The food system is a very complex beast. There are people who are going to get their food at Wal-Mart or at Safeway; they're not going to the farmers' market. Those people need choices too.

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

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

Cooking meat over a fire is one of the most stirring of those ritual acts, usually performed outdoors, on special occasions, in public, and by men.

One surprise is how deeply the food system is implicated in climate change. I don't think that has really been on people's radar until very recently. 25 to 33 percent of climate change gases can be traced to the food system. I was also surprised that those diseases that we take for granted as what will kill us - heart disease, cancer, diabetes - were virtually unknown 150 years ago, before we began eating this way.

We are at once the problem and the only possible solution to the problem.

Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it