It was so much fun to have the freedom to wander America with no assignments. For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself.

As a consequence of the victories we have registered during our first ten years of freedom we have laid a firm foundation for the new advances we must and will make during the next decade.

A mere forty years ago beach volleyball was just beginning. No bureaucrat would have invented it and that's what freedom is all about.

137 years later Memorial Day remains one of America's most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed - it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy.

When people talk of the freedom of writing speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

Back a hundred years ago especially around Woodrow Wilson what happened in this country is we took freedom and we chopped it into pieces.

And as I ask for your forgiveness I also ask for your support to keep all things in perspective and keep all things in proportion. The good of nine years versus the bad.

In France today people no longer eat as much heavy food and fat as they did 15 or 20 years ago. These days French cooking through the influence of 'grande cuisine ' has become a bit lighter. And we are beginning to discover the original flavors of our produce.

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history but Southern identity now has more to do with food accents manners music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.

Nobody had ever told me junk food was bad for me. Four years of medical school and four years of internship and residency and I never thought anything was wrong with eating sweet rolls and doughnuts and potatoes and bread and sweets.

I did skit comedy online for many years beginning around 2001. Around 2006 I started watching a lot of food television and got re-interested in food. I come from a very food-obsessed family. But I also wanted to do my own thing which was the comedy.

In recent years personal injury attorneys and trial lawyers have attacked the food industry with numerous lawsuits alleging that these businesses should pay monetary damages to those who of their own accord consume too much of a legal safe product.

I am but one member of a vast team made up of many organizations officials thousands of scientists and millions of farmers - mostly small and humble - who for many years have been fighting a quiet oftentimes losing war on the food production front.

I had a job at a movie theater for like a year and a half and then a job at a health food store for like two years. Those were the only two jobs I ever had.

My sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce some warm French bread - works all the time. I think I've been eating pasta for 26 years.

A few years ago kids from poor areas in France were asked to draw items of food. For a chicken they drew a drumstick. For a fish they drew a fish stick. Those are extremes but there is a lot that needs to be done to help children discover good food.

I always knew the importance of it since I was three or four years old my mother used to feed me wine and water. I grew up with wine as liquid food.

This June I'll travel once again to the Food and Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen Colorado. For many years my dear friend Julia Child and I have teamed up to teach classes together at the event for the past seven years my daughter Claudine has been my cooking partner on stage.

When I wrote 'Fast Food My Way' in 2004 I hoped that my friends would prepare my recipes. Now more people cook from that book than any other I've written in the past 30 years.

I wouldn't say that processed food ready meals and even takeaways aren't relevant to modern life it's just that over the past 40 years there are three generations of people who have come out of school and gone through their home life without ever being shown how to cook properly.

My mom who's been in the restaurant business for 40 years is the number-one influence in my life. But I look up to a lot of people in the industry. Tops on my list is Mario Batali. My mom and Mario taught me the same lesson: Food is love.

Food during my early years was a very difficult issue for me. I grew up in an addictive family. My mother had serious problems with alcohol and prescription drugs. I was an overweight kid. I can remember back in those days there weren't the strategies that there are today to deal with those issues.

I used food as a coping mechanism for many many years and it was my best friend for a long time.

My goal is to make Italian food clean and accessible and beautiful and tasty with simple ingredients that people can find at a local grocery store because people don't want to go to a gourmet shop in search of items that will sit in their pantry for years after they use just a teaspoon or pinch of them.