The Hamptons are usually filled with what I had hoped to leave behind in New York City.

I got some media coverage for using the tail, the ear, the oink.

What I like to do when I go out is enjoy my friends and the food around it. If we have to stop and give five minutes to the chef, then I'm down with that. But if the chef has to interrupt every course to tell us how important this new revolution that's happening is, then I'm not so much interested in that.

Are we Darwinists - where we live and let live? Or are we nurturing as a society? There has to be a standard of living that we decide to support.

Day-old bread? Sadly, in America a lot of day-old bread just becomes nasty. Italian day-old bread, not having any preservatives in it, just becomes harder and it doesn't taste old. What I would warn people about is getting bread that's loaded with other things in it, because it starts to taste old.

My kids and I make pasta three days a week now. It's not even so much about the eating of it; they just like the process. Benno is the stuffer, and Leo is the catcher. They've got their jobs down.

My family makes these vinegars - out of everything from grapes to peaches and cherries. We go through the whole process with the giant vat and drainer, label them, and give them as Christmas presents.