Nora Ephron Quotes

I am an indifferent cook, but I can make pie.

After all these years of cooking and writing recipes, I am still amazed every time I notice how even the minutest of variation in technique can make a spectacular difference.

The art of the cuisine, when fully mastered, is the one human capability of which only good things can be said.

You don't have to be a chef or even a particularly good cook to experience proper kitchen alchemy: the moment when ingredients combine to form something more delectable than the sum of their parts.

One must know combinations, one must have a true knowledge of food to be in the moment.

If you combine good flavors, food turns into an orchestra.

We can use all the scientific tools, but it will never replace the palate or the talent of the chefs who are in the kitchen.

I love the idea of cooking, but I don't like using recipe books, so I'll put a mish-mash together, and it might be amazing by total accident, or it will be a catastrophe.

If it tastes really good, and it's funky, it's funkalicous. If the guy making it is funky, he's funkintacious.

When we eat something at a restaurant, however simple it may look, there's something in it that makes you think, 'Well, I couldn't quite do this from home.'

I can tell everything about a restaurant through their mussels. You have to work so hard to keep them perfect.

While you can have the cult of the celebrity chef, the food still must taste good.

I don't believe in taking unnecessary risks, but a life without risk isn't worth living.

My gift is execution; when I decide I'm going to do something, I'll stop at nothing to do it. Along the way, you take a lot of risks and go for it, but you have to believe in it. You gotta believe in your idea, and lucky for me, I found a lot of success in that.

The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.

A good cook is the peculiar gift of the gods. He must be a perfect creature from the brain to the palate, from the palate to the finger's end.

Even more then long hours in the kitchen, fine meals require ingenious organization and experience which is a pleasure to acquire.

Speak up. Believe in yourself. Take risks.

The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it.

Cooking is 80 percent confidence, a skill best acquired starting from when the apron strings wrap around you twice.

I've said that movies are the highest stakes make-believe game in the world, and this is truly the most highest stakes.

The play-it-safe pessimists of the world never accomplish much of anything, because they don't look clearly and objectively at situations, they don't recognize or believe in their own abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk.

I'm crazy enough to believe in taking chances in every way, in making choices and gambling with your life. That's the kind of gambling I believe in.

I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead.

I'm an adventurer. I believe in being bold and brave - and taking risks. Even if I'm afraid of something, I'll still have a go at it.