Just about every children's book in my local bookstore has an animal for its hero. But then only a few feet away in the cookbook section just about every cookbook includes recipes for cooking animals. Is there a more illuminating illustration of our paradoxical relationship with the nonhuman world?

Recipes are important but only to a point. What's more important than recipes is how we think about food and a good cookbook should open up a new way of doing just that.

Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants but they are dumbed down and I hate it when they dumb them down.

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'd love to own a bakery at some point. My grandmother could help me run it - she is an amazing baker! I'd also love to do a cookbook.