My father was in real estate, banking, and land management. As family life, it was very conventional, happy, and comfortable. We weren't wealthy, but we were well-off.

Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again

It's so beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it.

In the 1960s, you could eat anything you wanted, and of course, people were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, and there was no talk about fat and anything like that, and butter and cream were rife. Those were lovely days for gastronomy, I must say.

I was a romantic, messy thinker. I was raised with very conservative beliefs, but that was a long time ago.

There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.

A house without a cat is like a day without sunshine, a pie without fromage, a dinner without wine.