Best 188 quotes in «chef quotes» category

Well, yeah. You said you wanted Italian. See. Chef Boyardee. He makes one the best stuff. (Tabitha)

What you're going to be eating in the next year is decided by chefs. If the consensus is that pot-bellies are in next season, that's what's on your plate. And I think that's a good thing, because we know, obviously, about food.

You can enjoy a $15 bottle of wine as much as you can enjoy a $100 bottle of wine.

With more exposure comes more recognition. I can honestly say I wouldn't have gotten a lot of things had no one seen me on "Top Chef", win or not. It cast a very wide net for me. And fortunately in a great way. I love that I have been able to cook side by side with so many of my idols.

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm not that bad. I'm certainly not a boy, and it's been a while since I've been a chef.

You don't have to be a chef or even a particularly good cook to experience proper kitchen alchemy: the moment when ingredients combine to form something more delectable than the sum of their parts.

Young chefs, famous chefs, home cooks, and everyone who loves food and cooking-we all depend on Larousse Gastronomique. It is the only culinary encyclopedia that is always up-to-date.

You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books.

You probably would not choose to dine at a restaurant whose chef always ate elsewhere. I do eat my own cooking, and I don't "dine out" when it comes to investing.

As a chef you have the possibility of traveling the world

A burnt and experienced hands are more important than the vessels in the kitchen.

A chef’s magic is his ingredients, how he can substitute one for another, then break with convention by changing it all around again without once referring to the recipe. And then just at the death complete the beauty by adding another element never previously thought of. Well words are the writer’s sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They’re our enchantment and our temptation. Sometimes both the chef and the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that’s how we like it, it’s how we’ve ghosted some of our best creations.

A leader is someone who can gather people around himself who are smarter and more skilled than he is.

As a cook, your station, and its condition, its state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system - and it is profoundly upsetting if another cook or, God forbid, a waiter - disturbs your precisely and carefully laid-out system.

A sampler of England's hottest 'chefs' would include a mostly hairless young blond lad named Jamie Oliver, who is referred to as the Naked Chef. As best as I can comprehend, he's a really rich guy who pretends he scoots around on a Vespa, hangs out in some East End cold-water flat, and cooks green curry for his 'mates'. He's a TV chef, so few actually eat his food. I've never seen him naked. I believe the 'Naked' refers to his 'simple, straightforward, unadorned' food; though I gather that a great number of matronly housewives would like to believe otherwise. Every time I watch his show, I want to go back in time and bully him at school.

Aucun destin ne justifierait une quelconque exaltation de quiconque

A sous-chef with dreams of her own restaurant empire may have mastered the art of classical French sauce making, but not yet have developed the signature cooking style she imagines as the cornerstone of her own chain of restaurants. She gauges her progress not only by whether she is moving toward her aspirations, but also by her improving skills. Our chef may not yet have the stature of Chef Auguste Escoffier or Emeril Lagasse, but she can remember a time when she could not name the five French mother sauces, let alone execute them. She's made progress. Appreciating the skills she has developed is a marker along the path toward her culinary aspirations. The sense of accomplishment that accompanies improved skills is one of the rewards we reap when we dedicate ourselves to mastery.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Carly stopped, pencil hovering over the page for a minute before she frowned and crossed the repeat offender off her shopping list. For God's sake, how was she supposed to get anything done with all that racket going on outside? Not to mention the racket her libido was making every time the man she swore she'd avoid crossed her line of sight. Looks like there's something inside the house that needs fixing. Betcha he's got all the right power tools for the job. Carly sent a panicked look around the room, as if her dirty subconscious had broadcast the unexpected thought out loud. It wasn't her fault that no matter where she went in the bungalow, Contractor Guy ended up in her line of sight, hard at work. And she could forget turning a blind eye, because staring at the man was just a foregone conclusion. Carly might still be irritated that he'd embarrassed her, but let's face it, she was aggravated, not dead. And Contractor Guy was 100 percent red-blooded man.

Bakushan had only been open for a couple of months, but expectations were already sky-high. Still, few people had mentioned the food. Instead, everyone was writing about the up-and-coming chef, Pascal Fox. According to nearly every article, he'd dropped out of college and worked at top French restaurants around the world. Then, at twenty-five and on every "30 under 30" list in existence, he had received an offer to take over L'Escalier, a cathedral-ceilinged white-tablecloth institution in Midtown. But just as New York was ready to inaugurate him into a realm of Immortal Chefs synonymous with a certain level of luxurious precision, Pascal had said he would open a place on his own. He didn't have a location or a concept- or so he'd said in his interviews- just a conviction that he didn't want to fall into the trap of being yet another French chef at another fancy restaurant. So there we were, in front of his brand-new place. It was hard to label it. I had read neo-modernist and Asian-American eclectic. The food was hard to pin down, but the inside was just cool, at least from my sidewalk vantage point. It was 5:45 and already there was a forty-five-minute wait for a spot at one of the communal, no-reservation tables. I looked at the crowd while we waited and saw a couple of girls dressed in tight, short dresses. One of them held a food magazine with Pascal Fox's face on the cover against a blurred kitchen background. I stole a peek at the photo. His eyes were a deep black-brown with a streak of gold. His hair was charmingly messed up, longish bits going every which way, casting shadows on his sculpted cheekbones. That was the other thing. Pascal was exceedingly good-looking. I hadn't paid attention to the hype around his looks, but seeing these girls swoon over his photo made his handsomeness hard to ignore. And... the pictures. I'm only human.

