I am the most unselfish chef in Britain today.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.

My mom had Julia Child and ‚The Fannie Farmer Cookbook‘ on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes.

As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner’s medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it’s three-Michelin’s stars, there’s no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.

I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes. As I go to sleep at night, I think, ‚Did I do a great job as a mom, or was that an average day?‘

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it’s too assertive to the naked eye.

Anyone who’s a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: ‚Is it good? Does it give pleasure?‘

My mother cooked like a scientist. She had a giant Chinese-style cleaver that she chopped with, and a cupboard full of spices.

Another suggestion is to cook a meal, maybe not every night, but a couple more times a week than you usually do. That way you have leftovers, and you take your lunch to work.

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don’t ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.

Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.

Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.

When I cook for my family on Christmas, I make feijoada, a South American dish of roasted and smoked meats like ham, pork, beef, lamb, and bacon – all served with black beans and rice. It’s festive but different.

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.

Eating is so intimate. It’s very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you’re inviting a person into your life.

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.

Indians invest more in Britain than in the rest of European Union combined. It is not because they want to save on interpretation costs, but because they find an environment that is welcoming and familiar.

My dinners at home are startlingly simple. Every night, I stop at the market near my hotel and pick up a steak, lamb chops or some liver, which I broil in the electric oven in my room. I usually eat four or five raw carrots with my meat, and that is all. I must be part rabbit; I never get bored with raw carrots.

I have loved to cook since I was a child in my mother’s kitchen. If I don’t have time to cook, I’ll just read a cookbook.

I’m just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression.

In Britain, like most of the developed world, stem-cell research is regarded as a great opportunity. America will be left behind if it doesn’t change policy.

There’s a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

Chefs are fond of hyperbole, so they can certainly talk that way. But on the whole, I think they probably have a more open mind than most people.

However, because Britain is young and exciting, I did show my second line here once or twice.

‚Kitchen Confidential‘ wasn’t a cautionary or an expose. I wrote it as an entertainment for New York tri-state area line cooks and restaurant lifers, basically; I had no expectation that it would move as far west as Philadelphia.

There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.

Only the pure in heart can make a good soup.

Romania, which had the worst dictator in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu, he was a darling of the West. The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.

When I figured out how to work my grill, it was quite a moment. I discovered that summer is a completely different experience when you know how to grill.

The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.

I wasn’t that great a chef, and I don’t think I’m that great a writer.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way.

I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that’s it.

Every chef I know, their cholesterol is through the roof. And mine’s not so great.

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.

Who bothers to cook TV dinners? I suck them frozen.

I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead.

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.

The Kobe craze really annoyed me. Most of the practitioners had no real understanding of the product and were abusing it and exploiting it in terrible and ridiculous ways. Kobe beef should not be used in a hamburger. It’s completely pointless.

What Britain needs is an iron lady.

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I’m not going to freak out about it. I’m not that bad. I’m certainly not a boy, and it’s been a while since I’ve been a chef.

I will only say that many freedom fighters of India found their calling in the institutions of Britain. And many makers of modern India, including several of my distinguished predecessors, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr. Manmohan Singh, passed through their doors.

Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I’m taking with me when I go.

I’m a decent cook; I’m a decent chef. None of my friends would ever have hired me at any point in my career. Period.

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword – two jackets, one that’s driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

I think I should learn French and be a better cook – basic, really good life stuff.

When I was younger we had a grape arbor, and my mom would go out and pick grapes and make grape jam in the sink – boil it, put it in jars, and give it away as gifts.

The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.

When Britain and the U.S. invaded Iraq, it was with the reasonable expectation that it was going to increase the threat of terror, as it has.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

Cooking today is a young man’s game, I don’t give a bollocks what anyone says.

You know, from age 17 on, my paycheck was coming from cooking and working in kitchens.

Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start.

I don’t think it’s a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef’s a fat pig.

I’m not trying to take New York by storm. I just want to sneak in there, keep my head down, batten down the hatches and cook.

I feel that if Jacques Pepin shows you how to make an omelet, the matter is pretty much settled. That’s God talking.

You don’t come into cooking to get rich.

My sisters like cooking at my place. It has a bit more room, and the food tastes a little bit better. A big pot of spaghetti and sauce, some warm French bread – works all the time. I think I’ve been eating pasta for 26 years.

Kitchens are hard environments and they form incredibly strong characters.