There are few sorrows in which a good income is of no avail.
It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.
There are chefs who are spectacular technicians, and often their food is worth eating once or twice, but if there's no heart in it, if there's no personality in it, it's not something you want to go back for. But heart without any skill at all? All the heart in the world ain't gonna help you if you can't peel an onion, or if you don't understand how to apply heat properly. A well-done steak is a well-done steak.
Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.
The bible of cooking. The all-time argument ender. Early in my cooking career, I wielded my Larousse like a weapon and it never let me down.
I'd learned something. . . Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me. . . and others. This was valuable information.
Ambition is at the very core of success and extraordinary achievement. Unlike greed, it's a powerful, creative and constructive force.
As for pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do it at home would be beyond a joke.
And there was no money in Chicago for a band.
Arrogance and fanaticism cause the hardening of positions taken and entrenchment can only lead to a dead end.