Chef Quotes

“All worries are less with wine.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“I lurched away from the table after a few hours feeling like Elvis in Vegas - fat, drugged, and completely out of it.”
― Anthony Bourdain

“Since my earliest memory, I imagined I would be a chef one day. When other kids were watching Saturday morning cartoons or music videos on YouTube, I was watching Iron Chef,The Great British Baking Show, and old Anthony Bourdain shows and taking notes. Like, actual notes in the Notes app on my phone. I have long lists of ideas for recipes that I can modify or make my own. This self-appointed class is the only one I've ever studied well for.
I started playing around with the staples of the house: rice, beans, plantains, and chicken. But 'Buela let me expand to the different things I saw on TV. Soufflés, shepherd's pie, gizzards. When other kids were saving up their lunch money to buy the latest Jordans, I was saving up mine so I could buy the best ingredients. Fish we'd never heard of that I had to get from a special market down by Penn's Landing. Sausages that I watched Italian abuelitas in South Philly make by hand. I even saved up a whole month's worth of allowance when I was in seventh grade so I could make 'Buela a special birthday dinner of filet mignon.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, With the Fire on High

“Guard and preserve your mystery like a chef who cannot reveal the secret to his best recipes. Remember, if you lose your mystery, you lose all your pizazz and enchantment.”
― Lebo Grand

“Cooking is an art and also science.”
― Mohith Agadi

“A good spice often deceives us into thinking that someone is a good cook.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Life Is Like a Big Kitchen — You Create, Plan, Organize, Execute,
Achieve and Sometimes You Fail…”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“Do you remember your favorite dish your mom always prepared for you?”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“You can never focus without a goal and never achieve your goal without focus...”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“In order to stay focused, you need to be motivated. In order to stay motivated, you need to know your why!”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“You have only failed if you have completely given up on your goal.”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“Inspiration, I found out, only comes from within you.”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“Kitchen work is teamwork...”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“Chefing is like real life — you never finish learning...”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“The kitchen is a high-speed environment, so the more flexible you are so better”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“A leader is someone who can gather people around himself who are smarter and more skilled than he is.”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“If you don’t change, you are afraid of yourself...”
― Marcel Riemer, Slamming It Out!: How I got shit done in 5* kitchens

“That was certainly a case of snowballing momentum. Who would've thought he'd succeed being that far behind?"
"True. This particular assignment was designed to test one major skill...
the ability to expect the unexpected.
How well the student could envision exactly what sort of dish would be necessary...
... for a buffet-style hotel breakfast was the key to success.
But there is another skill...
one of the most important for a chef to have in a kitchen, where anything can go wrong without warning...
the ability to respond and adapt to any situation at will. Soma handicapped himself with his choice of dish, but by adapting to the situation, he overcame that deficit brilliantly."
"He's a little rough around the edges, but he seems like a promising talent.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 5 [Shokugeki no Souma 5]

“Once upon a time I'd left Los Angeles and been swallowed down the throat of a life in which my sole loyalty was to my tongue. My belly. Myself. My mother called me selfish and so selfish I became. From nineteen to twenty-five I was a mouth, sating. For myself I made three-day braises and chose the most marbled meats, I played loose with butter and cream. My arteries were young, my life pooling before me, and I lapped, luxurious, from it. I drank, smoked, flew cheap red-eyes around Europe, I lived in thrilling shitholes, I found pills that made nights pass in a blink or expanded time to a soap bubble, floating, luminous, warm. Time seemed infinite, then. I begged famous chefs for the chance to learn from them. I entered competitions and placed in a few. I volunteered to work brunch, turn artichokes, clean the grease trap. I flung my body at all of it: the smoke and singe of the grill station, a duck's breast split open like a geode, two hundred oysters shucked in the walk-in, sex in the walk-in, drunken rides around Paris on a rickety motorcycle and no helmet, a white truffle I stole and shaved in secret over a bowl of Kraft mac n' cheese for me, just me, as my body strummed the high taut selfish song of youth. On my twenty-fifth birthday I served black-market fugu to my guests, the neurotoxin stinging sweetly on my lips as I waited to see if I would, by eating, die. At that age I believed I knew what death was: a thrill, like brushing by a friend who might become a lover.”
― C Pam Zhang, Land of Milk and Honey

“As soon as I was immersed in my work, cutting up the kabocha squash for the winter butternut squash soup, dicing the carrots to braise in orange juice, and starting another giant vat of chicken stock, I allowed the aromas and natural muscle rhythms of the kitchen to sweep me up in what I loved. I calmed down and experienced--- as corny as it might sound--- the joy of cooking.
I was in love with food, obsessed with it. Food wasn't just fuel; it could heal a broken heart, it could entertain, it could bring you home. Magic happened when a perfectly balanced dish came together. A beautiful symphony of flavors. Salty, sweet, acidic, crunchy, colorful, soft, hard, warm, cold. It should take you on a journey. Once I had an Italian dish called Genovese, consisting of braised rabbit over thick noodles with a carrot and pea sauce. It was so beautiful, earthy, clever, and delicious, and it warmed you from the inside. It was what I liked to call a "circle of life plate.”
― Victoria Benton Frank, My Magnolia Summer

“I didn't think I was so special, but actually that was the key: If this ordinary Pakistani girl could pursue the thing she loved most - cooking - and could make it to the tippy-top and do what she loved on TV, then what was to stop all of us little brown girls from carving out new paths, from calling attention to the hungry children, the silenced dreamers, the oddballs and rebels who long to go against the grain?”
― Fatima Ali, Savor: A Chef's Hunger for More

“I'm thoroughly enchanted to meet the world's most beautiful cooking face."
Wrong thing to say. My spine went rigid. "Believe me, I can carry my own pots and pans.”
― Samantha Verant, Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars

