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Bad Food Is Made Without Pride, By Cooks Who Have No Pride, And No Love. Bad Food Is Made By Chefs Who Are Indifferent, Or Who Are Trying To Be Everything To Everybody, Who Are Trying To Please Everyone. Bad Food Is Fake Food, Food That Shows Fear And Lack Of Confidence In People's Ability To Discern Or To Make Decisions About Their Lives.

-Anthony Bourdain

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Bad Food Is Made

Anthony Bourdain

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Bad Food Is Made Without Pride, By Cooks Who Have No Pride, And No Love. Bad Food Is Made By Chefs Who Are Indifferent, Or Who Are Trying To Be Everything To Everybody, Who Are Trying To Please Everyone. Bad Food Is Fake Food, Food That Shows Fear And Lack Of Confidence In People's Ability To Discern Or To Make Decisions About Their Lives.

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Anything That Improves People's Expectations Of A Meal Is Good For The World. Anything That Weans Even One Kid Or One Adult Away From Chili's Or T.g.i. Friday's Is Definitely A Win For The Good Guys.

I'd Like To Play Bass Like Bootsy Collins. I'm Serious. That Would Be My Dream.

I Think As A Moral Question, Restaurant Workers Should Get Paid More.

If People Are Working Only Rice And Beans For Much Of Their Diet, It Says Something.

My French Definitely Improves The More I Drink, As I Worry Less And Less About Absolutely Perfect Grammar. I Do Speak And Understand The Language, Just Not Particularly Well.

I've Long Believed That Good Food, Good Eating, Is All About Risk. Whether We're Talking About Unpasteurized Stilton, Raw Oysters Or Working For Organized Crime 'associates,' Food, For Me, Has Always Been An Adventure

For A Moment, Or A Second, The Pinched Expressions Of The Cynical, World-weary, Throat-cutting, Miserable Bastards We've All Had To Become Disappears, When We're Confronted With Something As Simple As A Plate Of Food.

I'm At My Most Productive Before I Even Have My First Cup Of Coffee. I Only Get Slower And Stupider As The Day Progresses.

Thinking That Your Story Is So Interesting That Other People Will Want To Listen To It Or Read It Or Pay To Hear It, That's - What Kind Of Person Thinks That? A Monster Of Self-regard. It's Not Normal Thinking.

I've Been Very Careful About What I Say Yes To And What I Say No To. And I Think Seriously Always About... This May Be A Good Idea Right Now Or It May Be A Lot Of Money Right Now, But Will It Be Good For Me Five Years From Now? Will It Be Fun? Will It Make Me Hate Myself? I Think About All Of Those Things.

What Is Left Of The Poor? Try To Buy A Fresh F**king Vegetable In West Baltimore. It Is A Not Completely Inconceivable Scenario In The Future, We'll All Look Like That... Waddling From Convenience Store To Fast Food Outlet, Chewing Mindlessly On 99 Cent Hamburgers.

I Think Of [street Food] As The Antidote To Fast Food; It's The Clear Alternative To The King, The Clown And The Colonel.

Naturally, I'm Misanthropic. But The Negronis Are Helping Considerably.

My Daughter Always Behaved In Restaurants. And If She Didn't, She's Going Out. I Mean, One Of The Parents Is Going To Take Her Outside. Immediately.

The Fact Of The Matter Is That, For Years, The Restaurant And Service Industry Has Been, To A Great Extent, Built On The Backs Of Often Underpaid Immigrants Of Often Dubious Legal Status.

Your Body Is Not A Temple, It's An Amusement Park. Enjoy The Ride.

It Would Be An Egregious Mistake To Ever Refer To Me In The Same Breath As Most Of The People I Write About.

Hong Kong Is A Wonderful, Mixed-up Town Where You've Got Great Food And Adventure. First And Foremost, It's A Great Place To Experience China In A Relatively Accessible Way.

[when I Die], I Will Decidedly Not Be Regretting Missed Opportunities For A Good Time. My Regrets Will Be More Along The Lines Of A Sad List Of People Hurt, People Let Down, Assets Wasted And Advantages Squandered.

I Eat Strategically. If I Know I'm Having A Big Chinese Banquet Tomorrow, I'm Not Eating A Big Dinner Tonight, And I'm Not Having Breakfast.

I Always Entertain The Notion That I'm Wrong, Or That I'll Have To Revise My Opinion. Most Of The Time That Feels Good; Sometimes It Really Hurts And Is Embarrassing.

I Don't Think People Should Be Encouraged To Look Like Kate Moss; I Think That's Unreasonable. I Think The Normal Human Body Should Be Glorified. By The Same Token, If You Need A Stick To Wash Yourself, You're Not Healthy.

Big Stuff And Little: Learning How To Order Breakfast In A Country Where I Don't Speak The Language And Haven't Been Before - That's Really Satisfying To Me. I Like That.

As You Move Through This Life...you Leave Marks Behind, However Small. And In Return, Life - And Travel - Leaves Marks On You.

