Our relationship with food can be shameful, but also joyful, confusing, ambivalent, and antagonistic. And there should be room for all of it, and all of us. “I never felt shame around my food and never thought to. That story should fit somewhere, too.”

A lot of people play chess and they didn't have no place to go. I tell them to come to my house. I built a shed in the backyard. I cook for them. I make sandwiches, dinner, $5 a plate. Shot of whiskey $2; a beer for $1. And I let them play chess as long as they want. I don’t do that so much anymore because people don’t want to travel to the Bronx.

Now, if you ever happen to move to a new city and worry about making friends, I can promise you this: If you date a bartender, move in with a burlesque performer, and get a job at a Shakespeare theater, you will quite suddenly be surrounded by a wealth of interesting people. And if you feed those people regularly and well, you will sit down to dinner one day and notice that not only do you now have actual friends, but they feel a bit like family, too.