“Sophie, you look absolutely amazing," he said, spinning me around. "France has done wonders for you."
"Chef, you know me. I'm not just a pretty cooking face," I said, glaring at Nicolas.
"Oh, I know," he said. "What did the brigade call you?"
"Scary Spice," I answered, and he let out a roar of a laugh.
"Never mess with a woman wielding an oyster knife," he said, chuckling and shaking his head. "I remember you saying that."
"What can I say? I held my own," I said.”
― Samantha Verant, Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars

“Out marched a woman carrying a plate. I didn't see what was on the plate at first, because I knew this woman. She was short and dark-haired, with rosy cheeks and shiny gold Converses that sparkled beneath the ceiling lights. I'd seen her wearing those same gold Converses on TV.
My brain short-circuited a little as she kept on marching toward our table, and I saw what she was holding on her plate. It was some sort of twisted pastry with cherries and chocolate sauce forming... hearts all over the plate. And just one dainty fork.
Oh. Oh no.
She set the plate on our table with a wide smile. "I hear it's a special day for you, and I wanted to bring you this babka beignet on the house. Happy anniversary!"
Oh my god. I couldn't believe I had to lie to Chef Sadie Rosen.”
― Amanda Elliot, Best Served Hot

“Are you hungry?' I say, slightly mischievously.
'Very, he says, unfurling his napkin.

This is a shame, because we're sitting down for a tasting menu that will not be a meal, but more a random collection of the chef's ambitions, presented with seventeen verses of Vogon poetry from the staff as they dole out tiny plates of his life story. These tomatoes remind chef of his grandmother's allotment. This eel is a tribute to his uncle's fishing prowess. I will pull the requisite faces to cope with all of this. The lunch will be purposefully challenging, at times confusing and served ritualistically in a manner that requires the diner to behave like a congregation member of a really obscure sect who knows specifically when to bow her head and when to pass the plate and what lines to utter when.”
― Grace Dent, Hungry

“Cannabis-infused cuisine isn't merely a trend; it's a culinary revolution. Chefs and food enthusiasts are harnessing the diverse properties of this plant to create dishes that tantalize the palate while offering potential health benefits.”
― Mike Robinson, Founder Global Cannabinoid Research Center

“When they heard that someone was full figured and liked cooking & eating, most men imagined someone who was quiet and domestic; someone whose interior life would not surpass their own. But did that reasoning really hold up? Eating was fundamentally an individual and egoistic compulsion... a gourmand was ultimately a seeker of the truth. You could wrap up their mission in all kinds of fancy language, but it was simply confronting their desires day in and day out. As you learn to cook, you become increasingly able to shut out the outside world and create a fortress within your own spirit. You hunted down your prey using fire and blade to fashion them down into the form you desired... it takes a deathly earnestness to remain faithful to your desires at all times.”
― Asako Yuzuki

“When I went to Passard's restaurant, the meal began with slices of raw scallop topped with caviar; that reminded me of how shocking it was when Django fed us raw fish all those years ago. Then there was a marvelous Saint-Pierre. Passard had peeled away the skin and prepared the fish with hundreds of bay leaves before covering it back up and steaming the fish until it had absorbed all the flavors of the herb. The man loves herbs and uses them in the most fascinating ways. That also reminded me of Django. There was a fat sweetbread skewered with a sprig of rosemary until it was nothing more than an herbal cloud. And the salad was the tiniest herbs, all different. Beautiful simplicity."
Stella was tasting the flavors in her mind as he described them.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Remembering the careful way the cooks she'd met chose their ingredients--- the snails at L'Ami Louis, Taeb's saffron, Baldwin's asparagus--- Stella thought Django was more like a magician, conjuring dishes out of thin air. By the time George nudged Stella aside to poke his nose in the door, Lucie was strewing crisp breadcrumbs on top of a thick vegetable potage, and Django was stirring a tart lemon pudding. Downstairs, customers lingered, people who had intended on stopping in for a moment stayed on as increasingly seductive scents wafted through the shop.
Unwilling to admit that he was pleased, George tasted the pudding and grumbled, "You've used up all the eggs. And I wanted gingerbread for tonight's reading."
"Gingerbread!" Django pulled a face. "Nous sommes en France. I will make something more appropriate." Still standing in the doorway, Stella wondered how he would manage this; he'd used everything in the kitchen except an aged pound cake resembling a rock, a handful of desiccated dried apricots, and the sour milk.
"We'll make some coffee." Django was tearing up the stale cake. As she watched, he produced curds from the sour milk, cooked the apricots into jam, and soaked the cake in coffee. With a flourish, he pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. "J'ai toujours du chocolat sur moi." He melted the chocolate, stirring in the last of the coffee. "I always have chocolate. You never know when you will need it." Against her better judgement, Stella was charmed.
Lucie stood close by, watching him layer the coffee-drenched cake with jam, curds, and chocolate, grabbing each spoon as he finished. "Will you make this for my birthday?" she asked.
"No."
"Please," she begged.
"For your birthday I will make something better.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“He was like a jazz musician, joyfully improvising, imagining tastes that ordinary people could not. He pulled ingredients apart and reconstructed them in endlessly surprising ways: clear little cubes that tasted of just-picked tomatoes still warm from the sun, or cheese puffs that floated into your mouth and simply vanished, leaving a trail of flavor in their wake. One day he melted chocolate, mixed in chilies, and wrapped the sauce around tart orange ice; people begged for seconds.
She'd never met anyone like him, and as she watched him cook, Stella saw that in the kitchen all the qualities that made him a poor choice as a parent or a partner turned into strengths. Utterly unafraid of failure, he was willing to try anything. It was the source of his creativity. He was a confident person who pleased himself; if it didn't work out, he simply moved on.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel