Kate Christensen

Of course, eating broccoli raw, nutritionally and aesthetically speaking, is no doubt the best way of all. Raw broccoli makes a delectable salad when sliced into thin strips on a mandolin, marinated in lemon-mustard vinaigrette, then tossed with toasted pecans or hazelnuts, halved cherry tomatoes, and fresh minced basil.

After my experiences with the 5:2 diet, I wasn't interested in a short-term fix that would fail later. I wanted a way of eating that made me lose weight without feeling deprived.

It gives me immense pleasure to be trustworthy, faithful, and true - to have the kind of romantic bond that inspires this.

Finding my way into a novel is always half the battle.

Often I choose characters who express not my best self, but the sides of me I haven't developed or haven't expressed.

I wrote my first novel in eighth grade for a boy named Kenny on whom I had an unrequited crush and who sat behind me in social studies.

As my family saw them, men were untrustworthy, weak, and selfish. Our mother taught us to get along without them, to get along without much of anything, and to live well and have fun anyway.

A relative of poison ivy and poison sumac, the cashew contains the same rash-inducing chemicals, known as urushiols, as its kin.

Broccoli, when overboiled, produces a sulfuric stench that causes children to gag the instant they enter the house.

My youngest sister belonged to a group called the Twelve Tribes for many years. She recently left, with her husband and four children. Talking to her about her experiences in the group is fascinating, moving, and enlightening.

When I was younger, I read all the great food memoirs, by M.F.K. Fisher and Laurie Colwin and Julia Child and Nicolas Freeling and Ruth Reichl, and felt flooded with a sense of comfort and safety.

In a family of all girls, I was always the 'boy' in my mind - the protector, the masculine one. No one would ever have to worry about me.