Chefs Quotes

I cooked with so many of the greats: Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert, Wylie Dufresne, Grant Achatz. Rick Bayless taught me not one but two amazing mole sauces, the whole time bemoaning that he never seemed to know what to cook for his teenage daughter. Jose Andres made me a classic Spanish tortilla, shocking me with the sheer volume of viridian olive oil he put into that simple dish of potatoes, onions, and eggs. Graham Elliot Bowles and I made gourmet Jell-O shots together, and ate leftover cheddar risotto with Cheez-Its crumbled on top right out of the pan.
Lucky for me, Maria still includes me in special evenings like this, usually giving me the option of joining the guests at table, or helping in the kitchen. I always choose the kitchen, because passing up the opportunity to see these chefs in action is something only an idiot would do. Susan Spicer flew up from New Orleans shortly after the BP oil spill to do an extraordinary menu of all Gulf seafood for a ten-thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raising dinner Maria hosted to help the families of Gulf fishermen. Local geniuses Gil Langlois and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard joined forces with Gale Gand for a seven-course dinner none of us will ever forget, due in no small part to Gil's hoisin oxtail with smoked Gouda mac 'n' cheese, Stephanie's roasted cauliflower with pine nuts and light-as-air chickpea fritters, and Gale's honey panna cotta with rhubarb compote and insane little chocolate cookies. Stephanie and I bonded over ~ Stacey Ballis

You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books. ~ Thomas Keller

..:Sometimes when cooking, I haven't had all the ingredients required to fulfill the recipe which I might be working on at the time. But one thing I have learned is that, without them, we can learn to improvise. And most of the time, by improvising, some chefs have created the greatest plates ever. Regardless what you might be going through right now in your life, learn to improvise and make the best with what you now have. Add your own taste and style to all you do. Follow the recipes if you can, but do be original. Put your own signature to things:.. ~ Rafael Garcia

Something I didn't even know was on my bucket list has been achieved. I have cooked Thanksgiving dinner with Martha Stewart. I vow to follow the gospel of her teachings and do my very best in the remarkably less glamorous kitchen of my own home ... without the luxury of magically appearing prep bowls filled by a staff of sous chefs. ~ Jesse Tyler Ferguson

I take apart restaurant menus everywhere I go. I kind of tick off a lot of chefs in restaurants because I'll say, 'You can keep all of the sauce, keep all of that garbage - just give me that piece of fish. Forget the salad dressing, I don't need all of that extra stuff. Just give it to me straight up, and I'll eat it.' ~ Montel Williams

In the civilization of our times, it is normal, and almost obligatory, for cookery and fashion to take up most of the culture sections, for chefs and fashion designers now enjoy the prominence that before was given to scientists, composers and philosophers. Gas burners, stoves and catwalks meld, in the cultural coordinates of our time, with books, laboratories and operas, while TV stars and great footballers exert the sort of influence over habits, taste and fashion that was previously the domain of teachers and thinkers ~ Mario Vargas-Llosa

The pressure, the heat, the almost impossibly fast pace at which you need work - this is the reality of working in the culinary industry. This is what professional chefs do night after night. ~ Joe Bastianich

As though frustrated by so much rustic simplicity, though, one of the chefs had provided a charming hors d'oeuvre - a nest, cunningly built from strips of pastry, ornamented with real sprigs of flowering apple, on the edge of which perched two nightingales, skinned and roasted, stuffed with apple and cinnamon, then redressed in their feathers. And in the nest was the entire family of baby birds, tiny stubs of outstretched wings brown and crispy, tender bare skins glazed with honey, blackened mouths agape to show the merest hint of the almond-paste stuffing within. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Chefs have a new opportunity - and perhaps even an obligation - to inform the public about what is good to eat, and why. ~ Rene Redzepi

All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please. ~ Padma Lakshmi

I believe Fernand Point is one of the last true gourmands of the 20th century. His ruminations are extraordinary and thought-provoking. He has been an inspiration for legions of chefs. ~ Thomas Keller

