Time is the missing ingredient in our recipes-and in our lives.

You want to say the thing that will drive everybody in the direction you want to go. But as a writer you have a pact with your readers that you'll be really straight with them at all times.

There's a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig - an animal easily as intelligent as a dog - that becomes the Christmas ham.

We all have different priorities. There's no one single set of ethical rules.

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

There are certain products that it's worth buying organic just because the alternatives have so much pesticide. There's a list of the dirty dozen that you can get off the Web. Strawberries, potatoes. A handful of crops that have very high pesticide residues if you don't buy organic. If you eat that a lot, that's a good place to invest.

There is nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as every day is not a special occasion.