“‘Outlaw Cook’ was a revelation. Folks like Jeff Smith and Marcella Hazan got me interested in cooking, but John Thorne pushed me into the path that I follow to this day. This is the only cookbook I’ve ever read that understands how men really eat: over the sink, in the dark, greasy to the elbows.”
“A balanced diet may be the best medicine. I was eating too much good eats. But people consider that part of your job, you know? Eat. And I do!”
“A lot of food shows need only to tempt. Some food shows only need to inspire, to empower. And there are a lot of shows that do that.”
“A meringue is really nothing but a foam. And what is a foam after all, but a big collection of bubbles? And what’s a bubble? It’s basically a very flimsy little latticework of proteins draped with water. We add sugar to this structure, which strengthens it. But things can, and do, go wrong.”
“A pie dough comes together exactly like a biscuit only there is very, very little liquid and no leavening involved. Other than that, the same rules apply. My best advice: handle the dough as little as possible.”
“Although I don’t take myself very seriously, I do take my work extraordinarily seriously.”
“Basting is evil. Basting does nothing for the meat. Why? Skin. Skin is designed to keep stuff out of the bird, so basting just lets heat out of the oven. That means the turkey will take longer to cook… so don’t touch that door!”
“Culinary tradition is not always based on fact. Sometimes it’s based on history, on habits that come out of a time when kitchens were fueled by charcoal.”
“Do not allow watching food to replace making food.”
“Enough people have now mentioned Bill Nye the Science Guy to me that I now desperately avoid it all costs.”