Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you'll have a marvelous time!

The shellfish thing is very scary. You have to know the people you buy from and exactly where their wholesalers are getting the fish from.

I always try to buy just what I need. You get ideas as to what's in season and what's best. I think if you have a preconceived idea before shopping, that makes it difficult. You have to have an open mind.

I don't think about whether people will remember me or not. I've been an ok person. I've learned a lot. I've taught people a thing or two. That's what's important.

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.

Fake food -- I mean those patented substances chemically flavored and mechanically bulked out to kill the appetite and deceive the gut -- is unnatural, almost immoral, a bane to good eating and good cooking.

It's hard to imagine a civilization without onions; in one form or another their flavor blends into almost everything in the meal except the desert.