Julia Child

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.

What a marvelous resource soup is for the thrifty cook - it solves the ham-bone and lamb-bone problems, the everlasting Thanksgiving turkey, the extra vegetables.

Someone may offer you a freshly caught whole large fish, like a salmon or striped bass. Don't panic - take it!

Animals that we eat are raised for food in the most economical way possible, and the serious food producers do it in the most humane way possible. I think anyone who is a carnivore needs to understand that meat does not originally come in these neat little packages.

I fell in love with the public, the public fell in love with me, and I tried to keep it that way.

In department stores, so much kitchen equipment is bought indiscriminately by people who just come in for men's underwear.

I was never a spy. I was with the OSS organization. We had a number of women, but we were all office help.

I had my first French meal and I never got over it. It was just marvelous. We had oysters and a lovely dry white wine. And then we had one of those lovely scalloped dishes and the lovely, creamery buttery sauce. Then we had a roast duck and I don't know what else.

Usually, one's cooking is better than one thinks it is.

I wouldn't keep him around long if I didn't feed him well.

In the 1960s, you could eat anything you wanted, and of course, people were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, and there was no talk about fat and anything like that, and butter and cream were rife. Those were lovely days for gastronomy, I must say.

To be able to serve and to eat a whole fish, especially a trout, is part of civilized dining. This applies particularly to the young, who should take to it as soon as they can handle knife and fork; this is a fine way for them to begin taking pride in themselves and their abilities.

The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they're right if you love to be with them all the time.

Life itself is the proper binge.

I think one of the terrible things today is that people have this deathly fear of food: fear of eggs, say, or fear of butter. Most doctors feel that you can have a little bit of everything.

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