Few Things Are More Beautiful To Me Than A Bunch Of Thuggish, Heavily Tattooed Line Cooks Moving Around Each Other Like Ballerinas On A Busy Saturday Night. Seeing Two Guys Who'd Just As Soon Cut Each Other's Throats In Their Off Hours Moving In Unison With Grace And Ease Can Be As Uplifting As Any Chemical Stimulant Or Organized Religion.

The Italians And Spanish, The Chinese And Vietnamese See Food As Part Of A Larger, More Essential And Pleasurable Part Of Daily Life. Not As An Experience To Be Collected Or Bragged About - Or As A Ritual Like Filling Up A Car - But As Something Else That Gives Pleasure, Like Sex Or Music, Or A Good Nap In The Afternoon.

If You Have A Good Experience In A Restaurant, You Tell 2 People. If You Have A Bad Experience, You Tell 10 People.

Is It A Good Hot Dog? That’s All I Want To Know … I Don’t Think The Personal Health And Purity Of My Colon Is That Important Compared To Pleasure. As A Chef, I’m Not Your Dietitian Or Your Ethicist. I’m In The Pleasure Business …. My Responsibility Is To Give You The Most Delicious Tomato That I Can Afford, Given The Circumstances, And Maybe Increase The Likelihood That You Get Laid After Dinner.

I Hated The Naked Chef. Fine, Yes, He Did Good Things For School Food Or Whatever, But, You Know, I Don't Want My Chefs To Be Cute And Adorable.

I Managed To Reach A Depth Of Self-loathing That Usually Takes A Night Of Drinking To Achieve.

When I Was Writing 'kitchen Confidential,' I Was In My 40s, I Had Never Paid Rent On Time, I Was 10 Years Behind On My Taxes, I Had Never Owned My Own Furniture Or A Car.

If I'm In Rome For Only 48 Hours, I Would Consider It A Sin Against God To Not Eat Cacio E Pepe, The Most Uniquely Roman Of Pastas, In Some Crummy Little Joint Where Romans Eat. I'd Much Rather Do That Than Go To The Vatican. That's Rome To Me.

Assume The Worst. About Everybody. But Don't Let This Poisoned Outlook Affect Your Job Performance. Let It All Roll Off Your Back. Ignore It. Be Amused By What You See And Suspect. Just Because Someone You Work With Is A Miserable, Treacherous, Self-serving, Capricious And Corrupt Asshole Shouldn't Prevent You From Enjoying Their Company, Working With Them Or Finding Them Entertaining.

The Journey Is Part Of The Experience - An Expression Of The Seriousness Of One's Intent. One Doesn't Take The A Train To Mecca.

Don't Touch My D**k, Don't Touch My Knife.

In This Way, Writers Are Indeed, As Henry Miller Suggested, Traitors To The Human Race. We May Turn A Light On Inequity, Injustice, And Oppression From Time To Time, But We Regularly Kill What We Love In Insidious Fashion.

Look, Getting Bullied In School And Coming Home Crying In The Rain And My Mom Making Me A Can Of Campbell's Tomato Soup With Some Oysterettes. It Was Comfort Food; That Is What Food Should Be.

I Think There's A Great Storytelling Tradition In The Restaurant Business That Tends To Attract People With An Oral Tradition Of Bulls - Ting And Bollocking. Creative People, People For Whom The 9-to-5 World Is Not Attractive Or Impossible. It Seems That Way. There Are A Lot Of Stories In The Business, And A Lot Of Characters - And It Seems To Attract Its Share Of Artists And Writers And People Who Hope To Do Something Creative In Their Lives.

Everything Important I Learned, I Learned As A Dishwasher.

Where Once They Used To Say, 'cocaine Is God's Way Of Saying You Have Too Much Money' - Now, Maybe Edm Is. Come Ye Lords And Princelings Of Douchedom.

If Anything Is Good For Pounding Humility Into You Permanently, It's The Restaurant Business.

Restaurant Business

I Like Telling Stories, And I Tell Stories That Interest Me. It Would Be Boring To Have To Go To Nothing But The Best Restaurants. That Would Be A Misery To Me.

Southeast Asia Has A Real Grip On Me. From The Very First Time I Went There, It Was A Fulfillment Of My Childhood Fantasies Of The Way Travel Should Be.

Good Food Does Lead To Sex. As It Should. And In A Perfect World, Good Music Does Too.

Do We Really Want To Travel In Hermetically Sealed Popemobiles Through The Rural Provinces Of France, Mexico And The Far East, Eating Only In Hard Rock Cafes And Mcdonalds? Or Do We Want To Eat Without Fear, Tearing Into The Local Stew, The Humble Taqueria's Mystery Meat, The Sincerely Offered Gift Of A Lightly Grilled Fish Head? I Know What I Want. I Want It All. I Want To Try Everything Once.

