.

What comforted me? That is easy. It was a strong cold chicken jelly so very, very thick. My mother's Chinese cook would fix it. He would cook it down, condense it-this broth with all sorts of feet in it, then it would gell into sheer bliss. It kept me alive once for three weeks when I was ill as a child. And I've always craved it since.

If I had to narrow my choice of meats down to one for the rest of my life, I am quite certain that meat would be pork.

Like the theater, offering food and hospitality to people is a matter of showmanship, and no matter how simple the performance, unless you do it well, with love and originality, you have a flop on your hands.

In a house without a genuine kitchen, one of the delights of growing up is lost.

There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.