New York apartments are notoriously small, and my cute little studio is no exception - space is at a premium, which is one of the reasons that I only have a mini-fridge. Great for leftovers, cheese, and chilling Diet Coke.

I'll make a diet cheesecake, but I'll put it in a Sara Lee box. Or I'll have a huge bowl of pasta, but it's actually just a cup of pasta - the rest is vegetables. It makes me feel less deprived.

Reminded of what a diet really is, I began eating more slowly, being more conscious of when I was full. I started to enjoy my buckwheat bread with goat cheese and pureed butternut-squash soup as a response to real hunger.

I basically have the diet of a 19th-century Irish navy, apart from the litre of stout a day. It's meat and potatoes and bread and cheese: those are my four food groups.

I definitely try to eat a healthy diet, but I am the first person to say I love unhealthy food. I would never tell you I don't. I love fried chicken or mac and cheese. Do I order them all the time when I'm out at restaurants? No, though I do have one splurge meal a week.

All the pre-made sauces in a jar, and frozen and canned vegetables, processed meats, and cheeses which are loaded with artificial ingredients and sodium can get in the way of a healthy diet. My number one advice is to eat fresh, and seasonally.

I can't be on the cheeseburger diet all the time.

Look at the average American diet: ice cream, butter, cheese, whole milk, all this fat. People don't realize how much of this stuff you get by the end of the day. High blood pressure is from all this high-fat eating.

I went on a Hot Pocket diet where I ate two Hot Pockets every four hours. I only had the pepperoni pizza flavour. I didn't go anywhere near the cheeseburger macaroni.

I'm obsessed with cheese and milk, but eliminating them from my diet made the biggest difference. In a month and a half, I lost 11 pounds just from not eating dairy, without doing anything else different, and that totally blew my mind.

We have these weapons of mass destruction on every street corner, and they're called donuts, cheeseburgers, French fries, potato chips, junk food. Our kids are living on a junk food diet.

Do you know how many calories are in butter and cheese and ice cream? Would you get your dog up in the morning for a cup of coffee and a donut?

These days it's cool to be ethnic and to be different, but when I was a kid, it was not cool - at all. My friends would come over and my mom would make crepes with eggs, stuffed with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and spinach. And they'd be like, 'What is this?'

I love making savory stratas for Christmas morning. I get excited about it. It's a polenta strata with homemade bread, with a billion eggs and Parmesan cheese. I'll drizzle truffle oil over the whole thing, which will just destroy people. It's amazing.

I like day-after-Christmas omelets, day-after Christmas pizzas... Or you take croissant rolls, put gravy on top, turkey, mashed potatoes, cheese, more gravy. That sounds good!

We go to Italy every winter, and my husband's mother has a bingo party on Christmas. Every woman brings a dish: lentils, cavolo nero, tons of beans, polenta, every type of cheese, bruschetta, fresh vegetables, and local olive oil and wine.

The cheese board is my big treat at Christmas that I have to deny myself during the rest of year.

I'm a disorganized mess. My purse is gross: I once found a shoulder pad, string cheese, and a Christmas ornament in it!

Nothing says holidays, like a cheese log.

All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheesemaking class a few weeks ago, and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I'm into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I'd love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef.

I started running around my 30th birthday. I wanted to lose weight; I didn't anticipate the serenity. Being in motion, suddenly my body was busy and so my head could work out some issues I had swept under a carpet of wine and cheese. Good therapy, that's a good run.

I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.

If you try to attract women with cheese you're going to end up with rats.

When life gives you lemons, forget the lemonade. Make a lemon chicken and a rich lemon cheesecake. Blame life for the extra pounds.