I always try to buy just what I need. You get ideas as to what's in season and what's best. I think if you have a preconceived idea before shopping, that makes it difficult. You have to have an open mind.

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.

Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time. No. [...] [T]he dough takes care of itself. [...] While you cannot speed up the process, you can slow it down at any point by setting the dough in a cooler place [...] then continue where you left off, when you are ready to do so. In other words, you are the boss of that dough.

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.

You don’t spring into good cooking naked. You have to have some training. You have to learn how to eat.

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

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.