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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.

-Anthony Bourdain

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When You're Shooting That

Anthony Bourdain

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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.

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Learn How To Cook A (effing) Omelet. I Mean, What Nicer Thing Can You Do For Somebody Than Make Them Breakfast? You Look Good Doing It, And It's A Nice Thing To Do For Somebody You Just Had Sex With.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Doing Graphic Novels Is Cool! It's Fun! You Get To Write Something, And Then See It Visually Page By Page, Panel By Panel, Working With The Artist, You Get To See It Fleshed Out.

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.

Recognise Excellence. Celebrate Weirdness And Innovation. Oddballs Should Be Cherished, If They Can Do Something Other People Can't Do.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Cream Rises. Excellence Does Have Its Rewards.

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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

Italy Is Good In The Sense That When You Bring A Child To A Restaurant In Italy, They're Happy To See It. The Waiters Will Say "complimenti" And Welcome You And Dote After The Kid. They Don't Treat You Like You Just Brought In This Horrible Probably Soon-to-be-squealing Creature Who's Going To Be Difficult.

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

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

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

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.

Without New Ideas Success Can Become Stale

Understand, When You Eat Meat, That Something Did Die. You Have An Obligation To Value It - Not Just The Sirloin But Also All Those Wonderful Tough Little Bits.

When I'm Doing A Book Tour In The States, I'll Wake Up In The Room Sometimes In An Anonymous Chain Hotel, And I Don't Know Where I Am Right Away. I'll Go To The Window, And It Doesn't Help There Either, Especially If You're In An Anonymous Strip And It's The Usual Victoria's Secret, Gap, Chili's, Applebee's.

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

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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.

[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.

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If I Were Trapped In One City And Had To Eat One Nation's Cuisine For The Rest Of My Life, I Would Not Mind Eating Japanese. I Adore Japanese Food. I Love It.

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

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.

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.

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

When You're Training For Jiu-jitsu, Particularly If You're Training For A Competition, You Have To Be Pretty Prescribed In The Variety Of What You Eat.

There's Something Not Normal About You If You're Writing A Book About Yourself, Or About Anything. And If You're The Kind Of Person Who Can Deal With Being Recognized By Strangers And If That's Tolerable Or Pleasing To You, And Not Immediately Terrifying, That's Not Normal Either.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

You Dropped A 500-seat Deuce On Times Square.

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.

The Way You Make An Omelet Reveals Your Character.

For Their Own Good, Vegetarians Should Never Be Allowed Near Fine Beers And Ales. It Will Only Make Them Loud And Belligerent, And They Lack The Physical Strength And Aggressive Nature To Back Up Any Drunken Assertions.

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.

I Listen A Lot To How People Speak. I've Read A Great Many Good Books In My Life. I Had Some Excellent English Teachers. Surely, Those Things Were Helpful.

The Cookbooks I Value The Most In My Collection Are The Ones Where You Hear The Author's Voice And Point-of-view In Every Recipe.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

The Kobe Craze Really Annoyed Me. Most Of The Practitioners Had No Real Understanding Of The Product And Were Abusing It And Exploiting It In Terrible And Ridiculous Ways. Kobe Beef Should Not Be Used In A Hamburger. It's Completely Pointless.

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There Are Chefs Who Are Spectacular Technicians, And Often Their Food Is Worth Eating Once Or Twice, But If There's No Heart In It, If There's No Personality In It, It's Not Something You Want To Go Back For. But Heart Without Any Skill At All? All The Heart In The World Ain't Gonna Help You If You Can't Peel An Onion, Or If You Don't Understand How To Apply Heat Properly. A Well-done Steak Is A Well-done Steak.

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.

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

The Roots Of Creativity Of Cooking Are Hungry People Trying To Figure Out How To Take Something That's Not Particularly Fresh Or Tender And Transform It Into It Something Delicious That Everyone Will Love.

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 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 Am A Delightfully Evangelical Guy About Things I Love. I Am That Annoying Guy Who Sits Everyone Down And Forces Them To Read Some Book I Like. I'm Looking Across The Full Spectrum Of Genres.

