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 admired the English immensely for all that they had endured, and they were certainly honorable, and stopped their cars for pedestrians, and called you “sir” and “madam,” and so on. But after a week there, I began to feel wild. It was those ruddy English faces, so held in by duty, the sense of “what is done” and “what is not done,” and always swigging tea and chirping, that made me want to scream like a hyena

We ought to enjoy our food, we ought to take time and care and prepare it correctly, and we ought to have fun doing it and make it a communal event.

We hit it off immediately, especially Helene, who was a 'swallow-life-in-big-gulps' kind of person.

If you are going to flip something, you must have the courage of your convictions.

Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again

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