After I outlined 'Catering to Nobody,' I went and worked for a caterer. And the other thing I had to do was to talk to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department about how they investigated a crime.

I'm always astonished to see how badly people can behave when they think no one is noticing.

When I started to write culinary mysteries, I did it because nobody was doing it anymore.

In a mystery, the sleuth must be believably involved and emotionally invested in solving the crime.

I like cream cheese in just about anything.

I wanted to be a literary writer, so I wrote story after story and sent them to 'The New Yorker.'

One thing that improved my cooking skills was being a poor student in California... If you don't have much money, you have to learn to cook.

What one's goal should be is just to become a better writer and to tell different kinds of stories.

I told the caterer I'd work for nothing if he'd teach me about catering. I lasted one week full-time. It was exhausting.

Catering is extremely demanding financially and physically. It's a business.

Writing is work and cooking is relaxing.

Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.

There is an end to everything even life.

Promise me one thing: don't take me home until I'm drunk - very drunk indeed.

I'll probably be still playing a school girl when I'm 60.

A song without a hook is like a train without rails. It skitters all over the place, bangs into everything. Boom! Crash! There goes Grand Central Station. Crushed by a train.

We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.

We favor hypotheses for their simplicity and explanatory power, much as the architect of the world might have done in choosing which possibility to create.

Thou shalt never wash my feet.

Cervantes said the journey's better than the end. Practices, to me, were the journey.

I'm terrible at story and structure, but I'm not so bad at writing dialogue.