“Like most people who love to cook, I like the tangible things...but what I like even more are the intangible things: the familiar voices that fall out of the folds of an old cookbook, or the scenes that replay like a film reel across my kitchen wall. When we fall in love with a certain dish, I think that's what we're often responding to: that something else behind the fork or the spoon, the familiar story that food tells.”

“To most people, I guess, turning twenty-one is all about booze. To me, turning twenty-one was all about coconut. Booze is nice, but coconut is chewable, and when push comes to shove, I will always like eating better than drinking. Everyone has their priorities.”

“My father had coats the way old spinsters have cats.”

“Even the Thanksgiving when her parents had just divorced, Hoosier Pie made the cut. ...They also, incidentally, made a pumpkin pie, but it fell on the floor, a classic example of survival of the fittest”

“I hate the notion of a secret recipe. Recipes are by nature derivative and meant to be shared - that is how they improve, are changed, how new ideas are formed. To stop a recipe in it's tracks, to label it "secret" just seems mean.”

“People fall in and out of love all the time, and sometimes people have numerous loves throughout their lives. But you have two epic loves and no matter who you were with, I don’t think you’d ever get over or forget the other.”

“Not to be rude, but it was all pointless," I noted from across the room. Four eyes narrowed at me. "What? I said 'not to be rude'. That's like saying 'God bless them' right after you say bad things about someone. It means it doesn't count!”