We've been here three days already, and I've yet to cook a single meal. The night we arrived, my dad ordered Chinese takeout from the old Cantonese restaurant around the corner, where they still serve the best egg foo yung, light and fluffy and swimming in rich, brown gravy. Then there had been Mineo's pizza and corned beef sandwiches from the kosher deli on Murray, all my childhood favorites. But last night I'd fallen asleep reading Arthur Schwartz's Naples at Table and had dreamed of pizza rustica, so when I awoke early on Saturday morning with a powerful craving for Italian peasant food, I decided to go shopping. Besides, I don't ever really feel at home anywhere until I've cooked a meal.
The Strip is down by the Allegheny River, a five- or six-block stretch filled with produce markets, old-fashioned butcher shops, fishmongers, cheese shops, flower stalls, and a shop that sells coffee that's been roasted on the premises. It used to be, and perhaps still is, where chefs pick up their produce and order cheeses, meats, and fish. The side streets and alleys are littered with moldering vegetables, fruits, and discarded lettuce leaves, and the smell in places is vaguely unpleasant. There are lots of beautiful, old warehouse buildings, brick with lovely arched windows, some of which are now, to my surprise, being converted into trendy loft apartments.
If you're a restaurateur you get here early, four or five in the morning. Around seven or eight o'clock, home cooks, to ~ Meredith Mileti

Television is kind of a disappointment. I often want to watch it, but I find it quite hard - I don't like soaps, reality TV or celebrity chefs. ~ Quentin Blake

The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen. ~ Gordon Ramsay

When I first went to Las Vegas, I thought I would never go to Las Vegas; you can't get anything. But then I realized that they were trucking in almost everything; you could get a lot of your product, and I think that's why a lot of chefs actually went there. ~ Michael Mina

You will stumble on secrets. Hidden all over the restaurant: Mexican oregano, looking cauterized, as heady as pot. Large tins of Chef's private anchovies from Catalonia hidden behind the bulk olive oil. Quarts of grassy sencha and tiny bullets of stone-ground matcha. Ziplock bags of masa. In certain lockers, bottles of sriracha. Bottles of well whiskey in the dry goods. Bars of chocolate slipped between books in the manager's office.

And people too, with their secret crafts, their secret fluency in other languages. The sharing of secrets is a ceremony, marking kinship. You have no secrets yet, so you don't know what you don't know. But you can intuit it while holding yourself on the skin of the water, treading above deep pockets, faint voices underneath you. ~ Stephanie Danler

It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad's garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who's just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There's no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there's a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It's a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we're wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It's acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it's a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever. ~ Karl Wiggins

All the Ping-Pong and pool tables, on-site chefs, Nerf hoops, and stereo systems cannot make up for the truth that some places work people like dogs. ~ Ken Wilber

The person who's receiving the food cooks as much as the chef. They have a very important role to play ... There's no other activity that the person who receives it can destroy the work, can participate in how it's being done. It's emotional. Sometimes journalists are going to have to start talking more about the diners than the chefs. ~ Ferran Adria

I miss being fawned over by restaurateurs and chefs. ~ Toby Young

A real dish has grown from all the chefs who have combined their talents over the centuries to develop a meal with unique physical characteristics, for there's not a chef on earth who can claim sole title to a particular dish. It will have typical Iberian or French features, but with traces of Indian, Celtic, Roman, Jewish and even Moorish culture in its savour, although food can't possibly pass from one country to another without change ~ Karl Wiggins

One of the great awards from a chef's point of view are Michelin stars. The ultimate is three Michelin stars. For example, Gordon Ramsey has three Michelin stars. Having one Michelin star is a big deal, two is incredible and having three puts you in a bracket of maybe 30 chefs worldwide. ~ Paul Rankin

There are very few chefs both in Britain and the States that really identify the secret of being consistent. And combine consistency with flavor. ~ Gordon Ramsay

If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did. ~ Gordon Ramsay

Southern food certainly carries a stereotype, but I feel like that's turning around a little. There are great Southern chefs who are finding ways to showcase our traditional recipes in deliciously healthy ways. For me, the key is to use fresh fruits and vegetables and cut some of the butter and fat without sacrificing the yumminess of the dish. ~ Kimberly Schlapman

