Quotes about cooking

A collection of quotes on the topic of tea, coffee, food, cooking.

Best quotes about cooking

“God made food; the devil the cooks.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

“Soup is never eaten as hot as it is cooked.”

Heinrich Müller (1900–1945) German police official and head of the Gestapo

Quoted in "The SS, Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945" - Page 33 - by Gerald Reitlinger - History - 1989

“You've been nipping at cook's wine!!”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

“Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“a pot a cook but the food na kno”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“my wifes cooking is so bad the flys fix our screens”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

“If you knew how to cook, maybe Ieat.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

“I like children. If they're properly cooked.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

“… Ivy’s COOK THE STEAK, DON’T STAKE THE COOK apron…”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: A Perfect Blood

Quotes about cooking

“There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

For Wife, Love, Beauty

“But I know for a fact that had I had a father, I'd have some discipline. I'd have more confidence. Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can. Your mother can't reassure you the way a man can. My mother couldn't show me where my manhood was. You need a man to teach you how to be a man. When I was young I was quiet, withdrawn. I read a lot, wrote poetry, kept a diary. I watched TV all day. I stayed in front of the television. It was when I was in front of the TV by myself, being alone in the house by myself, having to cook dinner by myself, eat by myself. Just being by myself and looking at TV, at families and all these people out there in this pretend world. I knew I could be part of it if I pretended too, So early on I just watched and emulated … and I just thirsted for that. I thought if I could be and act like those characters, act like those people, I could have some of their joy. If I could act like I had a big family I wouldn't feel as lonely.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

People, World, Family, Way

“There's no such thing, like a female with good looks who cooks and cleans.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Business"
2000s, The Eminem Show (2002)

“People who want to rise above a well-cooked meal and a well-tailored garment, are out of their spiritual minds.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 157

People

“There is a particular hapiness in giving a man whom you like very much, good food that you have cooked yourself.”

Karen Blixen book Out of Africa

Source: Out of Africa

Food

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

Harriet Van Horne (1920–1998) American journalist

Love

“When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

Music, Painting, Housing, Sea

“the vase once had an extremely common use. Most probably it was used for cooking-oil. It was made by a designer of those times, when art and life went hand in hand and there was no such thing as a work of art to look at and just any old thing to use. I”

Bruno Munari (1907–1998) Italian artist and designer

Source: Design as Art

Life, Art, Time

“Things, even people have a way of leaking into each other like flavours when you cook.”

Salman Rushdie book Midnight's Children

Source: Midnight's Children

People, Way

“In our dreams we can have our eggs cooked exactly how we want them, but we can't eat them.”

Anna Freud (1895–1982) Austrian-British psychoanalyst & essayist

Dreams

“[Ibn Battuta’s description of the preparation of samosa would make one’s mouth water even today:] “Minced meat cooked with almond, walnut, pistachios, onion and spices placed inside a thin bread and fried in ghee.””

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Water

“I eat only white foods: eggs, sugar, grated bones, the fat of dead animals; veal, salt, coconut, chicken cooked in white water; fruit mold, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, dough, cheese (white), cotton salad, and certain fish (skinless).”

Erik Satie (1866–1925) French composer and pianist

Quoted by Rollo H. Myers (1968). Erik Satie, p.135. New York: Dover.
See also Socrate for the context of this quote.
General quotes

Food, Fish, Water, Animals

“The trouble with trouble was that trouble was looking for Coldwater Gatling. They don't like Texas Rangers down in Arizona, consequently Coldwater Gatling figured shoot first and find out who you killed afterwards. That's how they did it in the Lone Star State where men were men and the women didn't mind cooking for hard-riding straight-shooting people like Coldwater Gatling, the toughest man in leather they had down there.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Women, Men, People, Star

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

Problem, Change, Fight

“He has artistry," he repeated. "Because that's what it takes to blow things up. And cook his arm.”

