Chef Cooking Quotes & Sayings

I'll basically eat anything that a chef puts in front of me. One of the reasons is respect for the chef. I watch chefs eat at other chefs' restaurants, and they're very aware not to leave anything over because the chef is watching very closely. It's a very sincere interaction when two chefs are cooking for one another. — Jon Favreau

Both my partner and I did not get into cooking so that we could wear ugly chef's coats and stuff. We dress sexy in the kitchen. — Marc Jacobs

'Top Chef' is always entertaining - it's hard to stop watching, like a good hockey fight, but no one gets hurt. It's great that the format is so inherently dramatic and can make cooking so entertaining to people who might not ordinarily be interested in a cooking show. Good for the industry all round. — Wylie Dufresne

...if you can't find any grappa, half a cup of cough medicine should achieve similar results." [Audrey's advice] — Tom Gleisner

You have to balance, but you can be aggressive as a chef. It benefits the food. You have to be passionate. You can't be angry cooking. — Marcus Samuelsson

I like cooking, but I don't think I could be a chef. Everyone from the ground up does terrible hours, whether you've just walked in off the street and you've got no experience, to whether you're the head chef. You can work 14 or 15-hour days. It's really, really intense. — James McAvoy

Our clients wanted the restaurant experience, not their mother's buffet dinner - so we reached out to that world and hired a series of restaurant chefs: Robb Garceau from Jean Georges, Cornelius Gallagher from Oceana. Cornelius completely revolutionized our menu; he did a stint at El Bulli, and one of the techniques he brought back was sous-vide cooking. Our current chef, Patrick Phelan, continues to grow the vision. — David Castle

IMBECILE!" the chef shouted. "Next time why don't you just put your whole HAND in the food, hey? Yes, your whole hand, or maybe your FACE! I arrange the food on plates with care, are you understanding what I am telling you? It is part of the art form of cooking, yes? A lovely plate of food is a thing of beauty! And then you, NUMBSKULL, come along and put your fat greasy FINGERS all over my plate, and SHAKE the plate, and move my food all around the plate until it looks like pigs' vomit!"
"Chef Vlad!" I cried out in delight. — Kenneth Oppel

I liked the energy of cooking, the action, the camaraderie. I often compare the kitchen to sports and compare the chef to a coach. There are a lot of similarities to it. — Todd English

I always hated watching cooking shows where the chef would use ingredients that I couldn't get my hands on, cooking implements that I couldn't afford, recipes that I could never have access to. — Adam Richman

I'm the joke of the family with cooking because I've never done it - primarily because I've been surrounded by people who are so good at it. Mum's brilliant. Boyfriends have always been good at it. I'm waiting for my inner chef to be released. — Emilia Fox

Larousse Gastronomique is a veritable dictionary of cooking terms for the French kitchen. If a chef were allowed only one book, this would have to be it. — Mario Batali

I'm a bit of a gourmet chef. I love cooking - mostly Thai food. — Will Ferrell

The first thing Julian wanted to do in life, well, before he wanted to be an artist and then a musician, was to be a chef. He'd come home and say 'Why don't you bake cakes like my friends' mothers?' I'd say, 'Oh, Julian, go out and buy a Mary Baker cake mix and do it yourself!' That started him off! By the time he was 13, he'd disappear into the kitchen whenever we had visitors and emerge with beautiful canapes. Now he thinks nothing of cooking for ten or 15 people, and he does it so calmly. — Cynthia Lennon

Now I know why I had that dream last night. It was a premonition forewarning me of the death of my cooking career!"
"I doubt that your cooking career is over. You may be working at Coney Island until you retire, but you'll still be a chef," smiled Colleen.
Alice laughed, her face softened.
"Hey! Maybe if you're lucky you could work at Denny's!" said Melaine. "They're open twenty-four-seven and have an incredible breakfast menu. I would definitely come and support you."
"Thanks Mel, but I'm more of a IHOP girl," said Alice. — Katie Mattie

It wasn't the traditional cooking most people do. For me, as a young chef, Thanksgiving meant going to work in the kitchen at places like Gotham, JoJo and Jean-Georges. — Wylie Dufresne

First and foremost I am a chef, whether behind the stove at one of my Northern California restaurants or for the past 15 years in front of the camera on my Food Network cooking shows. Creating new dishes and flavor combinations that bring cooks and our restaurant guests pleasure is my job and I love it. — Tyler Florence

It's a very naive idea to think that the chef is cooking everything, and, on top of it, is irreplaceable. That would mean that basically he is the only genius, and there are idiots all around him, which doesn't make sense. — Eric Ripert

I'm a home cook and love to read about food, but I'm not trained as a chef. I'm just really into cooking and passionate about it. — Ted Allen

