Dana Goodyear quotes:

Los Angeles is a city of few hard targets. Its iconic buildings are private spaces, mostly residential, visible by invitation only or in the pages of a Taschen book. Its central industry is as mirage-like as the projection of light on a screen.

Los Angeles is a good city in which to be a reporter. Always entertaining, always an incubator.

The food being presented at the most expensive restaurants, by the most sophisticated chefs, was not always recognizable as food to the diner - it required a leap of faith, and I felt curious about that phenomenon.

My relationship to food is that of an acrophobe to a bridge. Unease masks a desire to jump.

I love trying new restaurants.

Christmas cookies can't help but be retro - they are memory first, sugar-flour-egg-redhot-gumdrop-sparkle reality second.

Like funny men, skilled diners are apparently perceived to have an evolutionary advantage.

Like the rest of the city, LAX is coming of age.

I think for diners, it is about crafting an identity around food which we have not really had in a mainstream way in this country. So there is a mass movement of people who identify themselves through their food preferences or even just that they prioritize food - that's where we get this idea of being a foodie.

I find that people in the food world are amazingly willing to talk about what they are doing, even when those things are quasi-legal or taboo.

Food as a hobby used to be an elite pastime, and it has become something that is totally ordinary for people of every background. In that way, we see the growing up of the American food scene: that it's okay to be a regular person and be really into food.

If this is the end of the world, give me a fork and a knife.