Of course I didn't pioneer the use of food in fiction: it has been a standard literary device since Chaucer and Rabelais, who used food wonderfully as a metaphor for sensuality.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I used to get criticized for putting food in novels.
There aren't many great passages written about food, but I love one by George Millar, who worked for the SOE in the second world war and wrote a book called 'Horned Pigeon.' He had been on the run and hadn't eaten for a week, and his description of the cheese fondue he smells in the peasant kitchen of a house in eastern France is unbelievable.
I realized that food was actually a metaphor for bringing us all together. It's about us communicating and being like family.
Food as a hobby used to be an elite pastime, and it has become something that is totally ordinary for people of every background. In that way, we see the growing up of the American food scene: that it's okay to be a regular person and be really into food.
I'm such an avid magazine reader - music, art, beauty magazines - and I found that food and restaurants were pouring into everything I cared about. Whether it was the pop-up concept, or some mysterious mini-mall restaurant, I got swept up in the sexy romance of the food movement.
I wasn't passionate about food until I'd been cooking for a while. I started long before food became part of the mainstream media. I just wanted to cook, period.
I guess I've always been kind of obsessed with food. I always liked drawing food, and I always liked stories - I think I probably just read somewhere that stories are better if someone's eating in them. I don't know where that came from, but it really stuck, and I always try to put food in.
I'm not a food critic, and I'm not really an authority to write anything on food.
Food was always important in my family, but I didn't think of it as a vocation until a later point in life.
Food was a labor of love you felt by cooking it and eating it.