People seem to be awfully gullible. They'll believe anything. ~in The NPR Intreviews, 1996, edited by Robert Siegel - Julia Child

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

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.

"Julie's cookery is actually improving," Paul wrote Charlie [his twin]. "I didn't quite believe it would, just between us, but it really is. It's simpler, more classical.... I envy her this chance. It would be such fun to be doing it at the same time with her."