Do you remember your favorite dish your mom always prepared for you?

Cooking is an art and also science.

...if you can't find any grappa, half a cup of cough medicine should achieve similar results." [Audrey's advice]

Every week I want to learn something new. And every week I want to teach someone something new.

Failure is detour, not a dead end!...

Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago and garlic that has been tragically smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Please treat your garlic with respect. Sliver it for pasta, like you saw in Goodfellas; don't burn it. Smash it, with the flat of your knife blade if you like, but don't put it through a press. I don't know what that junk is that squeezes out the end of those things, but it ain't garlic. And try roasting garlic. It gets mellower and sweeter if you roast it whole, still on the clove, to be squeezed out later when it's soft and brown. Nothing will permeate your food more irrevocably and irreparably than burnt or rancid garlic. Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screw-top jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic.

Hockey and cooking are similar in so many ways, especially if you are a player-coach, the guy in charge on the ice, a role I would closely relate to that of a chef in the kitchen - they are both contact sports. You've gotta keep your head up, keep moving and communicate well. Even though you might be the leader in the kitchen or on the ice, you need to understand that that you're part of a working machine and that machine stops working if one of the pieces isn't working in unison with the others. I learned from a very young age the importance of being part of this team dynamic and how hard work can take you to so many different places. (Chef Duane Keller)

Hunger gives flavour to the food.

I am much more than what you see. An artist who can wow you with a tasty squid ink tortellini and weave a tall tale.

If you don’t change, you are afraid of yourself...

I'll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn't miss it for the world.

I haven't waited to be summoned for my big moment by a tap on the shoulder from a mysterious, benevolent stranger. It doesn't work that way where I'm from. You make your own opportunities where I'm from.

Many a death was precipitated by the food, the job, or the medication whose main function was to postpone it.

In order to stay focused, you need to be motivated. In order to stay motivated, you need to know your why!

I've swallowed fish-eyes whole like an endoscope. I once ate a trout cooked inside a dolphin. Felt like a shark eating another shark, inside the cold-blooded womb of yet another shark.

Look forward, move forward. Get going, keep going.

Inspiration, I found out, only comes from within you.

Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance, as they say in the army - and I always, always want to be ready. Just like Bigfoot.

My breath may smell like two inches from a landfill, but I'm a decent writer and one hell of a chef.

Nothing is a turnoff like a New York City housing authority kitchen. People want to hear about that once you're successful, not when you're living in it.

Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. (…) I was to discover that making tasty soup with one carrot, ten peas and a little dishwater, was his greatest skill. One wondered what the man would be capable of creating with a blender and a non-stick frying-pan.

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.

She too looked like a regular lady, living in the world- didn't seem particularly with it or excitable or stellar. But that chicken, bathed in thyme and butter- I hadn't ever tasted a chicken that had such a savory warmth to it, a taste I could only suitably identify as the taste of chicken. Somehow, in her hands, food felt recognized. Spinach became spinach- with a good farm's care, salt, the heat and her attention, it seemed to relax into its leafy, broad self. Garlic seized upon its lively nature. Tomatoes tasted as substantive as beef.

Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.

The kitchen is a high-speed environment, so the more flexible you are so better

Sprinkle a dash of madness into the vanity of your sanity, & keep cooking up genius while dishing out the creative divinity of your humanity.

The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong.

The tone of the repartee was familiar, as was the subject matter, a strangely comfortable background music to most of my waking hours over the last two decades or so - and I realised that, my God... I've been listening to the same conversation for twenty-five years!

The two of you can’t really be thinking about… not at a time like this.“ Poppy had to laugh. “Is there a better time?

This book is about street-level cooking and its practitioners. Line cooks are the heroes.

To want to own a restaurant can be a strange and terrible affliction. What causes such a destructive urge in so many otherwise sensible people? Why would anyone who has worked hard, saved money, often been successful in other fields, want to pump their hard-earned cash down a hole that statistically, at least, will almost surely prove dry? Why venture into an industry with enormous fixed expenses (...), with a notoriously transient and unstable workforce, and highly perishable inventory of assets? The chances of ever seeing a return on your investment are about one in five. What insidious spongi-form bacteria so riddles the brains of men and women that they stand there on the tracks, watching the lights of the oncoming locomotive, knowing full well it will eventually run over them? After all these years in the business, I still don't know.