When I was growing up, my mother worked, and in the evenings, the whole family would sit around the dinner table and recount the day.

Skeptical of strangers, lobstermen are keepers of secrets, working in the howling wind and hot sun, the icy snows, and bewildering fog. When I was growing up, the lore was that they had the right to shoot anyone who messed with their traps.

Growing up, I'll always remember knowing from movies and TV that there was a possibility that you wouldn't fall in love. I always thought, 'Oh my God, I hope I'm not that person.'

I dropped off my kids from 10 to 2, went to the library, and just wrote. This is my second career - I'm 41 - and I'm a terrible speller.

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.

A person has got to balance work and life and family in order to be a balanced person.

To us marriage is first, everything else is second.

Absolutely, there is a connection between food and love. I always say, when there's love in my heart or I'm feeling particularly good, the food comes out that much better. And so I think Valentine's Day is a special day.