“We show our surprise at this by speaking of something called the “French paradox,” for how could a people who eat such demonstrably toxic substances as foie gras and triple crème cheese actually be slimmer and healthier than we are? Yet I wonder if it doesn’t make more sense to speak in terms of an American paradox—that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily.”
Source: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
“Yet the organic label itself—like every other such label in the supermarket—is really just an imperfect substitute for direct observation of how a food is produced, a concession to the reality that most people in an industrial society haven’t the time or the inclination to follow their food back to the farm, a farm which today is apt to be, on average, fifteen hundred miles away.”
Source: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
“Turn that worthless lawn into a beautiful garden of food whose seeds are stories sown, whose foods are living origins. Grow a garden on the flat roof of your apartment building, raise bees on the roof of your garage, grow onions in the iris bed, plant fruit and nut trees that bear, don't plant 'ornamentals', and for God's sake don't complain about the ripe fruit staining your carpet and your driveway; rip out the carpet, trade food to someone who raises sheep for wool, learn to weave carpets that can be washed, tear out your driveway, plant the nine kinds of sacred berries of your ancestors, raise chickens and feed them from your garden, use your fruit in the grandest of ways, grow grapevines, make dolmas, wine, invite your fascist neighbors over to feast, get to know their ancestral grief that made them prefer a narrow mind, start gardening together, turn both your griefs into food; instead of converting them, convert their garage into a wine, root, honey, and cheese cellar--who knows, peace might break out, but if not you still have all that beautiful food to feed the rest and the sense of humor the Holy gave you to know you're not worthless because you can feed both the people and the Holy with your two little able fists.”
Source: The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive
“I'm not sure why it is, but I love food more than just about anything else.”
Source: the bell jar
“Cooking is all about connection, I've learned, between us and other species, other times, other cultures (human and microbial both), but, most important, other people. Cooking is one of the more beautiful forms that human generosity takes; that much I sort of knew. But the very best cooking, I discovered, is also a form of intimacy.”
Source: Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation
“It was 2:00 p.m., too early for wine but not for chocolate.”
Source: Always With You
“Keep it simple, keep it tasty. Salt, pepper and garlic. Shallot another day, lemon grass for nextweek. Nutmeg and cinnamon every now and then.”
“If that's the case, waiter, please bring me another piece of cake," Gramps said as lunch was brought to the table, "I'm all for fighting tyranny and oppression.”
Source: Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
“To eat or not to eat, that is the question: whether 'tis Nobler in the stomach to suffer the Slings and Arrows of outrageous Hunger (while keeping mouthparts in pristine kissing condition) or to take Spoon against Slice of cake, and--
"Yes, please," my stomach pipes up.”
Source: Night of Cake & Puppets
“Life is one percent what happens to you, and ninety-nine percent how you respond to it.”
Source: Essential Ayurveda: What It Is and What It Can Do for You