Alexandra Guarnaschelli Quotes

I know my way around the kitchen. I like to cook, so I can fry an egg. I guess I could be a fry cook at Bob's Big Boy or something, or maybe a sous chef somewhere a little nicer. I would like to do that. I think I can probably pick that up pretty quickly.

I cook chicken for a living.

I call all chefs 'cooks.' They're all cooks. That's what we do, we cook. You're a chef when you're running a kitchen.

If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She's going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she's around it all the time.

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

I went in saying I wanted to be the food guy.

I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food.

For decades, many blacks were reluctant to pursue a profession that was associated with servitude. If you went to school, it was to become a lawyer or doctor. Older generations didn't understand why one would spend money to learn how to chop, peel, dice, and saute vegetables when that trade could be taught at home.

I hope the cooks who are working for me now are getting that kind of experience so they can use what they're learning now as a foundation for a great career.

I always knew I wanted to be a chef.

I never even dreamed of being a chef, and that's fundamental.

I ended up wanting to be a cook and hold my own in a restaurant.

Being a chef is the best job in the world.

Cooks are an undervalued, awesome profession.

I am not a chef. I can't claim that title. The difference is a cook doesn't have a degree. A chef has formal education. It has nothing to do with talent or actual preparation - one just can't claim the title if you don't have degree.

So I quit my job and went to the New England Culinary Institute for the full two years and worked in the restaurant industry after that until finally I thought I had a grasp on what I needed to do what I do.

While some people may think being a chef only entails making enticing dishes and pushing the culinary boundaries, being a part of the food industry involves much more.

Being a chef would be too much hard work.

Ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential,' I saw a little light bulb go off. Being a chef is like being on a pirate ship; it's not like 'Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?' or whatever my impression was as I was growing up.

Very good cooks who are employed as 'chefs' rarely refer to themselves as 'chefs.' They refer to themselves as 'cooks.'

My dad was a master butcher and I trained to be a butcher when I left school. I didn't enjoy it at the time but I love cooking now, so perhaps I would have been a chef.

I started my cooking 'career' aged 15, almost 20 years ago. At the time it was quite a shock suddenly working 75 to 80 hours a week, without time to play football or other sports.

Who needs one more chef in one more building with four walls and a kitchen?

I started cooking in kitchens right out of high school, and I was lucky to work with a lot of great people, but I had no idea it would turn into this. Of course no one should go into this business because they want to be the next Emeril.

If acting doesn't work out, I'm probably going to be a professional chef.