I've been fascinated by the world ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential' by Anthony Bourdain. I've watched 'Top Chef' and watched interviews with chefs on 'Charlie Rose' ... I thought they're really intriguing characters, and they really encapsulate that tension between vision and commerce, art and commerce. ~ Jon Favreau

What's frustrating more than anything is when chefs start to cut corners and believe that they are incognito in the way they send out appetizers, entrees, and they know it's not 100 percent, but they think the customers can't spot it. ~ Gordon Ramsay

I love chicken. But, like a lot of chefs and cooks, I get tired of preparing it the same way. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

His em-tracking machinery is driven by words more than images, but that's only his make and model. Empathy is related to intuition, and intuition is individually customized, tuned to dominant talents. Chefs need tastes, painters images. His experience is biblical: It starts with logos. ~ Steven Kotler

The first change is a realization that I am no longer alone. Even when I'm lying in the dark by myself, I now sense other beings hovering near me. It isn't just me living in this house, but unfinished love and my dejection and anger and dead Paulie, and their miraculous presence feels as real as my fingernails digging into my hand. The second change is that I'm not more obsessed with cooking, like the Roman gourmets and their cherished chefs, who wanted to put all things wonderful or special or new or majestic or strange or scary-looking on the table. The cooks back then knew only how to bake or boil, but I understand how a few drops of pomegranate juice can transform a dish. The third change is that with these first two revelations, my sense of taste has become ever more sensitive and sharp, my imagination richer. When I got my ears pierced and walked into the street in the middle of winter, I become one large ear. All sensation and pain were concentrated in my ears. It's that same feeling. Everything about me disappears and I'm only a pink tongue. This is the time to grow into a truly good chef. ~ Kyung-ran Jo

It was as if his fingers knew things, but they couldn't show him unless they were moving, touching. He had to think it was similar for carpenters and writers, and he knew it was the same for chefs. ~ Laura Lippman

When I'm back in New York - and this is a terrible thing to complain about - I eat a lot more really, really good food than perhaps I'd like to. So many of my friends are really good chefs. It's kind of like being in the Mafia. ~ Anthony Bourdain

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. ~ Jose Andres

Slaves were taught to be fine chefs, but they endangered their lives if they made a mistake or served an ill-prepared dish. Rather than being reprimanded, they were often hauled into the dining room and flogged in the presence of the guests. ~ Jeff Smith

Chefs don't actually say 'That's a spicy meat-a-ball,' except to indicate that there's a bomb threat in the restaurant without alarming the customers. Terrorism is the spiciest meatball there is. ~ Mario Batali

I train my chefs with a blindfold. I'll get my sous chef and myself to cook a dish. The young chef would have to sit down and eat it with a blindfold. If they can't identify the flavor, they shouldn't be cooking the dish. ~ Gordon Ramsay

The stressful part of that is that you're not a chef. People who have learnt to be chefs have spent years in kitchens just on the vegetable section and then move up to the fish section, etc, whereas you have to do everything and it's really full on, but it's an amazing experience. ~ Jayne Middlemiss

I'm not a purist. Coffee drinking minus cream and sugar is an acquired taste. I'm still not sure it isn't like telling chefs to dispense with spices in cooking. ~ Kevin Sinnott

With chefs, the problem is we have to be very confident because people are looking at us for that. So pretty soon, you think you're a plumber, you think you're an electrician, you think you're an accountant. ~ Michael Mina

I think it's a universal truth that most chefs I know are happiest eating simple, unadorned good things. ~ Anthony Bourdain

The only good deed I'll be doing tonight is for the angels."
"The angels?"
"Haven't you heard? Every time I make you come, an angel gets his wings."
Brady dropped his smoky gaze to Gage's mouth for a beat. "We really need to leave. Now. ~ Kate Meader

