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.

In the 1970s we got nouvelle cuisine, in which a lot of the old rules were kicked over. And then we had cuisine minceur, which people mixed up with nouvelle cuisine but was actually fancy diet cooking.

I don't use the word gourmet. The word doesn't mean anything anymore. 'Gourmet' makes it sound like someone is putting sherry wine in the corn-flake casserole.

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

How lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly.

I was never a spy. I was with the OSS organization. We had a number of women, but we were all office help.

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