Good olive oil, good butter, milk - they give food taste and depth and a richness that you cant reproduce with low-fat ingredients.

I think we all live in a world that is so fast-paced, it's threatening and absolutely saturated with change and novelty and insecurity. Therefore, the ritual of cooking and feeding my family and friends, whoever drops in, is what makes me feel that I'm in a universe that is contained.

I think maybe when you live with someone who is really very ill for a long time, it somehow gives you more of a greedy appetite for life and maybe, yes, you are less measured in your behaviour than you would otherwise be.

I'm not someone who's endlessly patient and wonderful.

I don't like conflict.

If I could go into the woods and kill a bear myself, I'd wear it proudly as a trophy.

Cake baking has to be, however innocently, one of the great culinary scams: it implies effort, it implies domestic prowess; but believe me, it's easy.