Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.

I still think we have a long way to go on rebuilding a culture of cooking. Everyday simple cooking.

Any kind of food you eat is going to have an impact on the world. If you switch to tofu and get off meat, the soy bean is doing enormous damage in the Amazon and all throughout South America.

One USDA scientist went so far as to claim that there has never been a documented case of food-borne illness from eating fermented vegetables.

I try very hard to tell stories and not lecture. I try to approach things as an amateur and not an expert, so that when I'm doing something, I'm starting out in a place a lot like where my readers start out - which is to say, naïve.

Okinawa, one of the longest-lived and healthiest populations in the world, practice a principle they call hara hachi bu: Eat until you are 80 percent full.

Everything we eat begins with a plant turning solar energy into carbohydrates. Everything. Whether we're eating meat or eating vegetables, it all begins there. So I'm always interested in taking things back to the beginning.