“And chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don’t know what they want to eat.”

I had field experience, a vocabulary, and a criminal mind. I was a danger to myself and others.

I’m not going anywhere. I hope. It’s been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

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.

I learned to recognize failure.

I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.

That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.

Selling out is getting a job.

Good food and good eating are about risk.

Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life.

Cream rises. Excellence does have its rewards.

What’s the opposite of suck? Un-suck?

An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins.

Few things are more beautiful to me than a bunch of thuggish, heavily tattooed line cooks moving around each other like ballerinas on a busy Saturday night.

Don’t lie about it. You made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don’t do it again. Ever.

This, I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of.

Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron, garlic, fishbone, and Pernod.

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.

There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.

You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.

Now I know why tigers eat their young.

Gluttony? I could eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. I’d love to pig out on gluten. I mean, I’m allergic to gluten, but I really want to do that. I want to sit in bed one day and just pig out.

He would not stoop even to pick up the old manuscript I am going to seek with so much trouble and fatigue. And in truth man is made rather to eat ices than to pore over old texts.

Do not fix hopes on your health, and do not laugh away life. Remember how they walked and now all their joints lie separately, and the tongue with which they talked lightly is eaten away by the worms.

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses, not lifestyle choices.