Tamora Pierce book Mastiff

Source: Mastiff

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”

Anthony Bourdain book Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Medium Raw (2010)
Source: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

People, Travel, Sleep, Learning

“Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

“I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Way, Clothes

“There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humor (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Letter to Deborah Webster (25 October 1958)

Food, Travel, Sense, Tree

“I love to travel and read books but it's cooking that has a healing effect on me. Whenever I am not well I cook something nice and the aroma of the food works wonders for me.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Cooking that helps to de-stress me http://www.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/Balance-music-and-education-Shreya/articleshow/5291639.cms

Love, Books, Food, Travel

“(On Ainsley Harriott) I must admit, I tend to think - with Ainsley - if you're that happy, you haven't really understood the world. You see, I think that cheeriness is all very well. Beyond a certain point it becomes quite offensive. And how many versions of what is, basically, your dinner can Ainsley do? There must be executives stalking the corridors of White City, thinking 'We need a new idea for Ainsley. He's so jolly. What can we have? We've had him doing Can't Cook, Won't Cook, Ready Steady Cook, Barbecues. We need something new, different, edgy. How about this? We like this. Ainsley's Death-Row Dinners.' Yes, the jolly chef tours the condemned man with a last supper to remember. We can have the recipes in the Radio Times - Ainsley's Humanely Fried Chicken, with a lethal injection of butter!”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

guaranteed to make the governor say 'Pardon'. (Wrap Up Warm tour, May 2004)
Stand-up

Death, World, Idea, Thinking

“Whenever you wash dishes, cook, or clean, if you make no sound, this is smartness itself. A person who enters a house and makes a lot of noise is revealing a lack of spirituality; even cats and dogs do not make unnecessary sounds, and man as he naturally is does not make any either.”

Michio Kushi (1926–2014) Japanese educator

Source: Spiritual Journey: Michio Kushi's Guide to Endless Self-Realization and Freedom (1994, with Edward Esko), p. 4

Dogs, Cats, Nature, Housing

“People who chase after ever greater wealth without taking the time to enjoy it are like hungry people who are forever cooking but never sit down to eat.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 33.

People, Time, Wealth

“A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well—this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection, and of sociality as a whole.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 8 (p. 247)

Success, Heart, Joy

“I saw, all of a sudden, an odd-looking bird making its way through the water to the opposite bank, followed by a great commotion. I found it was a domestic fowl which had managed to escape impending doom in the galley by jumping overboard and was now trying frantically to swim across. It had almost gained the bank when the clutches of its relentless pursuers closed on it, and it was brought back in triumph, gripped by the neck. I told the cook I would not have any meat for dinner. I really must give up animal food. We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do. There are many crimes which are the creation of man himself, the wrongfulness of which is put down to their divergence from habit, custom, or tradition. But cruelty is not of these. It is a fundamental sin, and admits of no argument or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, its protest against cruelty is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us ⎯ in fact, any one who does not join in is dubbed a crank. … if, after our pity is aroused, we persist in throttling our feelings simply in order to join others in their preying upon life, we insult all that is good in us. I have decided to try a vegetarian diet.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

Life, Food, Way, Feeling

“My wife's cooking's gotten a lot better since she learned the smoke alarm wasn't a timer. I had to tell her, "Honey, the food's done before that particular buzzer goes off!"”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

They Call Me Tater Salad

Food, Learning

“And you can't go, "There's a hair in my Jell-O. I'd like to send this back. Can I see the cook, please?" The cook is a big dude named Bubba Joe.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

“How we stop the black panthers?
Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer Who gave Saddam anthrax?
George Bush got the answers”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Crack Music
Lyrics, Late Registration (2005)

“Whether you’re a vegan or not, there are endless reasons why we should all be delighted that the movement has grown so fast in the last few years. … Through adapting their diets to make sure they get all the vitamins they need, to pressuring big corporations and governments for more ethical products, vegans are giving food the focus it deserves. They are also doing their bit to reduce food miles and emissions … They’re teaching us a thing or two as well. My vegan and vegetarian friends have cooked me some fantastic meals, many of which I now make regularly. It’s saving me money, encouraging me to eat more vegetables, and reducing my meat intake. While I have no plans to give up meat, I recognise that it shouldn’t be the focus of my diet. I am now vegetarian every other day – not consciously, but because lots of my favourite meals are meat-free. I have also learnt lots of new techniques as I work around the limits of reducing dairy and meat products. I make cakes without eggs, burgers without beef, and pastry without butter. I … refuse to buy any animal product that doesn’t have a guarantee of quality such as Freedom Food, free range or organic status.”

Jamie Oliver (1975) British chef and media personality

"World Vegan Month is good for everyone" https://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/world-vegan-month-is-good-for-everyone/, JamieOliver.com (November 3, 2014).

Money, Food, Freedom, Animals

“In my memoir, I wanted to introduce American women to Iranian women and our lives. I'm not from the highest echelons of society, nor the lowest. I'm a women who is a lawyer, who is a professor at a university, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, I cook. And even when I'm about to go to prison, one of the first things I do is to make enough food and put it in the fridge for my family.”

