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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.

-Anthony Bourdain

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Cooking Professionally Is A

Anthony Bourdain

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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.

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

Peta Doesn't Want Stressed Animals To Be Cruelly Crowded Into Sheds, Ankle-deep In Their Own Crap, Because They Don't Want Any Animals To Die Ever And Basically Think Chickens Should, In Time, Gain The Right To Vote. I Don't Want Animals Stressed Or Crowded Or Treated Cruelly Or Inhumanely Because That Makes Them Probably Less Delicious.

I Just Do The Best I Can And Write Something Interesting, To Tell Stories In An Interesting Way And Move Forward From There.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

[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.

To Me, Life Without Veal Stock, Pork Fat, Sausage, Organ Meat, Demi-glace, Or Even Stinky Cheese Is A Life Not Worth Living.

These Pharmaceutical Company Executives Are Dope Dealers And They Should Be Treated Worse, And More Roughly Than Dope Dealers. When You're Talking About Millionaire And Billionaire Executives At Pharmaceutical Companies, These Are People With Something To Lose If Threatened With Jail. Frog-march Them Out Of Their Door In Suburbia, Handcuffed And Surrounded By Dea Officers, With Their Children And Neighbours Watching.

In College, I Think I Probably Positioned Myself As An Aspiring Writer, Meaning I Dressed Sort Of Extravagantly And Adopted All The Semi-byronic Affectations, As If I Were Writing, Although I Wasn't Actually Doing Any Writing.

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.

As Americans, We Tend To Look At Mexican Food As Nachos, Which Is Not Mexican Food Really - They Don't Eat Them.

Trying To Micromanage The Perfect Vacation Is Always A Disaster. That Leads To Terrible Times. If You Get Lost And You Just End Up Eating Just Anywhere, You Know, You See A Bunch Of Venetians Sitting Around Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Something Unrecognizable In A Dark Alley Somewhere, Chances Are It's Interesting.

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.

In America, There Might Be Better Gastronomic Destinations Than New Orleans, But There Is No Place More Uniquely Wonderful. ... With The Best Restaurants In New York, You'll Find Something Similar To It In Paris Or Copenhagen Or Chicago. But There Is No Place Like New Orleans. So It's A Must-see City Because There's No Explaining It, No Describing It. You Can't Compare It To Anything. So, Far And Away New Orleans.

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.

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

I Would Like To See People More Aware Of Where Their Food Comes From. I Would Like To See Small Farmers Empowered. I Feed My Daughter Almost Exclusively Organic Food.

Vegetarians, And Their Hezbollah-like Splinter Faction, The Vegans ... Are The Enemy Of Everything Good And Decent In The Human Spirit.

The Biggest Empty Space, The Biggest Gap In What Should Be A Premier And Always Vibrant Food Scene In America Is That We Don't Have Hawker Centers Like They Do In Singapore, Basically Food Courts Where Mom And Pop Specialists Can Set Up Shop In Fairly Hygienic Little Stalls All Up To Health Code Making One Dish They've Been Doing Forever And Ever.

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.

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.

People's Choice To Become Vegan, From People I've Spoken To, Seems Motivated By Fear.

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.

Venezuela Is Another Place I'd Like Very Much To Go, Which Is Proving Very Difficult. I Have Not Been There To Make A Show And I'd Like To, Very Much.

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.

Drugs Didn't Work Out Too Well For Me.

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

When I'm Back In New York - And This Is A Terrible Thing To Complain About - I Eat A Lot More Really, Really Good Food Than Perhaps I'd Like To. So Many Of My Friends Are Really Good Chefs. It's Kind Of Like Being In The Mafia.

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

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

I've Seen Zero Evidence Of Any Nation On Earth Other Than Mexico Even Remotely Having The Slightest Clue What Mexican Food Is About Or Even Come Close To Reproducing It. It Is Perhaps The Most Misunderstood Country And Cuisine On Earth.

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.

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

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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.

I'm A Comic Nerd. I'm A Former Serious Collector For Much Of My Childhood And Early Teen Years I Wanted To Draw Underground Comics.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

I Need The Anesthetic Qualities Of The Local Fire Water.

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I Wanted It To Look Like Real Cooking In Someone's Real Home Or Just So Out-of-there Bizarre That It Would Be Fun.

