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.

Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music.

Any disaster is a learning process.

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

If you're in a good profession, it's hard to get bored, because you're never finished - there will always be work you haven't done.

There are reasons, and then there are excuses.

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.