Shirin Ebadi (1947) Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

From 2006 interview with Ebadi by New America Media editor Brian Shott (translator, Banafsheh Keynoush) about her newly released book, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope. <br class="br"> New America Media, 2006. http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8ad8e36442c10ef7fc33f0c8e70c08d8 (retrieved Oct. 15, 2008)

Women, Family, Peace, Food

“Pointless but intense excitement holds us in TV dramas. We hear threatening music. A killer with a gun steals into the bedroom of a sleeping woman. More subliminal sounds of danger, pointlessly ominous. The woman wakes and runs into the kitchen for a knife. The cops are on the case. We watch as the criminal is pursued through night streets; shots, a death; a body falls from a roof. Then time is up, another drama begins. Now we are in a church. No, we are in a lecture hall; no again — a drawer opens in a morgue. A woman is looking for her kidnapped child. Then that ends, and we are on the veld with zebras and giraffes. Then with Lenin at a mass meeting. And suddenly we flash away to a cooking school; we are shown how to stuff a turkey. Next the Berlin Wall comes down. Or flags are burning. Or a panel is worrying about the rug crisis. More and more public themes, with less and less personal consciousness. Clearly, personal consciousness is shrinking.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"The Distracted Public" (1990), pp. 159-160
It All Adds Up (1994)

Death, School, Music, Sleep

“My assistant showed me a video called Forks and Knives (sic) or something, about (cutting out) meat and dairy products, so I thought, 'I'll give this a shot!' … I feel OK actually, I feel better about myself, you know? I go on binges… That's the reason why I decided to cut out meat out and dairy because I've limited what I can have because when you're on the road and you're travelling, you grab buns and… burgers are everywhere… so now I've just narrowed the margin. … I'm not saying I'm gonna do it forever; I might go back - when my wife learns to cook, so that'll be never!”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

On his new vegan diet in order to get healthier, in an interview on his wife Sharon's US daytime talkshow The Talk (25 October 2011), as quoted in "Ozzy Osbourne Trying Out Vegan Diet", in Contactmusic.com (25 October 2011) http://www.contactmusic.com/ozzy-osbourne/news/ozzy-osbourne-trying-out-vegan-diet_1252586

Travel, Feeling, Learning

“In many, many fields. I expected people in the social sciences-economics, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, politics, sociology, religion and numerous other areas to pick up on it. It's been somewhat of a mystery to me why even to this day, so few social scientists have discovered how useful it could be. Instead, Fuzzy Logic was first embraced by engineers and used in industrial process controls and in "smart" consumer products such as hand-held camcorders that cancel out jittering and microwaves that cook your food perfectly at the touch of a single button. I didn't expect it to play out this way back in 1965.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

Response to the question: "How did you think Fuzzy Logic would be used at first?"
1990s, Interview with Lotfi Zadeh, Creator of Fuzzy Logic (1994)

People, Religion, Food, Way

“With the right of the scientist to investigate most aspects of the material universe, most persons will agree; but there are some who have questioned the applicability of scientific methods to an investigation of human sexual behavior…. It is as though the dietician and biochemist were denied the right to analyze foods and the processes of nutrition, because the cooking and proper serving of food may be rated a fine art, and because the eating of certain foods has been considered a matter for religious regulation.”

Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) American scientist (1894–1956)

page 8
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953)

Food, Art, Behavior, Question

“Ninety percent of the people of Cook County drink and gamble and my offense has been to furnish them with those amusements. Whatever else they may say, my booze has been good and my games have been on the square. Public service has been my motto.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Game, Drink, People

“We have to look at, culturally, what we celebrate in women versus what we celebrate in men…I love my family and I love being at home and cooking, but my husband does just as much of all of that as I do. We are equal partners in raising our kids, we are equal partners in what we do in the home, and we are equal partners in going out and working. Ambition is so important because you only live once. So where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? Well, take the bull by the horns and go for it. There’s never going to be the perfect time to try something. More women should start companies.”