It's Not Normal, What I Do. Just Being On Television Isn't.

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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.

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

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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.

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

I Don't Like To See Animals In Pain. That Was Very Uncomfortable To Me. I Don't Like Factory Farming. I'm Not An Advocate For The Meat Industry.

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.

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

When Do You Stop To De-douche?

Being On Television, Being Recognizable, This Is Unnatural.

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.

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.

My Family Is Very Far From Normal.

You Learn A Lot About Someone When You Share A Meal Together.

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.

A Good, Stinky French Cheese Or A Good Stilton. These Are Things I Really, Really Love. Dessert I Can Obviously Live Without.

New Orleans Is A Glorious Mutation

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.

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.

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

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I Am Very Much Enjoying The Fatherhood Phase Of My Life.

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

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I Admire People Who Do Things That Are Interesting To Them, Who Don't Have A Strategy Or A Master Plan Or Have A Brand - I Don't Care About Any Of Those Things.

I, Personally, Think There Is A Really Danger Of Taking Food Too Seriously. Food Should Be Part Of The Bigger Picture.

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.

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

You Have To Be A Romantic To Invest Yourself, Your Money, And Your Time In Cheese.

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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.

If Somebody Crafts An Interesting Tweet That’ll Lead Me To Their Blog, I’m Going To Their Blog.

I Do My Very Best To Avoid Shark Fin.

Do You Really Want To Make Risotto To Order When You Have Eight Guests Sitting There? No. It Won't Work. Most Cookbooks Won't Tell You That. They Will Say Make It And It Will Come Out Perfectly. They Should Tell You You're Probably Going To Screw It Up The First 10 Times You Make 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.

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.

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

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.

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I Could Do Nothing But Brooklyn Shows For The Rest Of My Career, And I Could Die Ignorant.

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.

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

You Know, It's Not The World I Would Have Wanted, For Sure.

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.

That Without Experimentation, A Willingness To Ask Questions And Try New Things, We Shall Surely Become Static, Repetitive, Moribund.

I'd Like To Make A Show With Keith Richards.

They're Professionals At This In Russia, So No Matter How Many Jell-o Shots Or Jager Shooters You Might Have Downed At College Mixers, No Matter How Good A Drinker You Might Think You Are, Don't Forget That The Russians - Any Russian - Can Drink You Under The Table.

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

The Older I Get, And The More I Travel In Particular, The Less I Care About What Exactly Is In The Dish Than Who's Cooking It And Why.

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Writing Anything Is A Treason Of Sorts.

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.

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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'm Sure One Of The Frustrations Of Being A Western Enthusiast Of Japanese Food And Culture Is You're Confronted Every Day With The Absolute Certainty That You Will Die Ignorant.

My Daughter Takes Pride In Showing Up With Stuff That Other Kids Envy Or Are Freaked Out By, So I Send Her To School With Grilled Octopus.

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'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 Have Missed It For The World.

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

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

Restaurant Business

Thinking Of Getting Into The Leg-breaking Business, So I Can Profitably Sell Crutches Later.

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 I'm Training I'm Cutting Weight For A Competition. I'm Hard. I'm Pretty Much Eating Animal Protein And That's It. No Rice, No Beans, Certainly No Sweets.

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

Those Places I Don't Understand, Just Doing Bad Food. It Takes Some Doing. Making Good Pasta Is So Much Easier Than Making Bad Stuff. It Actually Takes Quite An Effort To Make Poor Linguine Pomodora.

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.

An Ounce Of Sauce Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

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When You Have A Child You're No Longer The Star Of The Movie.

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.

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

Theres No Hope, None, Of Ever Talking About It Without Pissing Somebody, If Not Everybody, Off...by The End Of This Hour I Will Be Seen By Many As A Terrorist Sympathizer, A Zionist Tool. A Self-hating Jew, An Apologist For American Imperialism, An Orientalist, Socialist, Fascist, Cia Agent, And Worse.

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.

The Way You Make An Omelet Reveals Your Character.

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.

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.

People Are Generally Proud Of Their Food. A Willingness To Eat And Drink With People Without Fear And Prejudice... They Open Up To You In Ways That Somebody Visiting Who Is Driven By A Story May Not Get.

Being A Vegan Is A First-world Phenomenon, Completely Self-indulgent.

