Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?

I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.

But I was a pure romantic, and only operating with half my burners turned on.

I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make.... Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile...then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile.

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.

I still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well.

Cassoulet, that best of bean feasts, is everyday fare for a peasant but ambrosia for a gastronome, though its ideal consumer is a 300-pound blocking back who has been splitting firewood nonstop for the last twelve hours on a subzero day in Manitoba.