Cooks Quotes

“Writing is a lot like making soup. My subconscious cooks the idea, but I have to sit down at the computer to pour it out.”
― Robin Wells

“María was out of the blocks the moment she heard the doorbell jangle. She came rushing from the kitchen to greet her childhood friend with cilantro hugs and chipotle kisses.”
― Kevin Ansbro, In the Shadow of Time

“But my favorite remained the basic roast chicken. What a deceptively simple dish. I had come to believe that one can judge the quality of a cook by his or her roast chicken. Above all, it should taste like chicken: it should be so good that even a perfectly simple, buttery roast should be a delight.”
― Julia Child, My Life in France

“Cooking is not a science but an art, mistakes are okay, messes are fine—the pleasure is in the creating and the sharing of the result.”
― Lori Pollan, The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals

“No matter our age, everyone in our household knows that cooking and eating together is where the fun is”
― Corky Pollan

“Many a death was precipitated by the food, the job, or the medication whose main function was to postpone it.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Who's cooking your food anyway? What strange beasts lurk behind the kitchen doors? You see the chef: he's the guy without the hat, with the clipboard under his arm, maybe his name stitched in Tuscan blue on his starched white chef's coat next to those cotton Chinese buttons. But who's actually cooking your food? Are they young, ambitious culinary school grads, putting in their time on the line until they get their shot at the Big Job? Probably not. If the chef is anything like me, the cooks are a dysfunctional, mercenary lot, fringe-dwellers motivated by money, the peculiar lifestyle of cooking and grim pride. They're probably not even American.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Nana’s oven-baked fried chicken cut off the bone (with plenty of ketchup) was a huge hit. So were Thanksgiving turkey bathed in gravy and Nana’s Passover brisket”
― Dana Pollan, The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals

“I'd burn the salad, suh. Us of the fatal beauty type are pretty awful cooks if y' ask me. - Dorothea Duckfontein Dillworthy "Dotti”
― Brian Jacques, Lord Brocktree

“Now alongside Scovell, John eased preserved peaches out of galliot pots of syrup and picked husked walnuts from puncheons of salt. He clarified butter and poured it into rye-paste coffins. From the Master Cook, John learned to set creams with calves' feet, then isinglass, then hartshorn, pouring decoctions into egg-molds to set and be placed in nests of shredded lemon peel. To make cabbage cream he let the thick liquid clot, lifted off the top layer, folded it then repeated the process until the cabbage was sprinkled with rose water and dusted with sugar, ginger and nutmeg. He carved apples into animals and birds. The birds themselves he roasted, minced and folded into beaten egg whites in a foaming forcemeat of fowls.
John boiled, coddled, simmered and warmed. He roasted, seared, fried and braised. He poached stock-fish and minced the meats of smoked herrings while Scovell's pans steamed with ancient sauces: black chawdron and bukkenade, sweet and sour egredouce, camelade and peppery gauncil. For the feasts above he cut castellations into pie-coffins and filled them with meats dyed in the colors of Sir William's titled guests. He fashioned palaces from wafers of spiced batter and paste royale, glazing their walls with panes of sugar. For the Bishop of Carrboro they concocted a cathedral.
'Sprinkle salt on the syrup,' Scovell told him, bent over the chafing dish in his chamber. A golden liquor swirled in the pan. 'Very slowly.'
'It will taint the sugar,' John objected.
But Scovell shook his head. A day later they lifted off the cold clear crust and John split off a sharp-edged shard. 'Salt,' he said as it slid over his tongue. But little by little the crisp flake sweetened on his tongue. Sugary juices trickled down his throat. He turned to the Master Cook with a puzzled look.
'Brine floats,' Scovell said. 'Syrup sinks.' The Master Cook smiled. 'Patience, remember? Now, to the glaze...”
― Lawrence Norfolk, John Saturnall's Feast

“This book is about street-level cooking and its practitioners. Line cooks are the heroes.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“Real food is whatever cooks are proud to make.”
― C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

“I still have my little red hardcover notebook—spine now held in place by packing tape, pages dotted with cooking stains—filled with her loving instructions for mandelbrot, nut cake, and strudel.”
― Lori Pollan, The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals

“I would follow my mother around the kitchen watching and trying to find any way to help. One of the first dishes my mother taught me to make was hollandaise sauce. Though she always served it with broccoli, I soon realized it was equally delicious with asparagus, artichokes, or any other vegetable.”
― Tracy Pollan, The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals

“There are a dozen factors that make Japanese food so special- ingredient obsession, technical precision, thousands of years of meticulous refinement- but chief among them is one simple concept: specialization. In the Western world, where miso-braised short ribs share menu space with white truffle ceviche, restaurants cast massive nets to try to catch as many fish as possible, but in Japan, the secret to success is choosing one thing and doing it fucking well. Forever. There are people who dedicate their entire lives to grilling beef intestines, slicing blowfish, kneading buckwheat into tangles of chewy noodles- microdisciplines with infinite room for improvement.
The concept of shokunin, an artisan deeply and singularly dedicated to his or her craft, is at the core of Japanese culture.”
― Matt Goulding, Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture

“That too many cooks spoil the soup may be true but the single hand that garnishes a pot is neither determined by beauty nor ugliness.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu, Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

“This morning, outside Nordic Fisheries a couple of delivery guys are unloading lobsters and crabs by the case, pausing in between loads to sip coffee from Styrofoam cups. Across the street, on Penn Avenue, the green grocers are busy stacking crates of vegetables and fruits, arranging them into a still life to showcase their most beautiful produce: heads of red romaine, their tender spines heavy with the weight of lush, purple-tinged leaves; a basket of delicate mâche, dark green, almost black, and smelling like a hothouse garden; sugar pumpkins of burnished gold; new Brussels sprouts, their tender petals open like flowers.
At this hour the world belongs to those noble souls who devote their lives to food. Cook, grocer, butcher, baker, sunrises are ours. It's a time to gather your materials, to prepare your mise en place, to breathe uninterrupted before the day begins.”
― Meredith Mileti, Aftertaste: A Novel in Five Courses

“Six horses waited, adorned in the red and black of the Company of Cooks and harnessed to an open, canopied wagon festooned with ribbons. Upon it lay Bartolomeo's casket, draped with a cloth embroidered with the company's coat of arms. A bear was on the left side of the crest and a stag on the right. Below the central chevron and its two red stars were the tools of the company's trade, a crossed knife and a butcher's knife. The banner beneath bore a Latin phrase coined by Horace- ab ovo usque ad mala- embroidered in gold. From eggs to apples, beginning to end. Roman meals had always begun with eggs and ended with fruit.”
― Crystal King, The Chef's Secret

“You can’t easily overlook a beautiful cook who will always look into a book for every step.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu, Weighty 'n' Worthy African Proverbs - Volume 1

“You should never laugh at people who cook your food.”
― Melinda Braun, Stranded

“The bartender/cook looked as if he might have been a fixture of the desert even before the rails were laid. He had the worn look of a man who had seen more than he should and heard a thousand stories that remained in his head, classified and indexed as drama, humor, or horror. There was also an unmistakable aura of style about him, a sophistication that said he didn't belong in a godforsaken roadside tavern on a remote and seldom-traveled road through the desert.
For a fleeting instant, Pitt thought the old cook looked vaguely familiar. On reflection, though, Pitt figured the man only resembled someone he couldn't quite place.”
― Clive Cussler, Inca Gold

“Loren held out her hand. "It's been fun listening to your stories, Mr...."
The old cook smiled. "Cussler, Clive Cussler. Mighty nice to have met you, ma'am."
When they were on the road again, the Pierce Arrow and its trailer smoothly rolling toward the border crossing, Pitt turned to Loren. "For a moment there, I thought the old geezer might have given me a clue to the treasure site."
"You mean Yaeger's far-out translation about a river running under an island?"
"It still doesn't seem geologically possible."
Loren turned the rearview mirror to reapply her lipstick. "If the river flowed deep enough it might conceivably pass under the Gulf."
"Maybe, but there's no way in hell to know for certain without drilling through several kilometers of hard rock."
"You'll be lucky just to find your way to the treasure cavern without a major excavation."
Pitt smiled as he stared at the road ahead. "He could really spin the yarns, couldn't he?"
"The old cook? He certainly had an active imagination."
"I'm sorry I didn't get his name."
Loren settled back in the seat and gazed out her window as the dunes gave way to a tapestry of mesquite and cactus. "He told me what it was."
"And?"
"It was an odd name." She paused, trying to remember. Then she shrugged in defeat. "Funny thing...I've already forgotten it.”
― Clive Cussler, Inca Gold

“Just a tip, I wouldn’t eat whatever she cooks you. Poison isn’t that hard to come by.”
― Shantel Tessier, Code of Silence

“The best royal cooks were expected to seek out unusual ingredients and create new recipes. While this inventiveness provided the royal table with delightful culinary experiences, it also served a practical purpose. A great empire always needed more food. In years when one crop failed, they needed to know that another might take its place. Royal cooks helped the empire discover new ingredients that might feed the hungry populace during feast or famine seasons. They were part artisans, part researchers, and part students.
A good cook never stopped learning.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Queen's Cook