I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.

The dinner hour is a sacred, happy time when everyone should be together and relaxed.

In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal.

I still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well.

Fake food -- I mean those patented substances chemically flavored and mechanically bulked out to kill the appetite and deceive the gut -- is unnatural, almost immoral, a bane to good eating and good cooking.

I was a romantic, messy thinker. I was raised with very conservative beliefs, but that was a long time ago.

Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, 'scientific' though. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.