Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.

It was there [Dijon], I now understand, that I started to grow up, to study, to make love, to eat and drink, to be me and not what I was expected to be. It was there that I learned it is blessed to receive, as well as that every human being, no matter how base, is worthy of my respect and even my envy because he knows something that I may never be old or wise or kind or tender enough to know.

old age is more bearable if it can be helped by an early acceptance of being loved and of loving.

... living out of sight of any shore does rich and powerfully strange things to humans.

A potato is a poor thing, poorly treated. More often than not it is cooked in so unthinking and ignorant a manner as to make one feel that it has never before been encountered in the kitchen.

You may feel that you have eaten too much...But this pastry is like feathers - it is like snow. It is in fact good for you, a digestive!

There is a communication of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk. And that is my answer when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love.