I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others -- The only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad.

She saw through the shell of me into the center of me

You can call your turkey organic and torture it daily.

A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.

Stories about food are stories about us-our history and our values.

When it comes to meat, change is almost always cast as an absolute. You are a vegetarian or you are not.

Suddenly Yankel was overcome with a fear of dying, stronger than he felt when his parents passed of natural causes, stronger than when his only brother was killed in the flour mill or when his children died, stronger even than when he was a child and it first occurred to him that he must try to understand what it could mean not to be alive -- to be not in darkness, not in unfeeling -- to be not being, not to be.