Its front porch had a beautiful view of the water and invisible screening to keep the jellybugs and stinkmoths at bay. I wove mats for the floors and painted sincere, klutzy seascapes for the walls. Piece by piece I assembled chef-quality cooking equipment, learned how to use it, and achieved a state of domestic competence that would have astounded my long-suffering ex-wife, Joanna. — Julian May

Young chefs, famous chefs, home cooks, and everyone who loves food and cooking-we all depend on Larousse Gastronomique. It is the only culinary encyclopedia that is always up-to-date. — Daniel Boulud

The restaurant chefs in Spain are breaking ground, but in terms of the everyday cooking in Spain I still hear people coming back and saying they were disappointed. I think it's because they're expecting the chef stuff. — Sally Schneider

I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting. — Andy Rooney

You wouldn't know it but I'm no good at ... cooking. My chef does that. — Carolina Herrera

I stock up on fancy food because I'm also planning on morphing into a master chef and actually cooking instead of just eating nachos for dinner every night. — Allie Brosh

I'm over here in my unit, isolated and alone, eating my terrible tasting food, and I have to look over at that. That looks like the most fun I've ever seen in my entire life, and it's B.S. - excuse my language. I'm just saying that I wash and dry; I'm like a single mother. Look, we all know home-ec is a joke - no offense - it's just that everyone takes this class to get an A, and it's bullshit - and I'm sorry. I'm not putting down your profession, but it's just the way I feel. I don't want to sit here, all by myself, cooking this shitty food - no offense - and I just think that I don't need to cook tiramisu. When am I gonna need to cook tiramisu? Am I going to be a chef? No. There's three weeks left of school, give me a fuckin' break! I'm sorry for cursing. — Seth

A sous-chef with dreams of her own restaurant empire may have mastered the art of classical French sauce making, but not yet have developed the signature cooking style she imagines as the cornerstone of her own chain of restaurants. She gauges her progress not only by whether she is moving toward her aspirations, but also by her improving skills. Our chef may not yet have the stature of Chef Auguste Escoffier or Emeril Lagasse, but she can remember a time when she could not name the five French mother sauces, let alone execute them. She's made progress. Appreciating the skills she has developed is a marker along the path toward her culinary aspirations. The sense of accomplishment that accompanies improved skills is one of the rewards we reap when we dedicate ourselves to mastery. — Marian Deegan

I've swallowed fish-eyes whole
like an endoscope.
I once ate a trout cooked inside a dolphin.
Felt like a shark eating another shark,
inside the cold-blooded womb of yet another shark. — Yann Rousselot

While some people are good at painting, playing an instrument or singing, I have been told more than once I am good at storytelling. I hope that you enjoy my stories as I recall them. — Eric Arrouze

I am a bit of a gourmet chef. I love cooking mostly Thai food. And a lot of times on movies, you have these trailers that have these little ovens and kitchenettes. A lot of actors never use them, but I would cook lunch just about every day. — Will Ferrell

In cooking I found my mentor in this great chef, Albert Roux. I think this is a very important thing in life, to find someone who can steer you because to find it all by yourself is quite a difficult and slow process. That's not to say you won't ever get there, but to find a great coach, a great mentor, someone to show you the way and to open a few windows and doors, is a wonderful thing in life. — Paul Rankin

Success is the accomplishment of any number of possible aims, dreams, aspirations or goals. It's very personal and unique to you. Your greatest desire could be someone else's idea of hell; you might want to be an award-winning chef while your best friend hates cooking. — Nigel Cumberland

As chef Mehdi Chellaoui says, "I use lemon like I use salt." Mario Batali would agree: if something is missing, it's probably acid. — Timothy Ferriss

In normal life, "simplicity" is synonymous with "easy to do," but when a chef uses the word, it means "takes a lifetime to learn. — Bill Buford

Only when a chef changed the way you saw the world, through cooking, did food truly become art, and that was rare indeed. — Michael Ruhlman

If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it's not good cooking for yourself; the joy is in cooking for others - it's the same with music. — Will.i.am

The idea of old was to conform yourself to a style of cooking, it was not to create a style of cooking. Now the chef is so much into 'I want to sign that dish and say I am the one who made that dish.' — Jacques Pepin

I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food. — Marcus Samuelsson

I always loved cooking, from an early age. I kind of wanted to be a chef. — Caleb Followill

Hockey and cooking are similar in so many ways, especially if you are a player-coach, the guy in charge on the ice, a role I would closely relate to that of a chef in the kitchen - they are both contact sports.

You've gotta keep your head up, keep moving and communicate well. Even though you might be the leader in the kitchen or on the ice, you need to understand that that you're part of a working machine and that machine stops working if one of the pieces isn't working in unison with the others. I learned from a very young age the importance of being part of this team dynamic and how hard work can take you to so many different places.

