Tom Junod Quotes

I'll never forget the first time I saw someone who had died. It was my grandfather. And I knelt next to his coffin. And all I could do was eye level was look at his hands. They were enormous hands. And all I could think was, 'Those hands dug freedom for me.'

If baking is any labor at all, it's a labor of love. A love that gets passed from generation to generation.

I love cooking for the sake of understanding how people before me used to feed themselves, used to feed their families.

The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memorized glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow's past.

When I was growing up, my grandmother cooked every day. She is the best chef ever.

I wanted to keep that message of food and family alive, and how it brings people together and builds relationships and communication.

My grandfather was dying, and told the family he had decided to die. ... At that moment I wanted so badly to write and tell him that he was never going to die, that somehow he would always be present in my life, because he had a theory that death didn't exist, only forgetfulness did. He believed that if you can keep people in your memory, they will live forever. That's what he did with my grandmother.

With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of fire and steam, Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream. Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past. But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin; And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung, Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young.

For children preserve the fame of a man after his death.

Time is the only comforter for the loss of a mother.

I never feel more useful than when I'm making my kids a bowl of soup.

Gravy is the simplest, tastiest, most memory-laden dish I know how to make: a little flour, salt and pepper, crispy bits of whatever meat anchored the meal, a couple of cups of water or milk and slow stirring to break up lumps.

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.

You know that old saying, 'A way to a man's heart is through his stomach' - that's me.

Our dad was a great guy and we will never forget him.

I think perhaps we all cook to feed some kind of hunger in ourselves. I am nourished by being surrounded by family and friends, by creating something delicious for them, by nurturing them.

Our deaths become a part of our lives in the sense that with our deaths we give something to those who are left behind, as we have given our lives to them.

The first meal my husband ever made me was a chicken curry. I have never tasted anything so delicious in my life.

Marriage is about love, but it is not first and foremost about love. First and foremost, marriage is about continuity and transmission.

Sometimes the past seems too big for the present to hold.

Poetry is what we do to break bread with the dead.

Things that came before, people and things and experiences - that does mean something to me. It doesn't mean I don't embrace the new, but I don't forget the past, either.

And, I believe that one of the most loving things you can do is prepare a meal for someone you love. None of which I know how to do!

I love cooking. It's one of my favorite things to do. To share my parents' recipes that I grew up with is just something very special to me.

Dad, wherever you are, you are gone but you will never be forgotten.