I'm a beet freak. I put them in the pressure cooker.

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.

I believe in red meat. I often said: red meat and gin.

I would far prefer to have things happen as they naturally do, such as the mousse refusing to leave the mold, the potatoes sticking to the skillet, the apple charlotte slowly collapsing. One of the secrets of cooking is to learn to correct something if you can, and bear with it if you cannot.

Was it a sign of Creeping Decrepitude?

You don’t spring into good cooking naked. You have to have some training. You have to learn how to eat.

The main thing is to have a gutsy approach and use your head.