Chefs are leaders in their own little world. ~ Eric Ripert

A Wrong Planet Chef always take an interest in the origins of the food he cooks. A particular dish of vegetables, herbs and spices could, for instance, have begun life 5000 years ago on the Indian subcontinent, perhaps in Central India where vegetarian Hindi food is considered as God (Brahman) as it sustains the entire physical, mental, emotional and sensual aspects of the human being. The dish may then have migrated to the Punjab region of the Indian-Pakistan border - The Land of Five Waters - around 250 BC, and from here could have moved on to Western Asia or North Africa as soldiers and merchants moved west with their families into the Eastern parts of the Roman empire, where the cooks would have experimented with new combinations of food, adding fruits, shellfish or poultry to the exotic dish. The dish could then have travelled in any direction heading North through Germany or Sweden to Britain or maybe migrating through Persia or North Africa to Spain and Portugal, creating two very distinct and separate menus but meeting once again in France ~ Karl Wiggins

This is a love story," Michael Dean says, "but really what isn't? Doesn't the detective love the mystery or the chase, or the nosey female reporter who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely, the serial murder loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets, or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice-trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck and the competing chefs go crazy for scallops, and the pawnshop guys adore their junk. Just as the housewives live for catching glimpses of their own botoxed brows in gilded hall mirrors and the rocked out dude on 'roids totally wants to shred the ass of the tramp-tatted girl on hookbook. Because this is reality, they are all in love, madly, truly, with the body-mic clipped to their back-buckle and the producer casually suggesting, "Just one more angle.", "One more jello shot.".

And the robot loves his master. Alien loves his saucer. Superman loves Lois. Lex and Lana. Luke loves Leia, til he finds out she's his sister. And the exorcist loves the demon, even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace. As Leo loves Kate, and they both love the sinking ship. And the shark, god the shark, loves to eat. Which is what the Mafioso loves too, eating and money and Pauly and Omertà. The way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar and sometimes loves the other cowboy. As the vampire loves night and neck. And the zombie, do ~ Jess Walter

My plans are not to open a restaurant, but what I would like to do is open a kitchen somewhere in D.C. proper and have a chef's table where people can come and taste my food without having to have a catered event. ~ Carla Hall

I don't think it's a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef's a fat pig. ~ Gordon Ramsay

A lot of young chefs today get carried away by trends, by influences, by movements. ~ Daniel Boulud

Bouillabaisse, this golden soup, this incomparable golden soup which embodies and concentrates all the aromas of our shores and which permeates, like an ecstasy, the stomachs of astonished gastronomes. Bouillabaisse is one of those classic dishes whose glory has encircled the world, and the miracle consists of this: there are as many bouillabaisses as there are good chefs or cordon bleus. Each brings to his own version his special touch. ~ Curnonsky

Chefs are artists, and I couldn't be happy with my art if I was forced to use cheap ingredients. ~ Nobu Matsuhisa

Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them. ~ Gordon Ramsay

But our goal, remember, is to feed around our table the people we love. We're not chefs or restaurateurs or culinary school graduates, and we shouldn't try to be. Make it the way the people you love want to eat it. ~ Shauna Niequist

A lot of chefs don't have a natural sense of economy. I was with one guy the other day, and I had to show him how to peel a turnip, because the way he was peeling turnips, he was throwing half of it in the garbage. It's not about being cheap. It's about being proper. ~ Daniel Boulud

Most good chefs believe there is no such thing as too much garlic. ~ Timothy Ferriss

Spinach and champagne. Going back to the kitchens at the old Waldorf. Dancing on the kitchen tables, wearing the chef's headgear. Finally, a crash and being escorted out by the house detectives. ~ Zelda Fitzgerald

We have very professional, amazing chefs that are contestants. Most of them have their own restaurants and are settled, recognized chefs in Mexico. That gives the show [Top Chef] a different level completely; the gastronomic level is very high. It makes it all more interesting and the competition is just harder and harder. ~ Ana Claudia Talancon

I kind of think of engineering like the chefs at a restaurant. Nobody's going to deny chefs are integrally important, but there's also so many other people who contribute to a great meal. ~ Ben Silbermann

I think people lose sight of the fact that chefs should be ultimately in the pleasure business, not in the look-at-me business. ~ Anthony Bourdain

It's wild how chefs have become like rock stars. ~ Todd English

The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.
[ ... ]
The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong
game of proofreading,
glancing back and forth from page to page,
the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes,
and the poets are at their windows
because it is their job for which
they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon. ~ Billy Collins

