Ruth Reichl

“A thousand years ago the Chinese had an entirely codified kitchen while the French were still gnawing on bones. Chopsticks have been around since the fourth century B.C. Forks didn't show up in England until 1611, and even then they weren't meant for eating but just to hold the meat still while you hacked at it with your knife.”

“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.”

“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.”

“My idea of management is that what your job is as the boss is to find really good people and empower them and leave them alone.”

“The implications of Americans devoting their lives to fast food are more profound than the fact that our kids aren't eating well. There are real repercussions that we need to know about and think about.”

“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.”

“I learned so much in Laos. I learned that fried silkworm larvae are delicious. I learned how to make ant-egg salad.”

“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.”

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

“American food is the food of immigrants. You go back a couple of hundred years, and we were all immigrants, unless we're going to talk about Native American cuisine.”

“If you go back in American history, oysters were the food of poor people. New York was filled with oyster saloons in the 1800s.”

“When a person has lived generously and fought fiercely, she deserves more than sadness at the end.”

“Anyone who has ever been an ugly adolescent - and we are legion - knows that the feeling of being unlovely and unlovable never goes away; it is always there, lurking just beneath the surface.”

“We in America have gotten addicted to cheap food. The result of that is antibiotic-laden fish, foods that are bred to be portable.”

“When I ate slowly and deliberately, giving myself time to consider whether I actually wanted that next bite, I often discovered that I didn't.”

“The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we've made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying.”

“Given a choice between great food and boring company or boring food and great company, I'll take the great company any day.”

“Don't make a big to-do about the turkey; brine it, put it in the oven, and don't think about it again.”

“I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner.”

“Anyone who thinks they're too grown up or too sophisticated to eat caramel corn, is not invited to my house for dinner”