I Guess My Whole Life, As Much As I Might Have Wanted A Child For The Reason That Everybody Wants One, I Always Recognized That At No Point Until I Was 50 Was I Old Enough Or Up To The Job. I Thought, You Know What, I Not Only Really Want A Child, But At This Point, Finally In My Life, I Think I'm Up To The Job And I'm The Type Of Person Who Could Do The Job Well And I'm Financially Prepared To Look After A Child.

An Employer Of Mine Back In The '80s Was Kind Enough To Take Me On After A Rough Patch, And It Made A Big Difference In My Life That I Knew I Was The Sort Of Person Who Showed Up On Time. It's A Basic Tell Of Character.

I Often Look Ridiculous In Japan. There's Really No Way To Eat In Japan, Particularly Kaiseki In A Traditional Ryokan, Without Offending The Japanese Horribly. Every Gesture, Every Movement Is Just So Atrociously Wrong, And The More I Try, The More Hilarious It Is.

For Me, The Cooking Life Has Been A Long Love Affair, With Moments Both Sublime And Ridiculous.

Food Is Everything We Are. It's An Extension Of Nationalist Feeling, Ethnic Feeling, Your Personal History, Your Province, Your Region, Your Tribe, Your Grandma. It's Inseparable From Those From The Get-go.

The Cooking Profession, While It's A Noble Craft And A Noble Calling, 'cause You're Doing Something Useful - You're Feeding People, You're Nurturing Them, You're Providing Sustenance - It Was Never Pure.

Anyone Who Doesn't Have A Great Time In San Francisco Is Pretty Much Dead To Me.

I Didn't Want Food That Looked Unapproachable Or Ridiculously Beautiful.

It's As If Japanese Men, All To Aware That Deep Inside They'd Like To Stomp Tokyo Flat, Breathe Fire, And Do Truly Terrible And Disgusting Things To Women, Have Built Themselves The Most Beautiful Of Prisons For Their Rampaging Ids. Instead Of Indulging Their Fantasies, They Focus On Food, Or Landscaping, Or The Perfect Cup Of Tea -- Or A Single Slab Of O-toro Tuna -- Letting Themselves Go Only At Baseball Games And Office Parties.

America's Most Dangerous Export Was, Is And Always Will Be Our Fast-food Outlets.

My Love Of Soft, Runny Cheese - It's Impossible To Resist.

Garlic Is Divine. Few Food Items Can Taste So Many Distinct Ways, Handled Correctly. Misuse Of Garlic Is A Crime...please, Treat Your Garlic With Respect...avoid At All Costs That Vile Spew You See Rotting In Oil In Screwtop Jars. Too Lazy To Peel Fresh? You Don't Deserve To Eat Garlic.

Italy Is Hard To Beat. It's A Family-friendly Experience, They Like To See Kids In Restaurants, And At Dinner You See All The Adults At The Table And All The Kids At The Other End Of The Table. Maybe They Run Off And Go Play.

I Lurched Away From The Table After A Few Hours Feeling Like Elvis In Vegas - Fat, Drugged, And Completely Out Of It.

If You Get An Opportunity To Work With David Simon, Anybody With Good Taste Would.

Anyone Who's A Chef, Who Loves Food, Ultimately Knows That All That Matters Is: Is It Good? Does It Give Pleasure?

What Nicer Thing Can You Do For Somebody Than Make Them Breakfast?

Breakfast Being Important

Just Because We Are Not Italian, Does Not Mean We Cannot Appreciate Michelangelo, It Is The Same With Cuisine.

Cooking Professionally Is A Dominant Act, At All Times About Control. Eating Well, On The Other Hand, Is About Submission. It's About Giving Up All Vestiges Of Control, About Entrusting Your Fate Entirely To Someone Else. It's About Turning Off The Mean, Manipulative, Calculating, And Shrewd Person Inside You, And Slipping Heedlessly Into A New Experience As If It Were A Warm Bath. It's About Shutting Down The Radar And Letting Good Things Happen. Let It Happen To You.

I’ve Been Really Fortunate In That I Guess I Was Hired To Do A Cook’s Tour, I Was Already A Known Quantity, Meaning I Had Written A Really Obnoxious Book And Nobody Expected Me To Be Anyone That I Wasn’t Already.

To The Extent I Am Known, I Think I Am Known As A Person Who Expresses His Opinion Freely About Things - And I Was Sensitive To The Possibility That If I Was Seen Taking Money For Saying Nice Things About A Product, My Comments And Choices And Opinions Would Become, Understandably, Suspect.

If You Go To Working Class, And Working Poor Areas Of America, The Food Sources That Are Relegated To Them Are Generally Limited To Unhealthy Ones.

I'm Not Impressed By Any Cooks Who Can Brag About A Filet Mignon. A Guy Who Can Take The Neck Of A Shank Or Can Use Tripe To Make Into Something Delicious Is Really Interesting To Me; That's Impressive.

I'm A Control Freak. If You're Going To Slap My Name On Something, I Would Like To Control It.

Very Few Restaurant Workers Could Even Dream Of Eating In The Restaurants They Work In. Many Do Not Make A Living Wage.

