When I was 15 years old I went to Royce Hall at UCLA to see Marcel
Marceau. I really hate admitting that because people razz me about it
all the time, but honestly, I was dazzled by what I saw. The idea that
you could make people laugh without uttering one word fascinated me.
Seeing him play the strong man in the circus and give the illusion of
holding an enormous barbell as he bends all the way back to the ground,
or “walkeeng against zee weend”, or being trapped in ‘zee box’, just
blew me away man.
I don’t know what gave me the balls to do this, but I went backstage. After gushing for 5 minutes I asked him if he could recommend someone in Los Angeles who could teach me the technique. Let me first say, that when he opened his mouth and spoke, out came a high-pitched, reedy voice. He chose the right trade. But the guy was so kind and gracious. He told me that Richmond Shepard was a former student of his and a good teacher.
Forty-seven-years-old and I could not remember the last time I cracked an egg. So it was a bit surreal to find myself standing with Ludo Lefebvre, a top chef, and have him ask me to separate dozens and dozens for a multi-course dinner for 80 people. I took a deep breath and secretly hoped I would not be the reason my wife’s nightmares about this evening would actually come true.
, began filming 
A group of good friends, connected by a love of politics and good food,
always used to get together every August in Santa Barbara. Life slowed
down; we’d cook together using all local produce – sweet corn, plum
tomatoes, Armenian cucumbers, peppers, tomatillos, Blenheim apricots,
avocadoes, Santa Rosa plums – and then feast as the sun went down
behind rolling hills planted with avocadoes and lemons. 
At our store, The Green Spot, in Maine, we seek out locally made, unusual products like freshly gathered honey, artisan maple syrup or rare apple cider made with heirloom apples. But my favorite is a handmade butter that is such a treat melted with lobsters, slathered on the breads that we bake or the sugar-and-gold corn picked that morning.
In the summer of 1966 I worked as a dishwasher in a summer camp near Hunter Mountain in upstate New York. This was in the pre-automatic dishwasher days meaning dirty dishes were dumped in a super hot sink of soapy water and washed and dried by hand. I used to come in around 6 a.m. to clean the breakfast pots and pans. Henry, a very tall, rail thin man who had been a cook in World War II in Europe, had gotten there at least an hour before me; I usually found him smoking a filterless cigarette and slowly beating powdered eggs and water in a huge stainless steel bowl or ladling out pancakes on the football field-size griddle.