My mantra was to educate people – to actually give them the know-how they could use – and to do it in a very subversive kind of way. I would entertain them, and I was going to teach them whether they knew it or not.
I became a cook so I could cook and tell stories in wacky ways.
You know most of the food that Americans hold so dear – things like hamburgers and hot dogs – were road food, but even before they were road food, they were peasant food.
Well, you know, when you go into a restaurant, one of the scariest things is the wine list, so whenever I’m really feeling intimidated, I’ll just pick a wine type, like a Chianti or Brunello or a Burgundy, and I’ll pick a year that’s missing and ask for that one.
My first book is really about heat. That book, for me, was an exploration of heat as ingredient. Why we don’t talk about heat as an ingredient, I don’t quite understand, because it is the common ingredient to all cooking processes.
Remember, America: organization will set you free.
I think a lot of food shows, especially when we started ‘Good Eats’ back in the late ’90s, they were still really about food. ‘Good Eats’ isn’t about food, it’s about entertainment. If, however, we can virally infect you with knowledge or interest, then all the better.
I know people that could serve me canned tuna and saltine crackers and have me feel more at home at their table than some people who can cook circles around me. The more you try to impress people, generally the less you do.
I can’t talk about anything or write about anything if I don’t understand it. So a lot of the stuff that I go through and a lot of the time that I spend is understanding.
Wine is like women. It tempts you; it comforts you; it confuses you and can even turn on you when you least expect it. It can be your friend one day and your enemy the next.
The way to any woman’s heart, be she witch or Wonderwoman, princess or Pocahontas, is through her stomach.
Racism. It’s ugly. Even in tubers.
My feeling has always been that ‘Good Eats’ would have never happened had it been left to a committee.
Believe me, a grain is a terrible thing to waste.
A meringue is really nothing but a foam. And what is a foam after all, but a big collection of bubbles? And what’s a bubble? It’s basically a very flimsy little latticework of proteins draped with water. We add sugar to this structure, which strengthens it. But things can, and do, go wrong.
Your patience will be rewarded.
I have nothing but sympathy for the people who are forced to work with me. I’m better now at picking out those that want to play that game with me, and those that don’t.
We are fat and sick and dying because we have handed a basic, fundamental and intimate function of life over to corporations. We choose to value our nourishment so little that we entrust it to strangers. This is insanity. Feed yourselves. Feed your loved ones. And for God’s sake feed your children.
I approach cooking from a science angle because I need to understand how things work. If I understand the egg, I can scramble it better. It’s a simple as that.
There are a great many things one can learn to do without actually doing them. Grilling is not one of them.