Julia Child Quotations

Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.

The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they're right if you love to be with them all the time.

I think one of the terrible things today is that people have this deathly fear of food: fear of eggs, say, or fear of butter. Most doctors feel that you can have a little bit of everything.

To be able to serve and to eat a whole fish, especially a trout, is part of civilized dining. This applies particularly to the young, who should take to it as soon as they can handle knife and fork; this is a fine way for them to begin taking pride in themselves and their abilities.

The war broke out, and I wanted to do something to aid my country in a time of crisis. I was too tall for the WACs and WAVES, but eventually joined the OSS and set out into the world looking for adventure.

I was lucky to marry Paul. He was a great inspiration, his enthusiasm about wine and food helped to shape my tastes, and his encouragement saw me through discouraging moments. I never would have had my career without Paul Child.

Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake.

I think careful cooking is love, don't you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who's close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give.

You learn to cook so that you don't have to be a slave to recipes. You get what's in season and you know what to do with it.

In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.

Once you have mastered a technique, you hardly need look at a recipe again and can take off on your own.

In the 1960s, you could eat anything you wanted, and of course, people were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, and there was no talk about fat and anything like that, and butter and cream were rife. Those were lovely days for gastronomy, I must say.

It's so beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it.

Animals that we eat are raised for food in the most economical way possible, and the serious food producers do it in the most humane way possible. I think anyone who is a carnivore needs to understand that meat does not originally come in these neat little packages.

As we say in the American Institute of Wine and Food, small helpings, no seconds. A little bit of everything. No snacking. And have a good time.

The art of bread making can become a consuming hobby, and no matter how often and how many kinds of bread one has made, there always seems to be something new to learn.

The perfect dressing is essential to the perfect salad, and I see no reason whatsoever for using a bottled dressing, which may have been sitting on the grocery shelf for weeks, even months - even years.

Usually, one's cooking is better than one thinks it is.

Because of media hype and woefully inadequate information, too many people nowadays are deathly afraid of their food, and what does fear of food do to the digestive system? ... I, for one, would much rather swoon over a few thin slices of prime beefsteak, or one small serving of chocolate mousse, or a sliver of foie gras than indulge to the full on such nonentities as fat-free gelatin puddings.

When I got to France I realized I didn't know very much about food at all. I'd never had a real cake. I'd had those cakes from cake mixes or the ones that have a lot of baking powder in them. A really good French cake doesn't have anything like that in it - it's all egg power.

I wouldn't keep him around long if I didn't feed him well.

In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless.

I fell in love with the public, the public fell in love with me, and I tried to keep it that way.

I found that the recipes in most - in all - the books I had were really not adequate. They didn't tell you enough... I won't do anything unless I'm told why I'm doing it. So I felt that we needed fuller explanations so that if you followed one of those recipes, it should turn out exactly right.

Someone may offer you a freshly caught whole large fish, like a salmon or striped bass. Don't panic - take it!

I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.

I was never a spy. I was with the OSS organization. We had a number of women, but we were all office help.

Because I've done a lot of television, I'm sort of a generalist. I'm not a pastry cook, but I've had to learn a certain amount about it. I'm not a baker, though I've had to learn how to do it. I'm sort of a general cook.

I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make.... Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile...then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile.

As a girl, I had zero interest in the stove. I've always had a healthy appetite, especially for the wonderful meat and the fresh produce of California, but I was never encouraged to cook and just didn't see the point in it.

I had my first French meal and I never got over it. It was just marvelous. We had oysters and a lovely dry white wine. And then we had one of those lovely scalloped dishes and the lovely, creamery buttery sauce. Then we had a roast duck and I don't know what else.

Being tall is an advantage, especially in business. People will always remember you. And if you're in a crowd, you'll always have some clean air to breathe.

In department stores, so much kitchen equipment is bought indiscriminately by people who just come in for men's underwear.

I still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well.

I was going to be a great woman novelist. Then the war came along and I think it's hard for young people today, don't you, to realize that when World War II happened we were dying to go and help our country.

