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.

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.

It's sad, but a relief as well, to know that two things so closely bound together can separate with so little violence.

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.

The blog is certainly another tool for writers out there to break their way in. But being a blogger does not make you a great writer.

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

Doors are going to open-doors you can't even imagine exist.