I am the emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs. ~ Wilhelm II

Consider this argument another wedge served from the malodorous pie known as "My way is Right," the dessert of choice for politicians, religious leaders, and warring pastry chefs. ~ Jeff Deck

Mothers and grandmothers: these are the people that I admire most, not so much chefs. ~ Yotam Ottolenghi

The restaurant chefs in Spain are breaking ground, but in terms of the everyday cooking in Spain I still hear people coming back and saying they were disappointed. I think it's because they're expecting the chef stuff. ~ Sally Schneider

It's more common for people to get fire tattoos. Symbols of passion, transformation, change. But I wanted smoke because it's what remains. After the fire, after everything is destroyed, you're left with smoke and ash. You've gotta make somethin' out of it. ~ Kate Meader

Do we really require so many gardening programmes, makeover programmes or celebrity chefs? ~ David Attenborough

My biggest bit of advice would be to spend some time actually helping caterers or Chefs, even if it has to be for free or as an intern of culinary externship. It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do. ~ Giada De Laurentiis

Our clients wanted the restaurant experience, not their mother's buffet dinner - so we reached out to that world and hired a series of restaurant chefs: Robb Garceau from Jean Georges, Cornelius Gallagher from Oceana. Cornelius completely revolutionized our menu; he did a stint at El Bulli, and one of the techniques he brought back was sous-vide cooking. Our current chef, Patrick Phelan, continues to grow the vision. ~ David Castle

Millions of American women, and some men, commit that outrage every summer day. They are turning a superb treat into mere provender. Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef's ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish. American women should themselves be boiled in water. ~ Rex Stout

But a progressive policy needs more than just a bigger break with the economic and moral assumptions of the past 30 years. It needs a return to the conviction that economic growth and the affluence it brings is a means and not an end. The end is what it does to the lives, life-chances and hopes of people. Look at London. Of course it matters to all of us that London's economy flourishes. But the test of the enormous wealth generated in patches of the capital is not that it contributed 20%-30% to Britain's GDP but how it affects the lives of the millions who live and work there. What kind of lives are available to them? Can they afford to live there? If they can't, it is not compensation that London is also a paradise for the ultra-rich. Can they get decently paid jobs or jobs at all? If they can't, don't brag about all those Michelin-starred restaurants and their self-dramatising chefs. Or schooling for children? Inadequate schools are not offset by the fact that London universities could field a football team of Nobel prize winners. ~ Eric J. Hobsbawm

I think all chefs who pursue great flavor have good ethics. ~ Dan Barber

When France was the only reference for chefs to learn, you could go everywhere in the world, and they would copy dishes directly because they didn't have much expanded imagination or technique or knowledge. ~ Daniel Boulud

Ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential,' I saw a little light bulb go off. Being a chef is like being on a pirate ship; it's not like 'Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?' or whatever my impression was as I was growing up. ~ Jon Favreau

This kitchen is completely calm. Some of the old-fashioned chefs - they become kings in their kitchen, they've got to be called chef. But I don't care if someone calls me chef or Heston, it really doesn't bother me. ~ Heston Blumenthal

It was a chef's knife," I said, holding my hands about a foot apart. "And a very large one."
"That's what she said," Ethan murmured. ~ Chloe Neill

As I learned from chapters past, it's important to try and stay in the chapter that you're in, and enjoy it while it's lasting. Not be constantly worrying about where this step will take you - living in the potential future. Like a good meal. Like a good chef's tasting meal. You don't want to wonder what's next while you're eating the foie gras. ~ Neil Patrick Harris

But I love women chefs: they are intelligent, they are fast learners, and they can be tough. As for the effect the have on the boys, its entirely positive. Put a woman in a kitchen and discipline will improve, if anything: the guys have being told off in front of the girls. It's a playground thing - they just find it embarrassing. ~ Gordon Ramsay

What's fun about chefs is that they're big guys, often, and they might not look like the most athletic people, but they're very powerful people, and they have tremendous stamina ... It takes a toll on their body, too. ~ Jon Favreau

