Sharing our meals should be a joyful and a trustful act, rather than the cursory fulfillment of our social obligations.

Almost any normal oyster never knows from one year to the next whether he is he or she, and may start at any moment, after the first year, to lay eggs where before he spent his sexual energies in being exceptionally masculine.

...I prefer not to have among my guests two people or more, of any sex, who are in the first wild tremours of love. It is better to invite them after their new passion has settled, has solidified into a quieter reciprocity of emotions. (It is also a waste of good food, to serve it to new lovers.)

...for me there is too little of life to spend most of it forcing myself into detachment from it.

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others.

Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.

A well-made Martini or Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.