Give yourself permission to get the most out of your life. If you're spending all your time scrubbing corners with a toothbrush, you're kind of missing the point. Taking shortcuts doesn't mean shortcutting the end result.

Baking cookies is comforting, and cookies are the sweetest little bit of comfort food. They are very bite-sized and personal.

Baking is how you start kids at cooking in the kitchen.

The issue I have always felt most strongly about is hunger in America, in particular the children.

Instead of doing cinnamon, nutmeg, and all those baking spices I'll have one spice that's for sweets, and that's pumpkin pie spice.

I'm not sure that some of the food purists are in touch with what really goes on in American households.

One of the things I do in my cookbooks is I will do a conversion from outdoor to indoor grilling so you can do it year-round.