In That Sense, What A Great Way To Live, If You Could Always Do Things That Interest You, And Do Them With People Who Interest You.

I Look At Guy Fieri And I Just Think, 'jesus, I'm Glad That's Not Me.'

I Would Frankly Be Shocked If Donald Trump Even Knows How To Use Chopsticks Or Is Even Able To Manipulate Them With Those Tiny Little Fingers.

Nobody In Singapore Drinks Singapore Slings. It's One Of The First Things You Find Out There. What You Do In Singapore Is Eat. It's A Really Food-crazy Culture, Where All Of This Great Food Is Available In A Kind Of Hawker-stand Environment.

Street Food, I Believe, Is The Salvation Of The Human Race.

I'm Evangelical On The Subject Of Some Chefs And Writers.

Meals Make The Society, Hold The Fabric Together In Lots Of Ways That Were Charming And Interesting And Intoxicating To Me. The Perfect Meal, Or The Best Meals, Occur In A Context That Frequently Has Very Little To Do With The Food Itself.

If I'm An Advocate For Anything, It's To Move. As Far As You Can, As Much As You Can. Across The Ocean, Or Simply Across The River. The Extent To Which You Can Walk In Someone Else's Shoes Or At Least Eat Their Food, It's A Plus For Everybody. Open Your Mind, Get Up Off The Couch, Move.

I’m A Twitter Addict. Jose Andres Is A Serial Tweeter. It’s Funny To See Which Chefs Have Embraced It, And The Different Paths They Take.

I Do The Meatball Recipe A Lot. I Think The Army Stew Probably Too. It's The Most Useful Dish Because It Was Born Out Of Necessity And Poverty And Any Idiot Can Make It In 20 Minutes On A Hot Plate. It's Cheap And Uses Readily Available Commercial Ingredients. And It's Delicious. It Should Be The Great American Dish - Perfect Late-night Stoner Dorm Food For College Kids On A Budget.

We Learn As Professionals By Repetition, By Getting It Wrong, Getting Yelled At And Doing It Again.

I Was A Serious Comic Collector And Fanboy As A Kid. I Wanted Very Badly To Draw Comic Books For A Lot Of My Childhood And Early Adolescence. So When You Have An Unfulfilled Dream Like That, When Years Later You Find Yourself In A Position To Make A Graphic Novel - Hell Yeah, I'm Going To Do That.

I Like The Fact That Melbourne Always Seems To Support Their Chefs And Promote Them In Ways I Find Really Admirable.

To Me, Life Without Veal Stock, Pork Fat, Sausage, Organ Meat, Demi-glace, Or Even Stinky Cheese Is A Life Not Worth Living. Vegetarians Are The Enemy Of Everything Good And Decent In The Human Spirit, An Affront To All I Stand For, The Pure Enjoyment Of Food.

It's Wrong I Think, Morally And Annoying In General, To Try To Get A Kid To Be A Foodie, So I Never Even Suggested, "hey Baby It's Good, Maybe You Should Try It." That Never Worked For Me.

For A Dinner Date, I Eat Light All Day To Save Room, Then I Go All In: I Choose This Meal And This Order, And I Choose You, The Person Across From Me, To Share It With. There's A Beautiful Intimacy In A Meal Like That.

When I Cook, I Generally Stick With What I Know, What I'm Comfortable With, And What I Feel I've Paid My Dues Learning, And Am Good At.

Maybe That’s Enlightenment Enough: To Know That There Is No Final Resting Place Of The Mind; No Moment Of Smug Clarity. Perhaps Wisdom...is Realizing How Small I Am, And Unwise, And How Far I Have Yet To Go. -anthony Bourdain

In Fairness, You Know, I'm A Big Believer In If Your Kid Makes Noise In The Restaurant You Should Remove The Child Immediately.

Having Been A Chef For Some Many Years, I Understand What It's Like To Work Really, Really Hard To Get Good At Something, Only To Have Someone Piss All Over It.

At The End Of The Day, The Tv Show Is The Best Job In The World. I Get To Go Anywhere I Want, Eat And Drink Whatever I Want. As Long As I Just Babble At The Camera, Other People Will Pay For It. It's A Gift.

Is There A Sharper Commentary On American Culture And The World Than The Simpsons?

American Culture

Don't Dunk Your Nigiri In The Soy Sauce. Don't Mix Your Wasabi In The Soy Sauce. If The Rice Is Good, Complement Your Sushi Chef On The Rice.

Good Food Is Very Often, Even Most Often, Simple Food.

Get Up Early And Go To The Local Produce Markets. In Latin America And Asia, Those Are Usually Great Places To Find Delicious Food Stalls Serving Cheap, Authentic And Fresh Specialties.

Skills Can Be Taught. Character You Either Have Or You Don't Have.

