I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.
The biggest thing for me when I travel is finding the best food in every city. I always try to find the best restaurant and take advantage of it because it's cool to go to a lot of different cities and experience a lot of different cultures. So I'm big on the food.
It's striking and unique in London how you know to create this alchemy between the concept, the food, the music, the staff. From the beginning to the end, with all these different elements, it tells a full story that you know very well how to develop and cultivate.
As I can testify, living in a foreign country takes you way out of your comfort zone. It's the little things, like ordering food in a different language, buying petrol or learning to drive on the other side of the road, but they all add up to making you a more rounded, educated person.
Food brings people together on many different levels. It's nourishment of the soul and body; it's truly love.
Choose to patronise your local farmers; as eaters, you need to demand a different type of food. Appreciate the pigginess of the pig.
It is a religious duty for those who cook to learn how to prepare food in different ways, hygienically, for the table, so that it may be eaten with enjoyment.
I just started using this app called Wine and Dine. It's like Instagram, but only for food. You post what you're eating and follow your friends, and then you can say, 'I wanna try that,' and so when you go on your 'wanna try' list, it'll tell you where it is.
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
The most successful food, I think, is food that both appeals to the super-sophisticated diner or foodie and to the lay diner at the same time.
In America, diner food or roadside barbecue is the best road food, but I am not a fan of eating while driving - too messy.
Never be a food snob. Learn from everyone you meet - the fish guy at your market, the lady at the local diner, farmers, cheese makers. Ask questions, try everything and eat up!
Everybody has their role in the food world and what they choose to appreciate. I'm not a fine dining chef. I appreciate it. I think Thomas Keller is amazing. But I really like where I'm at; I like what I do. I like how it makes people feel.
I grew up with that farm-to-table dining before it was sweeping the nation. I do think there's some value to really throwing yourself into food and embracing where it comes from.
Chefs get sucked into the trap of 'fine dining' because some guides make it central to their ratings system and because some customers have been trained to focus their expectations on the trappings and not on the food. It's all a gigantic waste of energy.
One thing about my dinner parties - they're never planned. I go to the grocery store, and I buy whatever is on sale. I get a lot of it, and I just send out a mass text: 'I just bought food. Dinner's at 8. Text me if you're coming.'
I work hard. I focus on myself and putting food on my dinner table before anything else. I don't worry about other artists. Worrying about the next person in a negative way is the wrong way to be.
Food not only connects us at the idyllic dinner table setting with family and friends: it is also part of our mundane, daily transit to and from work.
Holiday eating is a study in paradox. You're surrounded by food, but you're so busy shopping and cooking that you don't have time to eat. Then, when your blood sugar dips to the point of derangement, you make a desperate lunge for the closest foodstuff - and the next thing you know, you've eaten an entire box of regifted peppermint bark.
Research has shown that even small amounts of processed food alter the chemical balance in our brain and cause negative mood swings along with noticeable dips ill energy.