In the 1970s we got nouvelle cuisine, in which a lot of the old rules were kicked over. And then we had cuisine minceur, which people mixed up with nouvelle cuisine but was actually fancy diet cooking.

When you have a few cake formulas and filling ideas in your repertoire, you will find that it's pretty much an assembly job - you can mix and match a different way every time.

I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say 'him' rather than 'her.' Maybe it's because of my generation, but I don't like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male.

In Paris and later in Marseille, I was surrounded by some of the best food in the world, and I had an enthusiastic audience in my husband, so it seemed only logical that I should learn how to cook 'la cuisine bourgeoise' - good, traditional French home cooking.

What a marvelous resource soup is for the thrifty cook - it solves the ham-bone and lamb-bone problems, the everlasting Thanksgiving turkey, the extra vegetables.

She answered, encouraging my interest in food and the food industry.

He had us make some toast points, and he told us to crush the (slow-roasted) garlic out of its skin and spread it on the toast along with the chicken. Roasting tamed the garlic and gave it a lovely taste. It was absolutely delicious.

(On what her longevity is attributed to) Red meat and gin.

I think the inner person is the most important. . . . I would like to see an invention that keeps the mind alert. That's what is important.

Dining with one's friends and beloved family is certainly one of life's primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal.

MODERATION.SMALL HELPINGS. SAMPLE A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING. THESE ARE THE SECRETS OF HAPPINESS AND GOOD HEALTH.

People who love to eat are always the best people.

The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.

I think every woman should have a blowtorch.

Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need.

Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music.

How lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly.

The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken.

...nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should.

Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?

The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.

the more experience you have, the more interesting cooking is because you know what can happen to the food. In the beginning you can look at a chicken and it doesn't mean much, but once you have done some cooking you can see in that chicken a parade of things you will be able to create.

...no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.

One of the important requirements for learning how to cook is that you also learn how to eat.

To be a good cook you have to have a love of the good, a love of hard work, and a love of creating.

It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions.

This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!

A party without cake is really just a meeting.

There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.

But I was a pure romantic, and only operating with half my burners turned on.

A passionate interest in what you do is the secret of enjoying life...whether it is helping old people or children, or making cheese or growing earthworms.

Remember, 'No one's more important than people'! In other words, friendship is the most important thing--not career or housework, or one's fatigue--and it needs to be tended and nurtured.

It's fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That's what human life is all about - enjoying things.

The more you know, the more you can create. There's no end to imagination in the kitchen.

When you flip anything, you really you just have to have the courage of your convictions.

With enough butter, anything is good

The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile.

Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you'll have a marvelous time!

It is the Americans who have managed to crown minced beef as hamburger, and to send it round the world so that even the fussy French have taken to le boeuf hache, le hambourgaire.

A cookbook is only as good as its poorest recipe.

Cooking is one failure after another, and that's how you finally learn.

In the blood-heat of pursuing the enemy, many people are forgetting what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our hard-won liberty and freedom; for our Constitution and the due processes of our laws; and for the right to differ in ideas, religion and politics. I am convinced that in your zeal to fight against our enemies, you, too, have forgotten what you are fighting for.

How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?

I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it -- and, more important, I like to give it.

Life itself is the proper binge.

I don't use the word gourmet. The word doesn't mean anything anymore. 'Gourmet' makes it sound like someone is putting sherry wine in the corn-flake casserole.

Cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music. And cooking draws upon your every talent--science, mathematics, energy, history, experience--and the more experience you have, the less likely are your experiments to end in drivel and disaster. The more you know, the more you can create.

Fake food -- I mean those patented substances chemically flavored and mechanically bulked out to kill the appetite and deceive the gut -- is unnatural, almost immoral, a bane to good eating and good cooking.

I believe in red meat. I often said: red meat and gin.

I enjoy cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food I'm cooking.

You have to do it and do it, until you get it right.

Never apologize for your cooking.

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.

Fat gives things flavor.

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

You'll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.

No matter what happens in the kitchen, never apologize,

If you're afraid of butter, use cream.

Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.

Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by a lack of facts, an inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which cause me to back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, 'scientific' though. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was.

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.

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

As you get older, you shouldn't waste time drinking bad wine.