Julia Child Quotes

Fake food -- I mean those patented substances chemically flavored and mechanically bulked out to kill the appetite and deceive the gut -- is unnatural, almost immoral, a bane to good eating and good cooking.

Without peanuts, it isn't a cocktail party.

Cassoulet, that best of bean feasts, is everyday fare for a peasant but ambrosia for a gastronome, though its ideal consumer is a 300-pound blocking back who has been splitting firewood nonstop for the last twelve hours on a subzero day in Manitoba.

If you're afraid of butter, use cream.

We are so bemused by our own petard, that we are unable to look at things objectively.

It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions.

As you get older, you shouldn't waste time drinking bad wine.

Some children like to make castles out of their rice pudding, or faces with raisins for eyes. It is forbidden -- so sternly that, when they grow up, they take a horrid revenge by dying meringues pale blue or baking birthday cakes in the form of horseshoes or lyres or whatnot.

The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French had shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly.

Pro-choice is the only way to be-- because women are human beings, after all, and should be treated as such.

I'd like for people to be able to go to the universities and get a degree in fine arts-gastronomy.

I was a Republican until I got to New York and had to live on $18 a week. It was then that I became a Democrat.

I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.

I think every woman should have a blowtorch.

Celebrity has its uses. I can always get a seat in any restaurant.

the more experience you have, the more interesting cooking is because you know what can happen to the food. In the beginning you can look at a chicken and it doesn't mean much, but once you have done some cooking you can see in that chicken a parade of things you will be able to create.

People were hysterical about Communism the way people today are hysterical about flag burning. I'm really against these people who try to show that they're great patriots, because they're not thinking, they're just being hysterical.

Cooking is one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn.

When I got to France I realized I didn't know very much about food at all. I'd never had a real cake. I'd had those cakes from cake mixes or the ones that have a lot of baking powder in them. A really good French cake doesn't have anything like that in it - it's all egg power.

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; and for the right to differ in ideas, religion and politics. I am convinced that in your zeal to fight against our enemies, you, too, have forgotten what you are fighting for.

Freshness is essential. That makes all the difference.

You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.

You learn to cook so that you don't have to be a slave to recipes. You get what's in season and you know what to do with it.

I'm a beet freak. I put them in the pressure cooker.

With enough butter, anything is good

Many of the delicious soups you eat in French homes and little restaurants are made just this way, with a leek-and-potato base to which leftover vegetables or sauces and a few fresh items are added.

I would happily die with a bottle of white Burgundy in my mouth.

Cooking may be a creative art, but it's also a wonderful full-time hobby.

The tomato hides its griefs. Internal damage is hard to spot.

If you're not ready to fail, you're not going to learn how to cook.

When you flip anything, you really you just have to have the courage of your convictions.

The main thing is to have a gutsy approach and use your head.

I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it -- and, more important, I like to give it.

Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, 'scientific' though. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.

...the waiters carried themselves with a quiet joy, as if their entire mission in life was to make their customers feel comfortable and well tended.

The egg can be your best friend if you just give it the right break

It's fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That's what human life is all about - enjoying things.

Just like becoming an expert in wine, you learn by drinking it, the best you can afford.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking... doesn't mean it has to be fancy cooking, although it can be as elaborate as you wish.

The dinner hour is a sacred, happy time when everyone should be together and relaxed.

Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.

Wine is meant to be with food - that's the point of it.

Life itself is the proper binge.

Animals that we eat are raised for food in the most economical way possible, and the serious food producers do it in the most humane way possible. I think anyone who is a carnivore needs to understand that meat does not originally come in these neat little packages.

You are the butter to my bread,and the breath to my life

We had a happy marriage because we were together all the time. We were friends as well as husband and wife. We just had a good time.

A house without a cat is like a day without sunshine, a pie without fromage, a dinner without wine.

My father was in real estate, banking, and land management. As family life, it was very conventional, happy, and comfortable. We weren't wealthy, but we were well-off.