Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you've got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it's a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.
I'm very type-A, and many things in my life are about control and domination, but eating should be a submissive experience, where you let down your guard and enjoy the ride.
Most of my food memories are of my Nan cooking Sunday dinners - roasts of meat with lots of vegetables. I suppose I cook what's comforting and dishes that make me feel good.
Basically, there are two things we know: Everybody has less time, and the general public is demanding better food - better in terms of quality and better in terms of flavor.
All four elements were happening in equal measure - the cuisine, the wine, the service, and the overall ambience. It taught me that dining could happen at a spiritual level.
Part of becoming a little bit older and having the opportunities that I have, you want to start giving back to people who have been influential and helped you along the way.
The menus that remain, for me, are really the menus that you have with your good friends, with your wife, with your mother, with your kids. These are what stay in your mind.
I love roasting because you can give it love, get it in the oven and go and play with the kids or whatever you've got to do, and then hours later you've got a lovely dinner.
When I used to have a show on French TV, people would ask me how my jacket stayed spotless while cooking. Your whole area has to be clean - and you have to keep it that way.
Do I shout, belittle or swear? No. I have sufficient confidence within myself to control my environment just by my presence, just by working hard and leading from the front.
I think self-discovery is the greatest achievement in life, because once you discover yourself and accept what you are, then you can fulfil your true potential and be happy.
I don't have memories of Ethiopia as a child. I didn't learn about Ethiopian culture until after I moved to New York and started meeting people from the Ethiopian community.
People complain that chefs aren't at their restaurants anymore, but I don't think that's the case at all. You see them on TV and you assume they're not working but they are.
Creativity is a voracious animal. It needs to be fed regularly. If you leave it untended for too long, you run the risk of starving your passion and diminishing your spirit.
There's a layer of satisfaction that I get from cooking that is more than the work itself. I think when you're too competitive sometimes you can lose the joy of what you do.
The concept of being a locavore, or one who chooses whenever possible to incorporate locally grown or locally produced food into one's nutrition plan, is of great importance
My French definitely improves the more I drink, as I worry less and less about absolutely perfect grammar. I do speak and understand the language, just not particularly well.
For me, 30 days, it's already pretty good for ribeye or sirloin on the bone. I like my meat grass-fed and juicy. The French never age their meat more than two or three weeks.
Me, I'm an encyclopedia. I'm not a very smart guy, but I'm an encyclopedia. You can ask me about anything you want. Probably I have the book; probably I have a first edition.
Make gifts meaningful by putting the time in creating them, whether baking and cooking, or in making arts and craft. It will all have more meaning for the giver and receiver.
My grandmother taught me the seasonality of food. She lived with the rhythms of nature. That's the way we should live. Why do we need raspberries in January flown from Chile?
The reason I do television is because we all have to work and earn a living, as I have four children. It's also a platform for me to share my knowledge and inspire the young.
Chefs don't eat at normal hours, so the only time you feel like you really need a meal is after service, when you're exhausted and just crave something to help you wind down.
If you've got a good idea and you're willing to do whatever it takes to pursue it, keep your head up and eyes open because you don't know when opportunity will come knocking.
The first book was out and for the first time we were on a book tour. Being the son of an immigrant, I'd never dreamt of being on book tours. Suddenly the attention was huge.
Public television is a very important thing for our human race, and it allows us the ability to discuss the elephants in the room and understand stories beyond the headlines.
The concept of being a locavore, or one who chooses whenever possible to incorporate locally grown or locally produced food into one's nutrition plan, is of great importance.
After all these years of cooking and writing recipes, I am still amazed every time I notice how even the minutest of variation in technique can make a spectacular difference.
My mom was a great cook so I always wanted to eat and make stuff. I did cooking in 4-H but it wasn't until I was out of college that I decided I wanted to make this my career.
I don't understand people who spend their twenties hanging out in bars and going to football game. That stuff is so boring compared to really applying yourself to what you do.
I'm a fan of the hand-me-down recipes - friends, family, bake sales, community cookbooks - those are the recipes that have withstood the test of time and fed many hungry fans.
Now that I'm a dad, I'm practicing what I call 'one- handed cooking,' because I've got something more important in my other arm. I'm whipping up lots of frittatas and omelets.
Say a child raises this beautiful beet. It's going to give her a sense of ownership, and that changes everything. You stop taking things for granted; you become less wasteful.
Over the years since I left home, I have kept thinking about the people I grew up with and about our way of life. I realize how much the bond that held us had to do with food.
At 15, I had to choose a vocational school, and I was delighted, of course, to go to culinary school. But learning the basics was not as exciting as being the chef I am today.
As far as cuisine is concerned one must read everything, see everything, hear everything, try everything, observe everything, in order to retain in the end, just a little bit.
I think, to Chelsea's [Handler] point, I still need directing because sometimes I go a little bit off beat in a way that it's like, rein it in. I welcome that kind of support.
I think that expression is so great. So I'll look at someone like Prince, and one reason to lose weight is so I can rock that purple velvet outfit with the white frilly shirt.
You can't escape the taste of the food you had as a child. In times of stress, what do you dream about? Your mother's clam chowder. It's security, comfort. It brings you home.
Just because the Americans are so good at rattling out accessible and cheap junk food, nobody looks twice when it comes to their food. But there are golden nuggets everywhere.
When you have a few cake formulas and filling ideas in your repertoire, you will find that it's pretty much an assembly job - you can mix and match a different way every time.
Why can't we have fine black restaurants with fine service by black people who always gave good service? Because we thought that is demeaning and it's not, it's a good living.
I spent my days on the riverbanks, in the woods, in the fields, shooting, hunting and stalking. I unravelled everything within my life. Self discovery is most important to me.
There has long been a debate in the aid community and in Africa about how to most effectively help situations of poverty in developing nations and underprivileged communities.
My last two years of high school, I did work-study half the day, and I ran the restaurant. It was just this little restaurant, but it was just so cool. I had 35, 40 employees.
People see me on TV two and three times a day, and see me cooking all these wonderfully Southern, fattening dishes. That's only 30 days out of 365. And it's for entertainment.
I keep returning to the combination of artichoke, broad beans and lemon. The freshness of young beans and the lemon juice 'lifts' the artichoke and balances its hearty nature.
I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She's going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she's around it all the time.
I feel like a lot of the pastry chefs and chefs I worked for and worked under were always really, really big on the philosophy of 'everyone's in it together in the food world.'