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.

I don't think about whether people will remember me or not. I've been an ok person. I've learned a lot. I've taught people a thing or two. That's what's important.

Life itself is the proper binge.

A party without cake is really just a meeting.

In France cooking is a serious art form and a national sport. I think the French enjoy the complication of the art form and the cooking for cooking's sake. You can talk with a concierge or police officer about food in France as a general rule. It is not the general rule here. Classical cuisine, which I hope we are going back to, means certain ways of doing things and certain ways of not doing things. If you know classical French cooking you can do anything. If you don't know the basics, you turn out slop.

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

The shellfish thing is very scary. You have to know the people you buy from and exactly where their wholesalers are getting the fish from.