A cookbook is only as good as its poorest recipe.

Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.

The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

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

Too much trouble,' 'Too expensive,' or 'Who will know the difference' are death knells for good food. ... Cooking is not a particularly difficult art, and the more you cook and learn about cooking, the more sense it makes.

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.

One of the secrets, and pleasures, of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.