Cooking may be a creative art, but it's also a wonderful full-time hobby.

The problem for cookery-bookery writers like me is to understand the extent of our readers' experience. I hope have solved that riddle in my books by simply telling everything. The experienced cook will know to skip through the verbiage, but the explanations will be there for those who still need them.

In department stores, so much kitchen equipment is bought indiscriminately by people who just come in for men's underwear.

My mother was independent. She had grown up in Dalton and Pittsfield, in western Massachusetts, and she was one of the first women drivers in that area.

If you're buying tomatoes pick them up and smell them-they should have a lovely perfume. They need to be kept at fifty degrees or above, particularly during the growing season, because that's when they develop their flavor.

I always try to buy just what I need. You get ideas as to what's in season and what's best. I think if you have a preconceived idea before shopping, that makes it difficult. You have to have an open mind.

I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it -- and, more important, I like to give it.