Billy Williams Quotes

You see, I am friends with a lobsterman. Because we are friends, which feels lucky anyway, I get access to the most amazing fish. It's like having a backstage pass - a culinary jackpot that feels almost undeserved.

I began cutting up fish when I was a little kid.

We went to a small lake, Bass Lake. It was beautiful. It was perfectly still when we got there in the morning. The fog was lifting off the water. It was just magical. And we did catch some fish, 13 fish.

My longtime friend Steven Steinbock, who has worked with me for more than thirty years, is a master at panfrying fish and seafood.

Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.

We also own a little boat and I'm like a kid with it. I take off early in the morning, fishing rod in tow, and just drift about the ocean all day.

With Saturday morning cartoons, you've got to start at 6 A.M., right?

I'm a passionate, hardcore fisherman. Biggest fish I caught? A 200-pound tarpon.

When I was younger, my family would go camping and fishing on our ranches. My dad loves being around all kinds of animals. He's the one who got me to be a really big animal lover.

I had 13 weeks off and I would pack up the family and drive to some mountain retreat where we could be together and fish all day. I loved it. I needed it.

I still went to church regularly every Sunday; that is we all went there together. I reverenced the family pew where we had assembled for so many years; and apart from that reason I hold it dear because it is associated in my memory with my mother.

My mom was a big 'Smurfs' fan, so she would force me to watch every Saturday morning. I had no choice in the matter. I would jump downstairs on Saturday morning, 'Hurray, cartoons!' and she would say, 'Smurfs! That's what you're watching.'

My aunt had a season ticket for the Friday afternoon concerts, and I would go down for lessons. My lessons were Saturday morning.

Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'être. Virtually all of our aunts and uncles had Ph.d. 's in science or engineering, and it was taken for granted that the next generation of Chu's were to follow the family tradition. When the dust had settled, my two brothers and four cousins collected three MDs, four Ph.d. s and a law degree. I could manage only a single advanced degree.

My dad was a crab fisherman.

When I was a kid, we'd go crabbing, as a lot of folks do on the East Coast, and we'd catch some fresh crabs and take it home, and Mom would turn it into this unbelievable crab gravy - or, as they say, sauce.

There is a standard joke in the family. Probably we should go into selling second-hand shoes.

My son has been a class clown and it sort of ran in the family.

I had a series of jobs in the small fishing village in West Wales where my family lived when I was a teenager. I worked as a fisherman in the day, and then the skipper and his wife ran a small restaurant - she'd cook the fish he caught.

When we are down in Mexico, I remember with my mom's help we caught a barracuda and then we ate it that night. And that, to me, was so cool, to be able to filet it, see the whole process. Especially a fish that big.

There was always laughter in our house. And I have great memories of my dad making an Ulster fry on a Saturday morning. They were legendary even though he couldn't really cook.

The summer after college, I got a job as a chef at Conscience Point Inn in Southampton. I spent the summer on the water and cemented my expertise with seafood. I've always gravitated toward places that do seafood.

For a gut punch of nostalgia, consider that Saturday morning cartoons are now largely a thing of the past.

My father used to be a fisherman, so it always makes me feel close to him when I am there on the water catching my dinner.

I believe in the value of life. I believe we must prepare our children for tomorrow with the family values of my grandparents.