The Notion That Before You Even Set Out To Go To Thailand, You Say, 'i'm Not Interested,' Or You're Unwilling To Try Things That People Take So Personally And Are So Proud Of And So Generous With, I Don't Understand That, And I Think It's Rude. You're At Grandma's House, You Eat What Grandma Serves You.

I've Been Cooking For A Nine-year-old And Her Friends For The Better Part Of Seven Or Eight Years. It's How I Cook Today, It's What Makes Me Happy. I Tend To Overcompensate For My Long Absences When I'm Home By Cooking And It's Therapeutic To Me - It's How I Express Love For My Daughter. It Felt Good To Do.

As I See It, Fast Food Outfits Have Targeted Small Children With Their Advertising In A Very Effective Way. You Know, It's Clowns And Kid's Toys And Bright Colors And Things Like That.

If People Are Eating Mostly Pickles After Many Generations, Where Did That Come From? It's Reflective Of History, Often A Painful History. It's Central To A Culture, To A History, To A Personal Story. It's Communication At Its Most Fundamental.

Cooking Is Work That Is Traditionally Done By Working-class People. The Work Itself Is Not Glamorous. It's Repetitive, And It's A Lot Closer To Factory Work Than Art, Whatever Level You're Doing It At. Certainly Chefs Are Used To Living Like Rock 'n' Rollers To Some Extent, Inasmuch As We Get A Lot Of Those Fringe Benefits Without Having To Learn How To Play Guitar.

As Incisively Pointed Out In The Documentary Food Inc.," An Overwhelmingly Large Percentage Of "new," Healthy," And "organic" Alternative Food Products Are Actually Owned By The Same Parent Companies That Scared Us Into The Organic Aisle In The First Place. "they Got You Comin' And Goin'" Has Never Been Truer.

My Mom Had Julia Child And 'the Fannie Farmer Cookbook' On Top Of The Refrigerator, And She Had A Small Repertoire Of French Dishes.

[george] Orwell's Essays. It's Got It All. Great Writing, A Worldview That I Find Interesting And Useful, And Most Of It Timelessly True.

I'm Not Looking To Freak People Out - Eating Rodents Or Bugs. I Don't Do That Anymore.

I'm Not Trying To Explain Other Cultures, Or To Give A Fair And Balanced Account Of A Country, Or The Top Ten Things You Need To Know. I'm Not Trying To Spread World Peace And Understanding. I'm Not An Advocate Or An Activist Or An Educator Or A Journalist. I'm Out There Trying To Tell Stories The Best I Can.

I'm Really Happy To See Filipino Cuisine Starting To Really Take Hold Outside Of The Pinoy Community.

I Go Anywhere I Want, Do Whatever I Want When I Get There, They Let Me Make Self-indulgent Tv About That Experience, And Give Me About As Much Creative Freedom As Anyone's Ever Had In The History Of Television.

A Proper Saute Pan Should Cause Serious Head Injury If Brought Down Hard Against Someone Else's Skull. If You Have Any Doubts About Which Will Dent, The Victim's Head Or Your Pan, Then Throw That Pan Right In The Trash.

When Your Signature Dish Is Hamburger In Between A Doughnut, And You've Been Cheerfully Selling This Stuff Knowing All Along That You've Got Type 2 Diabetes... It's In Bad Taste If Nothing Else.

Type 2 Diabetes

You Know, From Age 17 On, My Paycheck Was Coming From Cooking And Working In Kitchens.

Just Because I Like Sushi, Doesn't Mean I Can Make Sushi. I've Come To Well Understand How Many Years Just To Get Sushi Rice Correct. It's A Discipline That Takes Years And Years And Years. So, I Leave That To The Experts.

My Wife Was Easy Because She Trains [jiu-jitsu] All The Time. She's Pretty Much On A Completely Different Diet. I Always Just Threw Meat At Her And She's Happy On A 100 Percent Protein Diet, So We Seldom Ate Together.

Only Texans And Jews Understand Brisket

I Make Friends Faster And Easier Than Journalists.

Avoid At All Costs That Vile Spew You See Rotting In Oil In Screwtop Jars. Too Lazy To Peel Fresh? You Don't Deserve To Eat Garlic.

I’m A Big Believer In Winging It. I’m A Big Believer That You’re Never Going To Find Perfect City Travel Experience Or The Perfect Meal Without A Constant Willingness To Experience A Bad One. Letting The Happy Accident Happen Is What A Lot Of Vacation Itineraries Miss, I Think, And I’m Always Trying To Push People To Allow Those Things To Happen Rather Than Stick To Some Rigid Itinerary.

Every Chef I Know, Their Cholesterol Is Through The Roof. And Mine's Not So Great.

Wholesome Food Is Wholesome Food Anywhere. I May Not Like Something But, Generally Speaking, If It's A Busy, Street Food Stall Serving Mystery Meat In India, They're In The Business Of Serving Their Neighbors. They're Not Targeted Toward A Transient Crowd Of Tourists That Won't Be Around Tomorrow. They're Not In The Business Of Poisoning Their Neighbors.

