Culinary Flexibility Quotes

Since we married, Peta's taken over a lot of my cooking and she's incredible. She'll do different meals for me and the kids, depending on my regime. If I name 10 ingredients she'll change the recipe every day.

It's so weird. I like shrimp. I will eat like a whole thing of shrimp. I'm a vegetarian, but that is the only thing that I will eat. So, I will eat and eat shrimp and, like, fries.

What strikes me, the more I cook, is that the best recipes are ones where the basic anatomy is so sound it will survive multiple adjustments. When a recipe has good bones, you can change the seasoning, double the garlic, swap lime for lemon, and it still turns out delicious.

It's okay if you finish cooking something easy after your guests arrive - some dishes must be prepared a la minute, as chefs say. Just remember to keep talking.

I cook British food, but it doesn't mean I'm jingoistic about it. People can cook very good fusion food.

You eat a lot of goat stomach when you're in North Africa. You eat whatever's put in front of you. I am a big proponent of that.

I'm married to a vegetarian, so if ever we go out to dinner, I go for kidneys.

You have to respect the culture you are cooking in, yes, but you have to respect the palate you are cooking for, too, and you have to adjust to that palate.

Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naive - or worse.

I do loads of one-pot things because I feel like you can't go too far wrong. And I make a lot of soups and casseroles, which is so boring, but it's the only thing I can do!

I like chicken a lot because chicken is generous - that is to say, it's obedient. It will do whatever you tell it to do.

It's never about the screwup - it's always about the recovery. That's the thing about it... if it comes out a little rare you call it carpaccio. It comes out a little overcooked, you shred it up and put in on a sandwich.

I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.

There's almost nothing you can't do with a cashew. Not only does it lend its nutty sweetness to savory dishes, it also gives desserts a deep richness.

Well, cooking starts with shopping. If the ingredients are not good, you don't do it. Just change your mind and do something else.

Frying gives cooks numerous ways of concealing what appeared the day before and in a pinch facilitates sudden demands, for it takes little more time to fry a four-pound carp than to boil an egg.

I'll transform anything as long as it's edible.

This kind of mixing of ingredients happens all the time at fast-food places... You know when you order french fries and there's a rogue onion ring at the bottom. You know, at first you're alarmed but you eat it. It all comes from the same place! You just have to go for it.

A favorite cooking method? I'm a fan of all of them! Anything that gets a pile of random ingredients into a cruelty-free dish works for me!

A cocktail can be made by the bartender. But the cocktail also can be made by the chef.

You can do anything to my food and I'll still eat it.

The advantage we have as Americans is that we can be fair; we tend to be more open-minded about different styles of wine.

To have a basic ingredient that can be prepared a million different ways is a beautiful thing.

You learn to cook so that you don't have to be a slave to recipes. You get what's in season and you know what to do with it.

Like all rice, black rice is great at absorbing flavours, but it's just as happy to act as a satiny bed for a poached egg, say, if you want to keep things simple.