The old days were slower. People buttered their bread without guilt and sat down to dinner en famille.

There is really a je ne sais quoi about turkey cooking - the air of festivity, the family squabbles, the constant basting - that does not apply to the turkey breast, which is, really, a convenience of food... A turkey without seasonal angst is like a baseball game without a national anthem, a winter without snow, a birthday party without candles.

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 will never eat fish eyeballs, and I do not want to taste anything commonly kept as a house pet, but otherwise I am a cinch to feed.

Many people eat salad dutifully because they feel it is good for them, but more enlightened types eat it happily because it is good.

No one who cooks cooks alone.

It is always wise to make too much potato salad. Even if you are cooking for two, make enough for five. Potato salad improves with age - that is, if you are lucky enough to have any left over.