I Admire Vegetarians Who Refuse To Eat Nothing But Vegetables In Their Homes, But I Also Admire Those Who Put Aside Those Principles Or Those Preferences When They Travel. Just To Be A Good Guest.

Unlicensed Hooch From A Stranger In A Parking Lot. Good Idea? Yes, Of Course It Is.

I, A Product Of The New Frontier And Great Society, Honestly Believed That The World Pretty Much Owed Me A Living--all I Had To Do Was Wait Around In Order To Live Better Than My Parents.

A Burger Is Something Anyone Can Do, Just Follow The Rules.

I Think It's A Universal Truth That Most Chefs I Know Are Happiest Eating Simple, Unadorned Good Things.

In Italy, Kids Are Taken To Restaurants Very Early, They're Welcome There, And They Learn How To Behave. You Don't See A Lot Of Screaming Crying Kids Acting Out In A Restaurant In Italy. They Don't Put Up With That.

I Couldn't Imagine A More Unreliable, More Unprofitable Way To Make A Living Than Writing. My Advice? Show Up, Do The Best You Can. Keep Your Day Job. If You Get A Lucky Break, Don't F*** Up. It Was Helpful To Be Older Because I Had Made All The Really Stupid Mistakes Already.

I Think We Should Be Honest About Who Is Working In Our Kitchens.

We Know, For Instance, That There Is A Direct, Inverse Relationship Between Frequency Of Family Meals And Social Problems. Bluntly Stated, Members Of Families Who Eat Together Regularly Are Statistically Less Likely To Stick Up Liquor Stores, Blow Up Meth Labs, Give Birth To Crack Babies, Commit Suicide, Or Make Donkey Porn. If Little Timmy Had Just Had More Meatloaf, He Might Not Have Grown Up To Fill Chest Freezers With Cub Scout Parts.

The World They Live In Now Is In No Way The World The Michelin System Was Set Up To Evaluate Back In France, Which Was All About Motorists And Seeing If It Was Worth Driving An Extra 50 Miles For A Restaurant. It's A Silly Thing. Why Do You Want To Help A Tire Company? You Don't Owe Them Nothing.

I'm Of A Generation That Romanticizes And Maybe Even Over-romanticized Things That Were Painful, That Hurt Others. I Feel That. But I Don't Know If I Have Any Regrets.

If You're Training In A Combat Sport, Deliciousness Takes A Backseat.

Travel Isn’t Always Pretty. It Isn’t Always Comfortable. Sometimes It Hurts, It Even Breaks Your Heart. But That’s Okay. The Journey Changes You; It Should Change You. It Leaves Marks On Your Memory, On Your Consciousness, On Your Heart, And On Your Body. You Take Something With You. Hopefully, You Leave Something Good Behind.

Open Your Mind, Get Up Off The Couch, Move.

In America, There Might Be Better Gastronomic Destinations Than New Orleans, But There Is No Place More Uniquely Wonderful.

I’m Always Secretly The Most Pleased When A Show Just Really, Really Looks Good And When My Camera Guys Are Really Happy With The Images They Got.

The Italians Seem To Have A Better Attitude With Kids And The Food Is Great!

I'd Learned Something... Food Had Power. It Could Inspire, Astonish, Shock, Excite, Delight And Impress. It Had The Power To Please Me... And Others. This Was Valuable Information.

No One Understands And Appreciates The American Dream Of Hard Work Leading To Material Rewards Better Than A Non-american.

I Could Eat Bloody Elvis - If You Put Enough Vinegar On Him.

I Don't Have To Agree With You To Like You Or Respect You.

Admiration And Respect

Kitchen Confidential

Only Desperation Can Account For What The Chinese Do In The Name Of 'medicine.' That's Something You Might Remind Your New Age Friends Who've Gone Gaga Over 'holistic Medicine' And 'alternative Chinese Cures.

I Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

It's Been About A Week Without Alcohol Of Any Kind. I'm Enjoying My New, Clean-living Lifestyle.

I'm Never A Reliable Narrator, Unbiased Or Objective.

One Of The Things Is Challenging Yourself To Do A Rome Show When Everybody's Done A Rome Show. To Find Some Aspect Of Food Culture Or Chef Culture That People Can Look At In A New Way.

When My Father Passed, I Was Still An Unsuccessful Cook With A Drug Problem. I Was In My Mid-thirties, Standing Behind An Oyster Bar, Cracking Clams For A Living When He Died. So, He Never Saw Me Complete A Book Or Achieve Anything Of Note. I Would Have Liked To Have Shared This With Him.

As A Chef I’m Not Your Dietitian Or Your Ethicist, I’m In The Pleasure Business.

The Fact That Over 50 Per Cent Of The Residents Of Toronto Are Not From Canada, That Is Always A Good Thing, Creatively, And For Food Especially. That Is Easily A City's Biggest Strength, And It Is Toronto's Unique Strength.

The Bible Of Cooking. The All-time Argument Ender. Early In My Cooking Career, I Wielded My Larousse Like A Weapon And It Never Let Me Down.