Chefs don't use white pepper just to avoid spoiling the whiteness of pommes puree or bechamel. It has a more peppery aroma, with sharpness and sweetness, too. ~ Yotam Ottolenghi

We can use all the scientific tools, but it will never replace the palate or the talent of the chefs who are in the kitchen. ~ Daniel Humm

It's okay if you finish cooking something easy after your guests arrive - some dishes must be prepared a la minute, as chefs say. Just remember to keep talking. ~ Ted Allen

Most beginning writers - and I was the same - are like chefs trying to cook great dishes that they've never tasted themselves. How can you make a great - or even an adequate - bouillabaisse if you've never had any? If you don't really understand why people read mysteries - or romances or literary novels or thrillers or whatever - then there's no way in the world you're going to write one that anyone wants to publish. This is the meaning of the well-known expression "Write what you know." ~ Daniel Quinn

A lot of people love the idea of improvising but are terrified of it, so I tried to make a book that was not a chef's book about improvising but a real home cook's book with a real home cook's pantry, supermarket ingredients, that sort of thing. ~ Sally Schneider

In America, even your menus have the gift of language ... The Chef's own Vienna Roast. A hearty, rich meat loaf, gently seasoned to perfection and served in a creamy nest of mashed farm potatoes and strictly fresh garden vegetables. Of course, what you get is cole slaw and a slab of meat, but that doesn't matter because the menu has already started your juices going. Oh, those menus. In America, they are poetry. ~ Laurie Lee

Some people who are obsessed with food become gourmet chefs. Others become eating disorders. ~ Marya Hornbacher

Sometimes these challenges naturally select more chefs that can think on their feet very quickly. There are chefs I know who won't put things on the menu unless they've tried it four or five times. So you just naturally select a certain kind of chef, people who maybe don't win a bunch of challenges but they hang around. ~ Tom Colicchio

Both my parents are chefs ... I grew up in a restaurant and was always surrounded by cooks. I love food. ~ Ming-Na Wen

I hated the Naked Chef. Fine, yes, he did good things for school food or whatever, but, you know, I don't want my chefs to be cute and adorable. ~ Anthony Bourdain

Great chefs know it's the appearance of food that counts ... but great eaters know its the amount of food that counts ~ Jim Davis

There are many places that people can produce really good food. I wouldn't limit it to an area of the country, it's what the chefs have in them. ~ Anne Burrell

Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love. ~ Craig Claiborne

Collectively the media; the meat, oil, and dairy industries; most prominent chefs and cookbook authors; and our own government are not presenting accurate advice about the healthiest way to eat. ~ Caldwell Esselstyn

I still cook at home. A lot of chefs I think don't cook at home. But I still do, I love cooking at home, I love having friends. ~ Rene Redzepi

Many of them have accomplished a lot before they ever get to 'Top Chef' although they're not well known. The show just provides them with a platform. There's just one winner and on some seasons you can get numerous chefs that are really good. Even if they don't win, they're all talented. ~ Tom Colicchio

Chefs who cook in these ivory towers are in control in their own world. We try to approximate that world as best we can, but ultimately our goal is to please our clients. ~ David Castle

I always say this to the young chefs and mean it: The customer is excited, he says you are an artist, but we are not, just craftspeople with a little talent. If the chef is an artist, he doesn't succeed. Why? Because he is inspired today but not tomorrow. We cannot do that. ~ Andre Soltner

I cannot bring myself to wear the Nobu hats, or the Nobu T-shirts. But the chef's jacket, that is mine. And when I wear it, I am very proud of myself. ~ Nobu Matsuhisa

You see fewer and fewer chefs who are really big - most stay in shape. ~ Wolfgang Puck

Even the most astute chefs seek out the assistance of Celine Labaune, owner of Gourmet Attitude, because they know they can rely on her keen senses and deep understanding of the truffle trade. ~ Thomas Keller

Both my partner and I did not get into cooking so that we could wear ugly chef's coats and stuff. We dress sexy in the kitchen. ~ Marc Jacobs

History is a cookbook. The tyrants are chefs. The philosophers write menus. The priests are waiters. The military men are bouncers. The singing you hear is the poets washing dishes in the kitchen. ~ Charles Simic