I like thick or middle (spaghetti). Thin for me is always overcooked by the time I'm eating it.

Look at cookbooks with your kids and ask them what sounds good.

Breakfast is the best time for me to figure out what my kids are doing. Right after you wake them up at breakfast, you pepper them with questions. You can get in there because they're not protecting what they thought was cool: "What happened yesterday?" "Oh, Matthew stole my book and ran away and it was really annoying..." That wouldn't happen after lunch, because their defenses are up. In the morning, if you lull them into a comfortable place, you get more honesty, and that's without being a detective.

Protein has been intensely over-represented on the plate. Now, the garden should be the main drag for main courses.

Food is "everyday"-it has to be, or we would not survive for long. But food is never just something to eat. It is something to find or hunt or cultivate first of all.

I think Tabasco brings me pure heat and Southern kind of familiarity, along with the vinegar and the barrel-aged spices.

I'm a big fan of featuring all of the local shellfish and seafood provided.