There's Always This Assumption That You're Going To Get Everything Right Immediately. And Any Professional Understands That That's Just Not So.

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

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

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.

But I Do Think The Idea That Basic Cooking Skills Are A Virtue, That The Ability To Feed Yourself And A Few Others With Proficiency Should Be Taught To Every Young Man And Woman As A Fundamental Skill, Should Become As Vital To Growing Up As Learning To Wipe One’s Own Ass, Cross The Street By Oneself, Or Be Trusted With Money.

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

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.

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

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.

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'm A Guy Who Should Not Have A Lot Of Free Time. But When It Comes To Vacation, I Like To Pull The Plug Completely. It's All About My Daughter - I'm No Longer The Star Of My Own Movie.

The Ingredients Of A Hamburger Seldom Vary. It's A Percentage Of Fat To Lean Meat, Add Salt And Prepare And That's It. It Shouldn't Need A Recipe.

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

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

Restaurant Business

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

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

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.

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.

I'm Very Proud Of The Rome Episode Of 'no Reservations' Because It Violated All The Conventional Wisdom About Making Television. You're Never, Ever Supposed To Do A Food Or Travel Show In Black And White.

Black And White

I Believe - To The Best Of My Recollection, Anyway - That I Soon Made The Classic Error Of Moving From Margaritas To Actual Shots Of Straight Tequila. It Does Make It Easier To Meet New People.

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.

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.

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.

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’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.

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.

I Don't Snack. I Don't Generally Eat Sweets Or Drink Soda. I Never Eat Between Meals Or Even Before Big Ones.

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

Travel Changes You. As You Move Through This Life And This World You Change Things Slightly, You Leave Marks Behind, However Small. And In Return, Life - And Travel - Leaves Marks On You. Most Of The Time, Those Marks - On Your Body Or On Your Heart - Are Beautiful. Often, Though, They Hurt.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Regret Is Something You’ve Got To Just Live With, You Can’t Drink It Away. You Can’t Run Away From It. You Can’t Trick Yourself Out Of It. You’ve Just Got To Own It.

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.

I Have The Best Job In The World.

Drugs Didn't Work Out Too Well For Me.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Turning Your Nose Up At A Genuine And Sincere Gesture Of Hospitality Is No Way To Travel Or To Make Friends Around The World.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

It's Very Rarely A Good Career Move To Have A Conscience.

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

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

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.

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

You Can Call Me The Bad Boy Chef All You Want. I'm Not Going To Freak Out About It. I'm Not That Bad. I'm Certainly Not A Boy, And It's Been A While Since I've Been A Chef.

Writing Anything Is A Treason Of Sorts.

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.

Whatever Everyone Else Has Asked You To Do Or Never Let You Do, And Let's Do That.

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.

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

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.

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.

If You’re Twenty-two, Physically Fit, Hungry To Learn And Be Better, I Urge You To Travel – As Far And As Widely As Possible. Sleep On Floors If You Have To. Find Out How Other People Live And Eat And Cook. Learn From Them – Wherever You Go.

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

Tough Situations

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.

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.

This Is The Dream Of All The World. The Dream Is To Live In Granada. You Know, Work In The Morning, Have A One-hour In The Afternoon, At Night Go Out And Have That Life. You Know. Go Out And See Your Friends And Eat Tapa And Drink Red Wine And Be In A Beautiful Place.

You Realize After You Travel Enough That There's Some Things That, No Matter How Good You Are At Making Television, No Matter How Good Your Cameras Are, How Well It's Edited, There's No Way The Lenses Could Have Captured The Moment, And There's No Way You Will Ever Be Able To Write About It And Do It Justice.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

If You've Ever Hauled A 28-pound Two-year-old Around New York, You'll Find That Men Fold At The Knees A Lot Quicker Than Women.

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

My Family Is Very Far From Normal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Everything Important I Learned, I Learned As A Dishwasher.

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

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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