Jessica Alba (1981) American model, free-diver and businesswoman; TV and film actress

On the expanding traits that might be celebrated in women in “When Red Met Jessica Alba” https://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/interviews/a523393/jessica-alba-cover-interview/ in Red (2016 Jan 7)

Home, Family, Time, Making love

“An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me; the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating. When one can have the cooked flesh, why have the raw?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Diary entry on James Joyce's Ulysses (16 August 1922), quoted in Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary (1953; 1965), p. 47

Books

“To be a good cook you have to have a love of the good, a love of hard work, and a love of creating.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Source: Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Have Shaped Our Times

Love

“I suppose this is for the best," Blay said into his shoulder. "You can't cook."
"See? I'm so not Prince Charming.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

“You love me. You ignore me. You save my life, then you cook my mother into soap.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Love, Life

“I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

“Basia coquum," Simon said. "Or whatever their motto is."
"It's 'Descensus Averno facilis est.' 'The descent into hell is easy," said Alec. "You just said "Kiss the cook."
"Dammit," said Simon. "I knew Jace was screwing with me.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Hell, Kiss

“The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen.”

James Beard (1903–1985) American chef

Love, Secret

“Lord, you're Irish," said Will. "Can you make things that don't have potatoes in them? We had an Irish cook once when I was a boy. Potato pie, potato custard, potatoes with potato sauce…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Boy

“And then as always, I saw the prayer coming at me.
And, as always, Number 1 killed me! Set me on fire, cooked me to medium rare and then ate me!
I really, really, really hope I haven't just given away the ending of this story.”

James Patterson book The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Source: The Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Hope

“The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Indirect quote on The National (CBC TV), Aug. 13

Food, Time, Waiting

“She wished she had a little yellow house of her own, with a flower box full of real flowers and herbs – pansies and rosemary – and a sweet lover who would swing dance with her in the evenings and cook pasta and read poetry aloud.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Violet & Claire

Flowers, Lovers, Reading, Dance

“I'd rather hop freights around the country and cook my food out of tin cans over wood fires, than be rich and have a home or work.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Food, Home, Country

“I hope when I'm ninety-five the only things I want are free: love, family, a good home-cooked meal.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Love, Family, Hope, Home

“It can be exhausting eating a meal cooked by a man. With a woman, it's, Ho hum, pass the beans. A guy, you have to act like he just built the Taj Mahal.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Queen of Everything

Guy

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”

Laurie Colwin (1944–1992) Novelist, short story writer, food writer

Wisdom, Past

“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Age

“Bouillabaisse is only good because cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce an excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar stumps and empty matchboxes.”

Norman Douglas (1868–1952) British writer

“there are things you do because they feel right and they may make no sense and they may make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other's cooking and say it was good.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Variant: Real Reason:
There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.

Love, Money, Feeling, Sense

“To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them.”

Aristophanés The Knights

Source: The Knights

People

“Perhaps he's in love with Agatha," she said.
"I hope not. I intend to marry Agatha myself. She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Love, Beauty, Hope

“One of the secrets, and pleasures, of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Pleasure, Secret, Learning

“Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.”

Craig Claiborne (1920–2000) Journalist and book author

Love, Joy

“Revenge is the sweetest morsel to the mouth, that ever was cooked in hell.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

The Heart of Midlothian', Ch. 30 (1818).
Source: The Heart of Mid-Lothian

Hell, Revenge

“… no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Learning

“This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

People, Learning

“You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Food

“Cooking is 80 percent confidence, a skill best acquired starting from when the apron strings wrap around you twice.”

Barbara Kingsolver book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Source: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Confidence

“The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things, she decided, wondering how many writers and philosophers had said this before her, the trivial pleasures like cooking, one's home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.”

Barbara Pym book Less than Angels

Less than Angels (1955), chapter 9

Life, Pleasure, Sadness, Home

“Happiness is German engineering, Italian cooking, and Belgian chocolate.”

Patricia Briggs book Moon Called

Source: Moon Called

Happiness

“I cook with wine, and sometimes I even add it to the food.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Funny, Food, Wine

“You're always in the kitchen," Alianora said when she poked her head through the door a moment later. "Or the library. Don't you ever do anything but cook and read?”

Patricia C. Wrede Dealing with Dragons

Source: Dealing with Dragons

Reading

“I get tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good. What kind of talk is that? I know a place in Payette, Idaho, where a cook and a waitress and a manager put everything they've got into laying a chicken-fried steak on you.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

People, World

“Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

“The descent into hell is easy." said Alec. "You just said kiss the cook" "Dammit" said Simon. "I knew Jace was screwing with me”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Hell, Kiss

“Whoever tells a lie is not pure of heart, and such a person can not cook a clean soup.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

To Mme. Streicher, in 1817, or 1818, after having dismissed an otherwise good housekeeper because she had told a falsehood to spare his feelings. in Beethoven: the Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words http://www.fullbooks.com/Beethoven-the-Man-and-the-Artist-as-Revealed2.html by Ludwig van Beethoven, edited by Friedrich Kerst <br class="br">Attributed <br class="br">Variant: Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup.