(Chef Duane Keller) — Chris Hill

I thought we were going to take a 20-mule team out to the Grand Canyon and get a Bunsen burner and a bow and arrow, and whatever you can catch you cook. And it's gotta be gourmet and it better look good. — The Creators Of Top Chef

...behind every Guide Michelin chef there was a woman, usually a four foot cataract-ridden old granny from whom he'd filched his best recipes. — Karen Karbo

With cult foods, there is an underlying assumption that the best cooking ideas came generations ago. Yet culinary innovation is nothing to be ashamed of. When a chef tells me he is cooking with his grandmother's recipe, I always wonder why. Did talent skip the past two generations? — Nathan Myhrvold

Delivering a speech or presentation is like cooking a meal; as long as the chef is good the cuisine doesn't matter. — Jack Canfield

I remember when I was in college, I used to watch Julia Child's cooking show during dinner and joke with my roommates about becoming a TV chef. — Martin Yan

Today, women in general are more likely to do housework than men - cooking and cleaning. But why is that? Is it because women are born with a cooking gene or because over years they have been socialized to see cooking as their role? I was going to say that perhaps women are born with a cooking gene until I remembered that the majority of famous cooks in the world - who are given the fancy title of "chef" - are men. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You probably would not choose to dine at a restaurant whose chef always ate elsewhere. I do eat my own cooking, and I don't "dine out" when it comes to investing. — Seth Klarman

We in the media have been guilty about not doing a better job of making people understand how really simple cooking is. We've made everyone feel like they have to be a chef. — Ruth Reichl

Cooking is not difficult. Everyone has taste, even if they don't realize it. Even if you're not a great chef, there's nothing to stop you understanding the difference between what tastes good and what doesn't. — Gerard Depardieu

My husband is the chef of the family; he's a brilliant cook. Actually, it makes you quite lazy when you have somebody that's so good at cooking under the same roof. It's all beans or spaghetti when I'm left to run it. — Keeley Hawes

My dad was a master butcher and I trained to be a butcher when I left school. I didn't enjoy it at the time but I love cooking now, so perhaps I would have been a chef. — Brendan Coyle

My love for cooking began when I was young. Because my parents were in the army, they were both really busy. A lot of times I'd have to cook for the family; I'd rotate with my siblings. It started out as a chore, but as I got older, my mom started to see that I was really good at it. I became her sous chef. — Tia Mowry

Cooking is like playing a violin. The bow is a tool used to play, as is the knives and other tools you use to prepare. (a chef's knife is even held in the same manner) Spices are the notes used in the score. The way the food is cooked and prepared is the rhythm and tempo. The ingredients are the violin themselves, ready to be played upon. The finished dish is the music played to its best melody. All of these things must be applied together at the right pace, manner, and time in order to create a flavourful rush of artwork and beauty. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Having a sous-chef with excellent cooking skills and a criminal mind is one of God's great gifts. — Anthony Bourdain

Whenever I'd go to restaurants, the main chef came out and was cooking for me, and he's asking me how the food is. I get, like, VIP service, so it's weird. — Inbee Park

We had to have white people front like the chef and owners. It was not OK for my dad to sell steak, but white people cooking Asian get more attention than the people in Chinatown who actually know what the fuck they're doing. — Eddie Huang

sometimes i feel like a great chef
who has devoted his entire life
to monastic study of the art of cooking
& gathered the finest ingredients
& built the most advanced kitchen
& prepared the most exquisite meal
so perfect, so delicious, so extraordinary
more astounding than any meal ever created
yet each day i stand in my window
& watch ninety-seven percent of the world
walk past my restaurant
into the mcdonald's
across the street — Daniel Lyons

Why don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer. — Lydia Davis

I sometimes think the chef end of cooking is not the real end of cooking. Cooking is all about homes and gardens, it doesn't happen in restaurants. — Delia Smith

My late wife Olympia was Goan and I've been to India many times. I love the food there. We used to do our shopping in Southall, where you can find cheap but wonderful fruit like mangoes, vegetables and spices. I didn't do much of the cooking, as Olympia did a lot - I was the under-chef and did some of the chopping. — Vince Cable

I've been a model for 15 years, and I've been on 'Top Chef' for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I've learned a thing or two about how to camouflage certain areas and how to draw the eye to a preferable area of the body. — Padma Lakshmi

If you're not the one cooking, stay out of the way and compliment the chef. — Michael Strahan

Cooking is for chefs. Science informs us and lets us cook while knowing what we are doing, but it is not a replacement for the skills of a chef. — Nathan Myhrvold

I train my chefs with a blindfold. I'll get my sous chef and myself to cook a dish. The young chef would have to sit down and eat it with a blindfold. If they can't identify the flavor, they shouldn't be cooking the dish. — Gordon Ramsay

I'm not a chef. I think in this country, we use the term very loosely. I'm a cook and a teacher. — Julia Child