Chef

There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.

A real woman is someone who knows what she wants. If you want to stay home, that's fine, but you have to be clear-eyed.

I think it's hard, when you're someone who likes to please people, as I am, to be a boss. I had to learn how to rein myself in and not terrify people.

When I came to 'Gourmet,' I had no clue how to run a magazine; for television, I am fascinated to learn about editing.

What often, too often, happens in magazines is that you end up with a great editorial product, and then you're selling things that you don't really approve of.

The thing I like most in my kitchen is my marble counters. Everybody said not to use marble because it's fragile, it stains, it cracks, and it doesn't remain beautiful. But I love marble.

It takes a great deal of strength to be an optimist.

You don't want to give people what they want. Give them something that they didn't know that they wanted.

I've always hated Zagat. If I'm going to listen to someone else's opinions on restaurants, I don't care if I agree or not. I just want to know who they are.

I'm not a big turkey fan, but my husband loves it. Thanksgiving is his favorite meal.

My kitchen was built for my body. It forms a 'U' in the middle of the living room and dining room. It's not huge, because I don't like huge kitchens.

I wanted to figure out a way of living where I didn't have to be in an office every day.

I think that reading is always active. As a writer, you can only go so far; the reader meets you halfway, bringing his or her own experience to bear on everything you've written. What I mean is that it is not only the writer's memory that filters experience, but the reader's as well.

To me, cooking is man's natural activity. But I think writing is really hard. Certainly writing fiction is the hardest thing I've ever done.

If we make it national policy that we will support small farmers the way we support agribusiness, we'll suddenly see it change in terms of the cost of organic food.

I have to say I know much more about football than I would like to, because my husband is a rabid football fan, and it's been so horrible.

By the time I met Julia Child, her husband, Paul, was little more than a ghost of a man, so diminished by old age and its attendant diseases that it was impossible to discern the remarkable artist, photographer and poet he once had been.

I loved being at the 'Times,' and they were incredibly good to me. I think it's a wonderful paper, and I was really well edited.

I've been to a couple of restaurants in L.A. that were so loud, I left there with a sore throat; you literally could not have a conversation. I think it's very deliberate: There's this idea that somehow it's more fun if there's a roar in the room.

I have to admit I've never had a Fruit Loop.