Lie, Heart, Personality

“Calvin: Why are you crying mom?
Mom: I'm cutting up an onion.
Calvin: It must be hard to cook if you anthrpomorphisize your vegetables.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Moms, Cry

“I do have some leftover chicken and pasta. (Grace)
And wine?… That’s acceptable (Julian)
Look, buster, I’m not your cooking wench. Mess with me and I’ll feed you Alpo. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Wine

“My grandmother is a little Cuban woman who cooks all day and speaks Spanish. Your grandmother watches pay-per-view porn."
"She used to watch the Weather Channel, but she said there wasn't enough action."

-Ranger and Stephanie”

Janet Evanovich book To the Nines

Source: To the Nines

Weather

“fate is not just whose cooking smells good, but which way the wind blows”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Fate, Way

“I don't believe you can ever really cook unless you love eating.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

Love

“Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Beauty

“Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

Source: Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents

Way, Confidence, Failure

“I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Understanding

“Want me to warm up the sauce?”
“Do we do that? I mean, it’s in a jar, right? Can’t you just dump it over the pasta?”
“Well, you can, but it tastes better if you warm it up.”
“Oh.” Eve sighed. “This is complicated. No wonder I never cook.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: The Dead Girls' Dance

“I am here to arrest your manservant. The one named Bugg.’
‘Oh, now really, his cooking isn’t that bad.”

Steven Erikson book Reaper's Gale

Source: Reaper's Gale

“a woman's place is in the kitchen… sitting in a comfortable chair, with her feet up, drinking a glass of wine and watching her husband cook dinner.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Drink, Wine

“OY! Stop playing around and lets cook already!"
*smack*
J-just now, that made a really loud noise.."
Do you wanna hear it again?"
N-no, you'll just hit me again!"
Kyo and Tohru”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 10

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Fear, Failure, Hell

“I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance.'
'I doubt if I could cook one,' said Constance.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Chance

“In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Art, Sport

“I wasn’t a fabulous cook. I didn’t have a boyfriend, much less a husband. And I wasn’t a big financial success. I could live with all those failings as long as I knew that once in a while I looked really hot.”

Janet Evanovich High Five

Source: High Five

Success

“I have no idea why it apparently takes three grown men to cook some hamburgers.
One to cook, one to kibbitz, and one to insult the other two.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Men, Idea

“Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Painting

“Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: Life's Little Instruction Book

Love

“There's always time to read. Don't trust a writer who doesn't read. It's like eating food prepared by a cook who doesn't eat.”

Laura Lippman (1959) Detective fiction writer

Food, Time, Reading

“Can you cook and sew, make flowers grow, do you understand my pain? Are you willing to risk it all or is your love in vain?”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Love, Pain, Flowers, Understanding

“I don't know why men like to barbecue so much. Maybe its the only thing they can cook. Or maybe they're just closet pyromaniacs.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Men

“There is no technique, there is just the way to do it.
Now, are we going to measure or are we going to cook?”

Frances Mayes book Under the Tuscan Sun

Source: Under the Tuscan Sun

Way

“The common people (live in) poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling place of bitter woe… their houses are built of mud with thatched roofs. Furniture there is little or none, except some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking…”

Francisco Pelsaert (1591–1630) Dutch merchant, commander of the ship Batavia

Pelsaert, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.
Jahangir’s India

Life, People, Home, Water

“It is not the terrible occurrences that no one is spared, — a husband’s death, the moral ruin of a beloved child, long, torturing illness, or the shattering of a fondly nourished hope, — it is none of these that undermine the woman’s health and strength, but the little daily recurring, body and soul devouring care s. How many millions of good housewives have cooked and scrubbed their love of life away! How many have sacrificed their rosy checks and their dimples in domestic service, until they became wrinkled, withered, broken mummies. The everlasting question: ‘what shall I cook today,’ the ever recurring necessity of sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and dish-washing, is the steadily falling drop that slowly but surely wears out her body and mind. The cooking stove is the place where accounts are sadly balanced between income and expense, and where the most oppressing observations are made concerning the increased cost of living and the growing difficulty in making both ends meet. Upon the flaming altar where the pots are boiling, youth and freedom from care, beauty and light-heartedness are being sacrificed. In the old cook whose eyes are dim and whose back is bent with toil, no one would recognize the blushing bride of yore, beautiful, merry and modestly coquettish in the finery of her bridal garb.”

