Marcela Valladolid Quotes

When I was in India, I felt like being a full-time chef was a very unique career path. It was quite the contrast from the traditional fields like engineering and medicine and not necessarily considered a full time profession.

You know, from age 17 on, my paycheck was coming from cooking and working in kitchens.

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm not that bad. I'm certainly not a boy, and it's been a while since I've been a chef.

You don't become a chef to become famous.

If you're a happy person around food, you can be a professional chef. It's fueled by passion.

I was watching TV and saw the 'Emeril' show, and it spoke to me. I went out and started researching the culinary world and chefs that I knew nothing about. Then I moved to New York and went to culinary school, and everything just fit like a glove. It's been on ever since.

I like to cook. I would probably go to culinary school in France if I had time.

I grew up watching my mom in the kitchen, that's how I know anything about cooking. I've always wanted to go to a culinary class actually.

At 15, I had to choose a vocational school, and I was delighted, of course, to go to culinary school. But learning the basics was not as exciting as being the chef I am today.

I will pursue my passion of cooking every day until my hands fall off and I lose all sense of smell and taste.

The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.

I got my degree in culinary arts in 1978.

If there was one word on a motivation or world view, that one word would be 'liberty.' That's what inspires me and motivates me more than anything - just the concept of freedom, liberty, what it means.

And I found that when I built my own place and just shut the door, the creativity was endless.

Back in the day, cooking definitely was the thing where you could make a lot of money. Also, it was something that I liked to do.

Maybe one of the only things I do well: I cook like a maniac! I would be a chef if I weren't an actor.

I've never considered myself a celebrity or even part of the entertainment business. I'm a cooking teacher.

I want to go to culinary school because I love cooking. One day I'd love to open up a restaurant or cafe.

I definitely wanted to earn my freedom. But the primary motivation wasn't making money, but making an impact.

I love cookbooks for completely different reasons. I love 'The Harry's Bar Cookbook' and Marco-Pierre White's 'White Heat' for their feel. For pure learning, Gray Kunz wrote a great cookbook, 'The Elements of Taste', published in 2001. The first time I read Charlie Trotter's, the Chicago chef's first cookbook, I was blown away.

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

I'm a really good cook. I left home to start my career at 15 - so my choices were to either learn to cook or eat Ramen noodles for the rest of my life.

It is great to add some glamour to the food industry, like television shows have done for the food world and inspiring people to work in the industry. The flip side of that is unfortunately people think that after they get their qualifications, they get their invitation to compete on 'Top Chef.'

When you look at a kitchen, you tend to see that the people who are doing really well are those who have worked with the same chef or stayed in one restaurant for a significant amount of time.

To depend upon a profession is a less odious form of slavery than to depend upon a father.