I'm Certainly Dismayed By What I'm Seeing Now. There's A Lot Of Ugliness Of A Kind I've Never Seen In My Lifetime, Or Heard In My Lifetime. But, Look, I'm A Romantic. I'm Hopeful.

I'm Excited By Any Food That's Prepared By Someone Who's Proud Of What They're Doing, Who Puts A Personal Imprint On Food.

I'm Not Besotted With The Notion Of Being On Cnn To The Point That I'm Going To Suddenly Morph Into Anderson Cooper Or Christiane Amanpour. I'm Not A Foreign Correspondent.

I Can't Do Exercises Regularly Because My Schedule Changes From Day To Day. I'm Okay With Hurting Myself, Like I'll Lift Something Until It Hurts, But I Don't Want To Pass Out Or Vomit In Front Of People.

The Mishandling Of Food And Equipment With Panache Was Always Admired; To Some Extent, This Remains True To This Day. Butchers Still Slap Down Prime Cuts With Just A Little More Force And Noise Than Necessary. Line Cooks Can't Help Putting A Little English On Outgoing Plates, Spinning Them Into The Pass-through With Reverse Motion So They Curl Back Just Short Of The Edge. Oven Doors In Most Kitchens Have To Be Constantly Tightened Because Of Repeatedly Being Kicked Closed By Clog-shod Feet. And All Of Us Dearly Love To Play With Knives.

I Wasn't That Great A Chef, And I Don't Think I'm That Great A Writer.

Cooking Breakfast And Brunch Professionally Really Kind Of Ruined Breakfast Service For Me For A Long Time.

My House Is Run, Essentially, By An Adopted, Fully Clawed Cat With A Mean Nature.

I'm Not Going To Get Off The Pony As Long As They Let Me Ride It.

It's That Show Friends. Ruined Coffee Forever.

I've Sat In Sushi Bars, Really Fine Ones, And I Know How Hard This Guy Worked, How Proud He Is. I Know You Don't Need Sauce. I Know He Doesn't Even Want You To Pour Sauce. And I've Seen Customers Come In And Do That, And I've Seen Him, As Stoic As He Tries To Remain, I've Seen Him Die A Little Inside.

Always Was Morocco. And Recently The Country's Leadership Seems To Have Embraced It In All Its Ill-reputed Glory. The Days Of Predatory Poets In Search Of Literary Inspiration And Young Flesh Are Probably Over For Good. Hippies Can Just As Easily Get Their Bong Riffs In Portland Or Peoria. But The Good Stuff, The Real Good Stuff, The Sounds And Smells And The Look Of Tangier -- What You See And Hear When You Lean Out The Window And Take It All In -- That's Here To Stay.

You Have An Impeccable Argument If You Said That Singapore, Hong Kong, And Tokyo Are Food Capitals. They Have A Maximum Amount Of Great Stuff To Eat In The Smallest Areas.

I'm Definitely Looking Forward To The Day When I Stop Working - If I Ever Stop Working. I Like The Idea Of Keeling Over In My Tomato Vines In Sardinia Or Northern Italy.

When You're Shooting That Fast End To End, You Wake Up In A Hotel And You Don't Know Where You Are. You're Dreaming Of Singapore, You Wake Up In Hong Kong. Or You Just Lose Track. It's One Of The Reasons I'm Staying In Hotels That I Know I've Stayed In Before, And They Don't Look Like Other Hotels.

I Am Not A Fan Of People Who Abuse Service Staff. In Fact, I Find It Intolerable. It’s An Unpardonable Sin As Far As I’m Concerned, Taking Out Personal Business Or Some Other Kind Of Dissatisfaction On A Waiter Or Busboy.

If You Go To Chefs All Across America And Ask Them, 'what's Your Biggest Problem Right Now?,' It Is Finding People To Cook In Their Restaurants. They're Having An Enormous, Countrywide Problem Here Staffing Their Operations.

I Did Go Into The Amazonian Region Of Brazil. They Have Prehistoric River Fish That Weigh In At Around 600 Pounds, Which You Don’t See Anywhere Else. And Foods That Cannot Be Exported Or Even Found In Other Parts Of Brazil.

Writing Anything Is A Treason Of Sorts.

When Dealing With Complex Transportation Issues, The Best Thing To Do Is Pull Up With A Cold Beer And Let Somebody Else Figure It Out.

I'm Not Afraid To Look Like An Idiot On Tv.

I Write Quickly With A Sense Of Urgency. I Don't Edit Myself Out Of Existence, Meaning I'll Try To Write 50 Or 60 Pages Before I Start Rereading, Revising And Editing. That Just Helps With My Confidence.

I Don't Have Much Patience For People Who Are Self-conscious About The Act Of Eating, And It Irritates Me When Someone Denies Themselves The Pleasure Of A Bloody Hunk Of Steak Or A Pungent French Cheese Because Of Some Outdated Nonsense About What's Appropriate Or Attractive.