Dagobert von Gerhardt (1831–1910) German writer

To the ancients the hearth was sacred; beside the hearth they erected their lares and household-gods. Let us also hold the hearth sacred, where the conscientious German housewife slowly sacrifices her life, to keep the home comfortable, the table well supplied, and the family healthy."
"von Gerhardt, using the pen-name Gerhard von Amyntor in", A Commentary to the Book of Life. Quote taken from August Bebel, Woman and Socialism, Chapter X. Marriage as a Means of Support.

Love, Life, Death, God

“Lying down to sleep on the earthen riverbank, I thought, Vrindavan is attracting my heart like no other place. What is happening to me? Please reveal Your divine will. With this prayer, I drifted off to sleep.
Before dawn, I awoke to the ringing of temple bells, signaling that it was time to begin my journey to Hardwar. But my body lay there like a corpse. Gasping in pain, I couldn’t move. A blazing fever consumed me from within, and under the spell of unbearable nausea, my stomach churned. Like a hostage, I lay on that riverbank. As the sun rose, celebrating a new day, I felt my life force sinking. Death that morning would have been a welcome relief. Hours passed.
At noon, I still lay there. This fever will surely kill me, I thought.
Just when I felt it couldn’t get any worse, I saw in the overcast sky something that chilled my heart. Vultures circled above, their keen sights focused on me. It seemed the fever was cooking me for their lunch, and they were just waiting until I was well done. They hovered lower and lower. One swooped to the ground, a huge black and white bird with a long, curving neck and sloping beak. It stared, sizing up my condition, then jabbed its pointed beak into my ribcage. My body recoiled, my mind screamed, and my eyes stared back at my assailant, seeking pity. The vulture flapped its gigantic wings and rejoined its fellow predators circling above. On the damp soil, I gazed up at the birds as they soared in impatient circles. Suddenly, my vision blurred and I momentarily blacked out. When I came to, I felt I was burning alive from inside out. Perspiring, trembling, and gagging, I gave up all hope.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching. A local farmer herding his cows noticed me and took pity. Pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, he looked skyward toward the vultures and, understanding my predicament, lifted me onto a bullock cart. As we jostled along the muddy paths, the vultures followed overhead. The farmer entrusted me to a charitable hospital where the attendants placed me in the free ward. Eight beds lined each side of the room. The impoverished and sadhu patients alike occupied all sixteen beds. For hours, I lay unattended in a bed near the entrance. Finally that evening the doctor came and, after performing a series of tests, concluded that I was suffering from severe typhoid fever and dehydration. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “You will likely die, but we will try to save your life.””

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

Republished on The Journey Home website.
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

Life, Death, Pain, Hope

“Nobody wants to cook "Five Spice Stew With a Mother Deer Shot With a High-Powered Rifle While Her Baby Slept Nearby." But what about "Five Spice Venison Stew"? Much more palatable. … But when we tell ourselves that we're humanely harvesting venison out of reverence for the deer -- rather than killing a sentient being to satisfy our palate -- we're not so much connecting with our food as we are manipulating language to avoid knowing what we don't want to know.”

James E. McWilliams (1968) American historian

"Hunting for Euphemisms: How We Trick Ourselves to Excuse Killing", in The Atlantic (21 December 2011) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/hunting-for-euphemisms-how-we-trick-ourselves-to-excuse-killing/250213/.

Food, Baby

“What, no more? Tell the cook we require ten more courses.”

Ma Fuxiang (1876–1932) Chinese politician

In the Land of the Laughing Buddha – The Adventures of an American Barbarian in China, Upton Close, 2007, READ BOOKS, 272, 1-4067-1675-8, 440, 2010-06-28 http://books.google.com/books?id=DpQa22PJutwC&dq=arab+mercenaries+china&q=They+have+not+enjoyed+the+educational+and+political+privileges+of+the+Han+chinese%2C+and+they+are+in+many+respects+primitive#v=snippet&q=What%2C%20no%20more%3F%20Tell%20the%20cook%20&f=false, <br class="br">Variant: Tell the cook, that we will either have ten more courses or the crows will have him.