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.

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

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

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

I Think There's A Tendency To Over-jack And Over-umami Food These Days.

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.

Let's At Least Acknowledge Who Is Working In America Right Now And What Our Needs Are, As Well As The Moral Question Of Somebody Who's Been Here 20 Years, Paying Taxes To Which They Probably Do Not Receive A Refund, And Not Committing Any Crimes, Working Hard, And Supporting An Industry. Shouldn't There Be Some Middle Ground Here? Shouldn't There Be A Way For Them To Be Welcome In This Country?

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.

I'm A Pretty Decent Writer. It Comes Easy To Me. I Don't Agonize Over Sentences. I Write Like I Talk. I Try To Make Them Good Books.

I'm Away 250 Days A Year. It's A Tough Situation.

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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.

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.

I'm In No Position To Try To Tell People How To Live Their Family Life.

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.

Even On The Serengeti, It Ain't A Barbecue If There Ain't Some Kind Of Beer.

My Tastes In What I Eat At Home Would Be Very Familiar To Most People Who Cook For Families. I Just Organize Those Things A Little Bit Differently.

I Won't Eat In A Restaurant With Filthy Bathrooms. This Isn't A Hard Call. They Let You See The Bathrooms. If The Restaurant Can't Be Bothered To Replace The Puck In The Urinal Or Keep The Toilets And Floors Clean, Then Just Imagine What Their Refrigeration And Work Spaces Look Like.

There Is No Other Place On Earth Even Remotely Like New Orleans. Don't Even Try To Compare It To Anywhere Else.

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.

There Are People With Otherwise Chaotic And Disorganized Lives, A Certain Type Of Person That's Always Found A Home In The Restaurant Business In Much The Same Way That A Lot Of People Find A Home In The Military.

You'd Have A Hard Time Finding Anything Better Than Barcelona For Food, As Far As Being A Hub. Given A Choice Between Barcelona And San Sebastian To Die In, I'd Probably Want To Die In San Sebastian.

There's Something Wonderful About Drinking In The Afternoon. A Not-too-cold Pint, Absolutely Alone At The Bar - Even In This Fake-ass Irish Pub.

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.

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.

I'm Not Ted Nugent. My House Is Run, Essentially, By An Adopted, Fully Clawed Cat With A Mean Nature. I Would Never Hunt. I Would Never Wear Fur. I Would Never Go To A Bullfight. I'm Not Really A Meat And Potatoes Guy.

I Think We Should Increase The Minimum Wage And I Think $15 Is A Good Beginning.

I Am In No Way Supportive Of Hunting For Trophies Or Sport - Would Never Do It And Don't Like It That Others Do. But If You Kill It, Then Eat It, It's Fine.

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.

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.

Never Try To Get Your Kid To Eat Anything She Doesn't Already Want To Eat. Just Eat Interesting Stuff In Front Of Her While Completely Ignoring Her. Never, Ever Suggest "try It." Never Say Those Dreaded Words "try It, It's Good." Or Worse, "it's Good For You." That'll Poison The Well.

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

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 Going To Get Off The Pony As Long As They Let Me Ride It.

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.

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

Breakfast Being Important

Good Food And Good Eating Are About Risk.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I Do Not Have A Merchandise Line. I Don't Sell Knives Or Apparel. Though I Have Been Approached To Endorse Various Products From Liquor To Airlines To Automobiles To Pharmaceuticals Dozens Of Times, I Have Managed To Resist The Temptation.

Only Texans And Jews Understand Brisket

The Worst, Most Dangerous Person To America Is Clearly Paula Deen. She Revels In Unholy Connections With Evil Corporations And She's Proud Of The Fact That Her Food Is F---ing Bad For You. If I Were On At Seven At Night And Loved By Millions Of People At Every Age, I Would Think Twice Before Telling An Already Obese Nation That It's Ok To Eat Food That Is Killing Us. Plus, Her Food Sucks.

I Make Friends Faster And Easier Than Journalists.

Tokyo Would Probably Be The Foreign City If I Had To Eat One City's Food For The Rest Of My Life, Every Day. It Would Have To Be Tokyo, And I Think The Majority Of Chefs You Ask That Question Would Answer The Same Way.

Drink Heavily With Locals Whenever Possible.

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

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

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.

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