Tiny quails may not seem as impressive as a mammoth turkey, but there is something refreshing about a spread of individual birds on the Christmas table.

Pasta with melted cheese is the one thing I could eat over and over again.

Brunch, for me, is an extended breakfast that should be enjoyed whenever you have time properly to engage in cooking and eating.

A well-made salad must have a certain uniformity; it should make perfect sense for those ingredients to share a bowl.

The combination of olive oil, garlic and lemon juice lifts the spirits in winter.

Breakfast is always the best time for something juicy, sweet and fresh - it just feels like the right way to open the day. There's no right way, though, when it comes to choosing the fruit.

Mothers and grandmothers: these are the people that I admire most, not so much chefs.

Just-poached vegetables show off their natural attributes, and taste fresh and light in a way you never get with roasting or frying.

Date syrup is a natural sweetener that has wonderful richness and treacly depth; I drizzle it over semolina porridge.

The way to entice people into cooking is to cook delicious things.

For me, the end of childhood came when the number of candles on my birthday cake no longer reflected my age, around 19 or 20. From then on, each candle came to represent an entire decade.

A person that does not value your time will not value your advice.

Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.

Masochism is a valuable job skill.

Climb up the ladder! Climb up the ladder! Are you stupid?!

Life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse.

Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?

NO!” The scream was the more terrible because he had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound.

Yesterday I told a chicken to cross the road. It said, "What for?"

When we see the wholeness of being born, living, and dying, there is a joy in living and a grace in dying.

There was a day when I liked writing letters -- it has gone. Unfortunately the passion for getting them remains.