Good french cooking cannot be produced by a zombie cook.
I believe in red meat. I often said: red meat and gin.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking... doesn't mean it has to be fancy cooking, although it can be as elaborate as you wish.
Cooking is one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn.
With enough butter, anything is good
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.