From Denny: Chefs around the globe have done a lot to educate the palates of the public these past twenty years or so. Haute cuisine caught on like wildfire for a tasty trend since the go-go 1980's in America. This year a movie was released (which I have yet to see) about America's first person to humanize upscale cuisine, Julia Child. She didn't believe in the cultural snobbery surrounding the subject of food. Nor did Julia care for the attitude of intimidating people to cook it for themselves.
Julia Child was no kitchen terrorist. One of those few decent personalities to come out of the old WW II era CIA, she promoted good food for decades. CIA personnel are known for adopting the food culture of their overseas assignments, often quite the culinary adventurers.
When you have the stress of getting shot at everyday out in the world without the benefit of any security detail - even on the job as a secretary or IT support as most are just analysts not full-fledged James Bond type spies/assassins, a person and their soft target families have to take their mind off it - cooking well is one convenient stress reliever. It often can help build good relationships with the locals which in turn eases the tensions of having an American in their community.
Julia taught us about food with grace, humor and educated herself as she educated us on television. Standing at 6' 3" she could have easily been intimidating yet chose to be jovial, ever the patient teacher well into her 90's.
Quotes
* In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport. - Julia Child
* The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook. - Julia Child
* Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. - Harriet Van Horne
* The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. - Calvin Trillin
* When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking. - Gail Sheehy
* I don't even butter my bread. I consider that cooking. - Katherine Cebrian
* There is such a buildup of crud in my oven there is only room to bake a single cupcake. - Phyllis Diller
* The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food, and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it. - Andy Rooney
* It's so beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it. - Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine
* When compelled to cook, I produce a meal that would make a sword swallower gag. - Russell Baker
* Life is too short to stuff a mushroom. - Storm Jameson
*** Whoo Hoo! Kitchen fire on purpose so it tastes good! ***
* I prefer my oysters fried; That way I know my oysters died. - Roy G. Blount, Jr.
* God sends meat and the devil sends cooks. - Thomas Deloney (1543-1600)
* There is no sincerer love than the love of food. - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
* The most dangerous food is wedding cake. - American proverb
* Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. - G. K. Chesterson (1874-1936)
* Recipe For Chili: Put a pot of chili on the stove to simmer. Let it simmer. Meanwhile, broil a good steak. Eat the steak. Let the chili simmer. Ignore it. - Allan Shivers, former governor of Texas
* I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead - not sick, not wounded - dead. - Woody Allen
* Blow in its ear. - Johnny Carson on the best way to thaw out a frozen turkey
* Eating an artichoke is like getting to know someone really well. - Willi Hastings
* Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat. - Alex Levine
* In Mexico we have a word for sushi: bait. - Jose Simon
* Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. - Mark Twain (1835-1910)
*** Cooking in Stockholm ***
* The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again. -George Miller
* My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with. - Oprah Winfrey
* Where there's smoke, there's toast. - Anonymous
* My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked. - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
* Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water. -W. C. Fields (1880-1946)
* The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose. - Garrison Keillor
* I don't eat snails. I prefer fast food. - Strange de Jim
* Hunger is the best sauce in the world. - Cervantes
* Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. - Samuel Pepys
*** ... and then I decided to cook... ***
* Kissing don't last: cookery do. - George Meredith
* Fish, to taste right, must swim three times -- in water, in butter and in wine. - Polish Proverb
* Hunger finds no fault with the cooking. - Proverb
* A good meal makes a man feel more charitable toward the world than any sermon. - Arthur Pendenys
* Fervet olla, vivit amicitia: While the pot boils, friendship endures. (Meaning the man who gives good dinners has plenty of friends). - Latin Proverb
* The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star. - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
* A hungry stomach seldoms scorns plain food. - Horace
* Even were a cook to cook a fly, he would keep the breast for himself. - Polish Proverb
* What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others. - Lucretius
* He was a bold man who first swallowed an oyster. - James I
Cheese--milk's leap towards immortality. - Clifton Fadiman
*** Chewy Korean noodles, wish they gave us the recipe... ***
* All you see, I owe to spaghetti. - Sophia Loren, actress
* Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know. - John Keats
* There is no such thing as a little garlic. - Anonymous
* There is no such thing as a pretty good omelette. - French Proverb
* A smiling face is half the meal. - Latvian Proverb
* Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. - Harriet Van Horne
* When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat. - Mark Twain
* Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving. - Rosalind Russell
* Cooking Rule... If at first you don't succeed, order pizza. - Anonymous
* Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table. - The Anarchist Cookbook
* Hungry men think the cook lazy. - Anonymous
* Without rice, even the cleverest housewife cannot cook. - Chinese Proverb
* You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting needles. - Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food
* No man is lonely while eating spaghetti; it requires so much attention. – Robert Morley
* Mothers, food, love, and career: the four major guilt groups. - Cathy Guisewite
* The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. - Mark Twain
* Vanity is the food of fools. - Anonymous
* Give a man a fish and he has food for a day; teach him how to fish and you can get rid of him of the entire weekend. - Zenna Schaffer
*** Deep concentration in Stockholm ***
* I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick--not wounded--dead. - Woody Allen
* My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way. - Henry Youngman
* What's the difference between a boyfriend and a husband? About 30 pounds. - Cindy Garner
* There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. - Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly
* When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Man invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking. - Elayne Boolser
* Food is an important part of a balanced diet. - Anonymous
* What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. - Anonymous
* A food is not necessarily essential just because your child hates it. - Katharine Whitehorn
* Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. - Anonymous
* I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, “What for?” I said, “I'm going to buy some sugar.” - Steven Wright
* Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. - Samuel Butler
* Never eat more than you can lift. - Miss Piggy of The Muppets fame
* One cannot refuse to eat just because there is a chance of being choked. - Chinese Proverb
* Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it. - Lao Tzu
*** Long day at the hotel for this lampshade chef... ***
* If a pot is cooking, the friendship will stay warm. - Arab Proverb
* What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you. - Nora Ephron, screenwriter and director
* I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. - Julia Child
* Hey baby, do you like fine cooking? Cause you know what? I got Swanson's Dinner in the freezer with your name on it. - Jimmy Fallon quotes (American Actor, b.1974)
* The average American’s simplest and commonest form of breakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak. - Mark Twain
* Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet. - Julia Child
* My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor. - Phyllis Diller (American comedienne and actress, born 1917)
* Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule or a cook. – American cowboy saying
* He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. - Raymond Chandler
Have a great work week and keep grinning!
***
Photo Credits
Long day at the hotel for this chef…
Lampshade chef photo by Tracy Hunter @ flickr
Flaming food photo by liber @ flickr
Chicken, mozzarella cheese and balsamic vinegar photo by basykes @ flickr
Korean noodles Photo by avlxyz @ flickr
Intense concentration Photo by K.I.T. @ flickr
Cooking for two Photo by K.I.T. @ flickr
Chef Xinh with Julia Child at book signing photo by kuow949 @ flickr
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