There Are Very Sophisticated, Very Time-consuming Dishes To Prepare; Always From Scratch, And Always In Excess Of What You Could Possibly Need. You Tend To Kill Your Guests With Kindness Around Here.

I Love New York. I'm A Guy For Whom A New York Accent Is A Comforting Thing.

I Wish I Could Play Bass Like Larry Graham Or Bootsy Collins. My God, I'd Give Up Just About Everything Else For That.

I'm Really Happy To See The Explosion Of Interest In Korean Food, And This Hybrid Korean-american Food.

At The End Of A Dinner At My House, My Kitchen Sink Is Filled With Dishes And There's Nothing Pretty About The Garbage.

Really Annoys Me Any Time I See Asian Fusion Too. Asia Is A Big Place; Which Asian Are You Talking About? You Notice It's Never Uzbek Or Tajik Food. It's Thai, And It's Generally Insulting.

People Everywhere Have Been Very, Very Good To Me, Whether I'm With Or Without Cameras.

Food Is So Personal - I Mean Someone Is Talking To You When People Are Cooking For You. I Like To Hear An Identifiable Voice.

Margarine? That's Not Food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I Can. If You're Planning On Using Margarine In Anything, You Can Stop Reading Now, Because I Won't Be Able To Help You.

An Ounce Of Sauce Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

Kitchen Confidential

Free Time Is My Enemy. I Recognized Early On I'm Not A Guy Who Should Have A Lot Of Time To Contemplate The Mysteries Of The Universe. I Need To Stay Busy... That's Just The Nature Of My Demons.

Most Of The Time, I'm Fighting Guys Who Are 22 Years Old, Former College Wrestlers, Athletes, Kids Who Are In Much Better Shape Than Me. Often People Who Are Much Bigger And Wider Than Me. It Can Be Dispiriting At First.

Context And Memory Play Powerful Roles In All The Truly Great Meals In One's Life.

Norman Mailer Described The Desire To Be Cool As A "decision To Encourage The Psychopath In Oneself, To Explore That Domain Of Experience Where Security Is Boredom And Therefore Sickness And One Exists In The Present, In That Enormous Present Which Is Without Past Or Future, Memory Or Planned Intention.

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.

One Of Life's Terrible Truths Is That Women Like Guys Who Seem To Know What They're Doing.

Oh Yes, There's Lots Of Great Food In America. But The Fast Food Is About As Destructive And Evil As It Gets. It Celebrates A Mentality Of Sloth, Convenience, And A Cheerful Embrace Of Food We Know Is Hurting Us.

On One Hand We Encourage And Allow Major Pharmaceutical Companies To Openly Hook Vast Sectors Of Our Population On Narcotics, And Then We Cut Them Off And Throw Them In Jail, And Moralize About It. It Is Clearly A Huge, Huge, And Growing Problem. It's Devastating. We Need To Treat It As A Health Crisis, Which It Is, And Stop Moralizing.

I Try To Very Hard To Avoid A Situation Where I Would Be Eating Cat Or Dog; I've Managed To Gracefully Avoid That. It's Hypocritical Of Me And An Arbitrary Line, But One That I Have Managed To Avoid Crossing.

It’s An Irritating Reality That Many Places And Events Defy Description. Angkor Wat And Machu Picchu, For Instance, Seem To Demand Silence, Like A Love Affair You Can Never Talk About. For A While After, You Fumble For Words, Trying Vainly To Assemble A Private Narrative, An Explanation, A Comfortable Way To Frame Where You’ve Been And Whats Happened. In The End, You’re Just Happy You Were There - With Your Eyes Open - And Lived To See It.

I Love Bacon, But I Don't Think We Need It On Everything.

I'm Not Searching For Hard News; I'm Not A Journalist, But I'm Interested In Pushing To Boundaries Of Where We Can Do The Kind Of Stories That We Want To Do. I Mean, It's A Big World And Cnn Has Made It A Lot Bigger And They Haven't Flinched.

And Now To Sleep, To Dream...perchance To Fart.

I Feel That If Jacques Pepin Shows You How To Make An Omelet, The Matter Is Pretty Much Settled. That's God Talking.

You Have To Love A Town Where You Can Both Smoke And Gamble In A Pharmacy.

Going To Southeast Asia For The First Time And Tasting That Spectrum Of Flavors - That Certainly Changed My Whole Palate, The Kind Of Foods I Crave. A Lot Of The Dishes I Used To Love Became Boring To Me.

Bad Food Is Made Without Pride, By Cooks Who Have No Pride, And No Love. Bad Food Is Made By Chefs Who Are Indifferent, Or Who Are Trying To Be Everything To Everybody, Who Are Trying To Please Everyone. Bad Food Is Fake Food, Food That Shows Fear And Lack Of Confidence In People's Ability To Discern Or To Make Decisions About Their Lives.

I'm A Decent Cook; I'm A Decent Chef. None Of My Friends Would Ever Have Hired Me At Any Point In My Career. Period.

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