Sublime

A wonderful, simple lunch. Nothing to it, really, apart from excellent ingredients and a chef with the confidence and good sense not to muffle their flavors with unnecessary sauces and trimmings. Leave well enough alone, serve plenty of it, and respect the seasons is his formula. When truffles are fresh, serve truffles; when strawberries are at

L’Auberge de La Môle, we agreed, was the kind of restaurant the French do better than anyone else: highly professional, and yet it felt like the extension of a friend’s kitchen, casual, easy, and comfortable. The restaurants with a row of stars, as good as they are, tend to have a similar veneer, polished, perfect, and international. The Auberge

Then Michael wrote Cooked, and his agent—this was Binky Urban, a really powerful agent—read the part of the draft which described me, and she said, “Oh wow, what a charismatic character. Does she have any book ideas?” And he said, “Well, yes actually, she has an idea.” So I told her what I was thinking, and she said, “Yes, this is a good idea but