To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.

The best way to eat crabs, as everyone knows, is off newspaper at a large table with a large number of people.

When I was alone, I lived on eggplant, the stove top cook's strongest ally.

Cookbooks hit you where you live. You want comfort; you want security; you want food; you want to not be hungry and not only do you want those basic things fixed, you want it done in a really nice, gentle way that makes you feel loved. That's a big desire, and cookbooks say to the person reading them, 'If you will read me, you will be able to do this for yourself and for others. You will make everybody feel better.'

A person cooking is a person giving. Even the simplest food is a gift.

Once my jars were labeled, I felt contentedly thrilled with myself, as if I had pulled off a wonderful trick. People feel this way when they bake bread or have babies, and although they are perfectly entitled to feel that way, in fact, nature does most of the work.

I do not believe that you have to spend a lot of money to eat well: it is hard to beat a plain old baked potato.