The road to hell is paved with leeks and potatoes

But hard bitten cynicism leaves one feeling peevish, and too much of it can do lasting damage to your heart.

Sometimes, if you want to be happy, you've got to run away to Bath and marry a punk rocker. Sometimes you've got to dye your hair cobalt blue, or wander remote islands in Sicily, or cook your way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, for no very good reason.

Cooking saved my life! Sure, there were some miserable moments, but that was sort of the point, to find something challenging and consuming enough to take a place in the center of my life into which was creeping a horrible feeling of stasis and the doom of mediocrity.

Physically it's exhausting to cook every night. Existentially speaking, I have so much more energy having that time to myself in this project, this gift to myself at the end of the day. Even if it didn't go smoothly, it was still a gift.

The nice thing about having a friend who is crazier than you are is that she bolsters your belief in your own sanity.

If there's a sexier sound on this planet than the person you're in love with cooing over the crepes you made for him, I don't know what it is.