Some children like to make castles out of their rice pudding, or faces with raisins for eyes. It is forbidden -- so sternly that, when they grow up, they take a horrid revenge by dying meringues pale blue or baking birthday cakes in the form of horseshoes or lyres or whatnot.

Sometimes ... it takes me an entire day to write a recipe, to communicate it correctly. It's really like writing a little short story.

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.

In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless.

I love to teach - that's my role.

It's simply a very romantic place. Just one look at any of those streets, and you couldn't be anywhere else - it's so beautiful, and there's that location, and the sense of the free spirit. Who couldn't become ravenous in such a place?

As we say in the American Institute of Wine and Food, small helpings, no seconds. A little bit of everything. No snacking. And have a good time.