Julia Child Quotes

You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,” he said. “Even after you eat it, it stays with you — always.

If you drop the lamb, just pick it up. Who's going to know?

Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile, as my ersatz eggs Florentine surely were, then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile-and learn from her mistakes.

I admired the English immensely for all that they had endured, and they were certainly honorable, and stopped their cars for pedestrians, and called you “sir” and “madam,” and so on. But after a week there, I began to feel wild. It was those ruddy English faces, so held in by duty, the sense of “what is done” and “what is not done,” and always swigging tea and chirping, that made me want to scream like a hyena

In fact, I didn't like traveling first class at all. Yes, it was nice to have a bathroom in a hotel and fine service at breakfast...but none of it seemed foreign enough for me. It was all so pleasantly bland that I felt as if I were back on the SS America. I don't like it when everyone speaks perfect English; I'd much rather struggle with my phrasebook.

One evening, we stopped at a charming Tudor inn, where we were served boiled chicken, with little feathers sticking out of the skin, partially covered with a typical English white sauce. Aha! At last I would try the infamous sauce that the French were so chauvinistic about. The sauce was composed of flour and water (not even chicken bouillon) and hardly any salt. It was truly horrible to eat, but a wonderful cultural experience.

I opened the school's booklet, found the recipes from the examination — oeufs mollets with sauce béarnaise, côtelettes de veau en surprise and crème renversée au caramel — and whipped them all up in a cold, clean fury. Then I ate them.

Just like becoming an expert in wine–you learn by drinking it, the best you can afford–you learn about great food by finding the best there is, whether simply or luxurious. The you savor it, analyze it, and discuss it with your companions, and you compare it with other experiences.

When I wasn't at school, I was experimenting at home, and became a bit of a Mad Scientist. I did hours of research on mayonnaise, for instance, and though no one else seemed to care about it, I thought it was utterly fascinating....By the end of my research, I believe, I had written more on the subject of mayonnaise than anyone in history.

...small helpings, no seconds, no snacking, and a little bit of everything. - Julia Child

But my favorite remained the basic roast chicken. What a deceptively simple dish. I had come to believe that one can judge the quality of a cook by his or her roast chicken. Above all, it should taste like chicken: it should be so good that even a perfectly simple, buttery roast should be a delight.

A party without a cake is just a meeting.

You are the butter to my bread,and the breath to my life

One of the secrets, and pleasures, of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.

My, I get so depressed after a poor meal; that's why I can never stay in England for more than a week.