I like to eat and I love the diversity of foods....

I was never jailed. The fact is that I was arrested, but I went into a diversion programme, and by that time I'd already begun working in what was called anger management. It was a painful and awful moment.

Once in a while I'll get moved to do some exercise. It's something I long for but the biggest problem is bending down and putting my tennis shoes on. Once I go out I'm OK.

My father was my main influence. He was a preacher, but he was also a history and political science teacher, and since he was my hero, I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a teacher.

I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table.

My inspiration was my mom. She's a great cook, and she still cooks, and we still banter back and forth about cooking. Growing up in a mostly Portuguese community, food was important and the family table was extremely important. At a very young age I understood that.

We incorporated new tastes and flavors into our kids' diets from a very early age, which helped to develop their palates and prevented them from becoming picky eaters. We don't buy junk food and give them options of fresh fruit, yogurt, raw almonds, or dried whole grain cereals for snack time.

I've always felt that sexuality is a really slippery thing. In this day and age, it tends to get categorized and labeled, and I think labels are for food. Canned food.