People who love to eat are always the best people. - Julia Child

If it weren’t for Julia Child, I might never have moved past brown rice and tofu. Worse, I might still be afraid of being less than perfect.

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.

Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again