Eat only until you're 4/5 full. An ancient Japanese injunction.

When chopping onions, just chop onions.

Eating's not a bad way to get to know a place.

We could have a greener economy, even a greener consumer economy by changing the rules - whether it's by taxing carbon or trading carbon, I'm not sure what - but in the end there's just a fundamental problem with the sheer amount we're consuming.

I really try to write as an ordinary person would, not as someone who's too sophisticated about food, or too knowledgeable about things.

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.

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.