Kitchen Culture Quotes

I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.

I grew up in the 1970s, but I don't think a whole lot had changed from the '60s. Oh, it had changed in the law books - but not in the kitchens of white homes.

Not every chef is a yeller, but I have to say that even a chef who is not a yeller might have a time when that rule might get broken.

I haven't raised my voice for eight to 10 years in the kitchen. And I won't have anybody shouting. If I hear of anybody having a go at anyone else, they'll get disciplined.

Chef: Any cook who swears in French.

I came from the old world of gastronomy. Many years ago I walked into the kitchens of the Hotel St George and I feel very fortunate that I worked for chefs that were behind their stoves. I saw that world of gastronomy. I can sit here today and say that I saw the golden age of gastronomy. It's gone, it's gone. It's never going to have that anymore, once the accountants get involved the romance fades. That's the reality.

Cooking and eating are among the most important ways we weave days into lives.

The thing is, I can teach. I can teach bloody well. So few chefs have that level of generosity. I demand a lot, a f***ing hell of a lot, but I give a lot back.

One day, the people who work in my kitchen stir-fried chopped Napa cabbage to serve with some meat or fish for their own dinner. I got to thinking: 'What if the cabbage was the most important thing on the plate?'

I cannot bear the language TV chefs use - they don't seem able to look at a plate of vegetables without accusing it of sexual activity.

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.

The monotony of provincial life attracts the attention of people to the kitchen. You do not dine as luxuriously in the provinces as in Paris, but you dine better, because the dishes serve you are the result of mediation and study.

'Kitchen Confidential' wasn't a cautionary or an expose. I wrote it as an entertainment for New York tri-state area line cooks and restaurant lifers, basically; I had no expectation that it would move as far west as Philadelphia.

Both my parents are chefs... I grew up in a restaurant and was always surrounded by cooks. I love food.

I spend a lot of time in our kitchen. I find it the cosiest, friendliest place in the house. It's not something my American upbringing prepared me for, but now that I live in England, it's become very important to me.

What does happen in 'Gourmet,' we had eight test kitchens, and at any given time, there were, like, ten or twelve test cooks. And whenever anybody finished something, they would yell, 'Taste!' and everyone would go running towards it, and then taste, and then brutally deconstruct the dish.

Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.

I still think we have a long way to go on rebuilding a culture of cooking. Everyday simple cooking.

Our kitchen is a kitchen that makes food designed to be tasted with the five senses and it requires concentration to appreciate all that we want to express.

Something that you can't play in your kitchen is rap. It is done in your neighbour's kitchen.

It's very important in a restaurant to really do the right hiring because there's no restaurant that you have one cook and one chef and nobody else in the kitchen. Generally you have five, ten, 15 people with you. So that's really important is to train them right, but first you have to hire the right people.

It goes back to the early days in the kitchen where you would be tasting dishes all night long, so the last thing I want to do in the morning is eat. Chefs generally tend to be grazers.

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.

The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows.

There really is a camaraderie among chefs and a willingness to help out whenever we can.