I am the spawn of a marriage between a rabbi and an atheist, and grew up around heated discussions about what to eat. After a bit of graduate work in philosophy, I found that I was virtually unemployable and started a food business. As an entrepreneur, I've found the freedom to experiment with practical solutions to big questions, with varying degrees of financial success. I've published a couple of cookbooks and found that food is a fertile medium for learning worlds about history, culture and down to earth pleasures. My latest book, "Cavemen, Monks and Slow Food: A History of Eating Well", provides a long range perspective on our relationship with food, from our earliest origins to the modern sustainable food movement.