Mark Bittman

Well, there's idiot savants out there, like Bill Simmons, who can just remember everything.

Unless he has a really good producer who's got notes in front of him all the time.

I'm writing, but I'm not doing journalism.

And in 2015, when I left my Times columns, and I'd had three, I left those behind.

You had three.

Yeah.

Well, I was the minimalist for 12 years, 13 years, and then I was the Times Magazine food writer columnist for four or five years, and I had the opinion column at the same time, so I had three.

Wow.

Not all at once, but I had two at once.

When I left, I had this withdrawal period, and I mean, it's funny because I had weekly deadlines and sometimes three and four deadlines a week for my whole career.

Yeah.

And then suddenly no one cared whether I wrote or not.

And that took some getting used to, and I went through a period of writing because I wanted to, because I felt like it was a self-worth thing.

Yeah.

And that finally wore off, and I felt like, journalism, I mean, more power to them, but it's not for me anymore.

Yeah.

But I'm still doing cookbooks.

I'm working on a memoir.

And I think I have one other serious book left in me, and I'm not really sure what it is.

But I wrote this book that's a history of food and agriculture, mostly in the United States, called Animal Vegetable Junk.