The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.

If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.

Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed. Eh bien, tant pis. Usually one’s cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the...

How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?

…no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.

It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate – you know someone’s fingers have been all over it.

Good french cooking cannot be produced by a zombie cook.

Fat gives things flavor.

In France, Paul explained, good cooking was regarded as a combination of national sport and high art, and wine was always served with lunch and dinner. “The trick is moderation,” he said.

You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.

I don’t believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. When one’s hostess starts in with self-deprecations such as “Oh, I don’t know how to cook…,” or “Poor...

I’m not a chef. I think in this country, we use the term very loosely. I’m a cook and a teacher.

Life itself is the proper binge.

Just like becoming an expert in wine–you learn by drinking it, the best you can afford–you learn about great food by finding the best there is, whether simply or luxurious. The you savor it, analyze...

…The more I learned the more I realized how very much one has to know before one is in-the-know at all.

Remember, ‘No one’s more important than people’! In other words, friendship is the most important thing–not career or housework, or one’s fatigue–and it needs to be tended and nurtured.

The German birds didn’t taste as good as their French cousins, nor did the frozen Dutch chickens we bought in the local supermarkets. The American poultry industry had made it possible to grow a fine-looking...

If variety is the spice of life, then my life must be one of the spiciest you ever heard of. A curry of a life. -Paul Child

In the blood-heat of pursuing the enemy, many people are forgetting what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our hard-won liberty and freedom; for our Constitution and the due processes of our laws;...

I’m afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.

I discovered that when one follows the artist’s eye one sees unexpected treasures in so many seemingly ordinary scenes.

In Paris in the 1950s, I had the supreme good fortune to study with a remarkably able group of chefs. From them I learned why good French good is an art, and why it makes...

A party without cake is just a meeting

…the average Frenchman would shrug, as if to say: “These notions of yours are all very fascinating, no doubt, but we make a decent living. Nobody has ulcers. I have time to work on my...

The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.

Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need.