Julia Child Quotes

I'm not a chef. I think in this country, we use the term very loosely. I'm a cook and a teacher.

It's easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don't bring you oysters. (Paul Child)

Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).

If you don't pick your audience, you're lost because you're not really talking to anybody.

I would far prefer to have things happen as they naturally do, such as the mousse refusing to leave the mold, the potatoes sticking to the skillet, the apple charlotte slowly collapsing. One of the secrets of cooking is to learn to correct something if you can, and bear with it if you cannot.

...operational proof...it's all theory until you see for yourself whether or not something works.

I'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.

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.

Good french cooking cannot be produced by a zombie cook.

Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time. No. [...] [T]he dough takes care of itself. [...] While you cannot speed up the process, you can slow it down at any point by setting the dough in a cooler place [...] then continue where you left off, when you are ready to do so. In other words, you are the boss of that dough.

We are so bemused by our own petard, that we are unable to look at things objectively.

Well, all I know is this — nothing you ever learn is really wasted, and will sometime be used.

If variety is the spice of life, then my life must be one of the spiciest you ever heard of. A curry of a life. -Paul Child

You don’t spring into good cooking naked. You have to have some training. You have to learn how to eat.

"...the average Frenchman would shrug, as if to say: "These notions of yours are all very fascinating, no doubt, but we make a decent living. Nobody has ulcers. I have time to work on my monograph about Balzac, and my foreman enjoys his espaliered pear trees. I think as a matter of fact, we do not wish to make the changes that you suggest.