You can be miserable before you have a cookie and you can be miserable after you eat a cookie but you can't be miserable while you are eating a cookie.
Fun is the most important. If you do stuff for money, it never works out.
Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable.
One of the great gifts that you can give people is to cook for them.
Anyone who tries to make brownies without butter should be arrested.
Every once in a while, a cookbook comes along that simply knocks me out.
I get up every day, do the best that I can do, and go home and have a good time.
I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.
I love to take something ordinary and make it really special.
Instead of going out to dinner, buy good food. Cooking at home shows such affection. In a bad economy, it's more important to make yourself feel good.
I've taught myself how to use good, fresh ingredients and to prepare them as simply as possible by cooking only to enhance their intrinsic flavors.
If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it's really like making a large chicken.
Creme Brulee is the ultimate 'guy' dessert. Make it and he'll follow you anywhere.
Grilled cheese and tomato soup is the ultimate comfort meal.
When I thought my professional career was over, it hadn't even started yet.
I think that I had a very clear vision when I started writing cookbooks what I wanted it to be, and that you would open the book, that you would look at the photograph and go, that looks delicious. And then you would look at the recipe and say, I can actually make that and I can make it with ingredients I can find in the grocery store.
My mother would never let me in the kitchen. I always wanted to cook, but I was never allowed to. Her view of the world was, "Cooking is my job, and studying is your job." I think, in retrospect, she didn't like the chaos. She was very orderly. It had to be her way.
Take one flower that you like and get lots of them. And don't try to 'arrange' them. It's surprisingly hard to do a flower arrangement the way a florist does one. Instead, bunch them all together or put them in a series of small vases all down the table.
The most important thing for having a party is that the hostess is having fun. I'm very organized. I make a plan for absolutely everything. I never have anything that has to be cooked while the guests are there. The only thing I might have to do is take something out of the oven and carve it.
The most overrated tool: a pasta maker. Why make it when you can buy it? It's a lot of work!
It's so important that you don't put the stuffing in the bird, where in order for the stuffing to get cooked you have to overcook the turkey. It's better to do it on the side.
All my life I dreamed of an apartment in Paris where I could cook, and now I have one, on the Left Bank.
I think there are two ways of eating, or cooking. One is restaurant food and one is home food. I believe that people have started making food that is easy that you want to eat at home. When you go out to a restaurant, you want to be challenged, you want to taste something new, you want to be excited. But when you eat at home, you want something that's delicious and comforting. I've always liked that kind of food - and frankly, that's also what I want to eat when I go out to restaurants, but maybe that's me.
I learned that the hardest party to pull off successfully is Saturday night dinner. This meal is expected to be elaborate: appetizers, first course, dinner, dessert, and coffee. People arrive at 7:30 or 8 p.m. and stay for hours - definitely past my bedtime - and they all go home exhausted.
Never let 'em see you sweat. Guests feel guilty if they think you've worked too hard to make dinner for them - which of course you have!
