Aarti Sequeira Quotes

Learning to cook at school gave me the confidence to experiment in the kitchen when I left home in my late teens - I wasn't intimidated by it.

I love food and am very good at improvising when preparing it - it's a really creative experience for me.

What has impressed me the most about the Italians whose tables we've sat at is that they are traditional cooks but also outrageously innovative. These people are wild improvisers.

I'll read a recipe but then decide, 'Well, it's sort of like this, then.' Or I'll go to the fridge and think, 'I'll see what I can put together,' and I'll combine beetroot and sausage and prawns with goat's cheese sprinkled on top and think, 'I like that they're all slightly pink. It looks fine and... actually, it is fine.'

I've never got on with recipes. Free yourself - throw them out!

I'm a very improvisational cook. I sort of like to make things up as I go along. I'm quite creative in the kitchen.

I'm just trying to cook good food, and I'm not afraid to do whatever I need to do to keep the food evolving.

I always feel like the editing room is like coming into the kitchen. What kind of a meal do you make from there? It can be anything.

I'm not a trained chef, so I end up making stuff up. It either turns out brilliant or an absolute disaster. I just go for it.

I always had a lot of fun in America, with much more freedom than if I had tried to cook in France. I wouldn't have the same motivation or inspiration, and I wouldn't have cooked for the same kind of people in France, so it wouldn't have given me this edge I had in America.

The Momofuku Culinary Lab started as a space where we could focus on creating and innovating. I didn't want us to worry about working on projects in a restaurant; there are just too many distractions in service and running a kitchen to be able to focus on creating your dishes.

I love to cook. My dad's a really excellent cook and his style is: Look in the fridge and make whatever there is with whatever ingredients you have and I like cooking like that, too.

See, I'm a believer that people are born with a sense of cooking. It's something within them that really gives them the ability to create and to understand flavors.

There's nobody you can call and say, 'So, can you maybe send me your formula for frying Hollandaise?' because to the best of my knowledge, it didn't exist before we did it.

I'm a firm believer that the world should be your oyster when you're cooking. People should open themselves to other cuisines - there are a lot of hidden secrets all over the world.

Cooking allows you to have travels, adventures and journeys without going anywhere. The running joke between my partner and me is that I'm not really concerned about how long it takes, or how much I destroy the kitchen, because I just have such a good time doing it.

I seriously love to cook... My grandmother was an amazing cook. As a kid I used to help her make handmade pasta, Cavatelli and Ravioli. It was one of my favorite things to do. I love the idea of making whatever is in the fridge into something.

Don't be afraid to adapt new ingredients into your own techniques, and traditional ingredients into new recipes.

To me, the kitchen is a place of adventure and entirely fun, not drudgery. I can't think of anything better to do with family and friends than to be together to create something.

Any idea's a great idea as long as it tastes great.

Your idea of that dish has evolved, and if you're a cook, you can start thinking in different ways about it, maybe even a different way than I think about it.

My biggest challenge is cooking traditional French dishes, which usually require very specific techniques and methods. That's just not my style... I cook from the soul.

I do most of the cooking in my head.

I'm not a trained chef. I'm a self-taught cook, and I want people to be like, 'Yo, I could do that! Maybe I didn't think to or maybe it seemed harder than it really is.'

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.