Cooking is not about convenience and it's not about shortcuts. Our hunger for the twenty-minute gourmet meal, for one-pot ease and prewashed, precut ingredients has severed our lifeline to the satisfactions of cooking. Take your time. Take a long time. Move slowly and deliberately and with great attention.
For me, thats one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.
Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore.
I can make dough in a machine faster than I can make it by hand, but I want to make it by hand, because I want to remember the way it feels. It's so important for me to make it by hand - whether it's a pasta dough or a pâte brisée. You become involved in it. You become personal with it. For me it's such a wonderful way to get satisfaction and gratification when I'm cooking.
Larousse is an invaluable tool for any cook. I've used this great resource all throughout my cooking career, and of course I look forward to the new edition. New information and knowledge are always welcome.
One of the problems with writing a cookbook is that recipes exist in the moment.
Vegetables to me are - I don't want to say the most exciting part of cooking, but certainly a very exciting part of cooking, because they continue to change. They come into season and they go through different phases.
Historically in restaurants, the service staff is awarded significantly higher wages than cooks and other staff who prepare the food on which a restaurant's reputation is based. The gap in pay is so great that it is becoming increasingly difficult for young cooks to pursue their passion at the rate of pay restaurants are able to afford.
