On the subject of food again, I don't often talk about the fact that I'm a vegetarian. When the subject does come up, I'm usually asked how I came to be a veggie, and my answer is always the same... 'I once murdered a chicken.'

The roots of my vegetarianism lie in the year 1972, in a village in southern Italy. I am half Italian (Calabrese to be exact), and my grandmother had a farm (like Old MacDonald). On that farm she had some goats... and chickens. She also had a granddaughter who, at the a...