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"We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistica…"

"I am in no way supportive of hunting for trophies or sport - would never do it and don't like it that others do. But if you kill it, then eat it, it's fine."

"In the end of the day,it's not just food, it's all the things, all the people, and all theses experiences that comes with it."

"If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and…"

"Life is complicated. It's filled with nuance. It's unsatisfying. If I believe in anything, it is doubt."

"Good food does lead to sex. As it should."

"The journey is part of the experience - an expression of the seriousness of one's intent. One doesn't take the A train to Mecca."

"I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical ch…"

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or ev…"

"They're professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter how good a drinker you might think you are, don't forge…"

"PETA doesn't want stressed animals to be cruelly crowded into sheds, ankle-deep in their own crap, because they don't want any animals to die-ever-and basically think chickens should, in time, gain th…"

"Don't touch my dick, don't touch my knife."

"Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the …"

"I have long believed that it is only right and appropriate that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able – if called upon to do so – to make them a proper omelet in the morning. Surely that …"

"I am not a fan of people who abuse service staff. In fact, I find it intolerable. It’s an unpardonable sin as far as I’m concerned, taking out personal business or some other kind of dissatisfaction o…"

"Naturally, I'm misanthropic. But the Negronis are helping considerably."

"For their own good, vegetarians should never be allowed near fine beers and ales. It will only make them loud and belligerent, and they lack the physical strength and aggressive nature to back up any …"

"Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic."

"You have to love a town where you can both smoke and gamble in a pharmacy."

"It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while aft…"

"I do a lot of speaking engagements and sometimes I feel like I’m being paid to curse in front of people who haven’t heard it in a while."

"I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb w…"

"If there was any justice in this world, I would have been a dead man at least two times over. By this, I mean simply that many times in my life the statistical probabilities of a fatal outcome have be…"

"There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar – even in this fake-ass Irish pub."

"Given a choice between being trapped on a desert island with a group of writers or a family of howler monkeys, I think I'd pick the monkeys. At least I could eat them."

"You have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese."

"Anyone who refuses to let you eat your burger at a temperature less than medium is on the side of the terrorists."

"No kid really wants a cool parent. "Cool" parents, when I was a kid, meant parents who let you smoke weed in the house – or allowed boyfriends to sleep over with their daughters. That would make Sarah…"

"I don't like to see animals in pain. That was very uncomfortable to me. I don't like factory farming. I'm not an advocate for the meat industry."

"Only desperation can account for what the Chinese do in the name of 'medicine.' That's something you might remind your New Age friends who've gone gaga over 'holistic medicine' and 'alternative Chines…"

"America's most dangerous export was never nuclear weapons or Jerry Lewis—or even Baywatch reruns. It was, is, and probably always will be our fast-food outlets."

"Strangly I found mystery meat only gets better the dodger the neighborhood is. I mean, what's a mystery meat without mystery?"

"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have stil…"

"I don't know what I'll do with it but I want one of this."

"Margarine? That’s not food. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter? I can. If you’re planning on using margarine in anything, you can stop reading now, because I won’t be able to help you."

"It hurts, but it hurts soooo Good!"

"I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, sh…"

"I have exactly the same work ethic. I don't see writing as anything more important than cooking. In fact, I'm a little queasier on the writing. There's an element of shame, because it's so easy. I can…"

"Monkfish liver! Can you sell them? How many people order them?" one chef will say. "I herda them," says another. "The fucking burger…" groans another, "I can’t get it off the menu. I tried, but they s…"

"The lazy and the foolish compare him to Hemingway, which is a terrible injustice as Jim is both a better writer and a better man."

"You know what’s great about New York? The threshold for citizenship as a New Yorker is actually pretty short. If you come to New York and you still like it two years after you arrived here, and you st…"

"I believe that, as an American, I should be able to walk into any restaurant in America and order my hamburger – that most American of foods – medium fucking rare. I don’t believe my hamburger should …"

"An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins."

"The room smelled like a gust of wind from Satan's anus."

"Cooking professionally is a dominant act, at all times about control. Eating well, on the other hand, is about submission. It’s about giving up all vestiges of control, about entrusting your fate enti…"

"Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love. Bad food is made by chefs who are indifferent, or who are trying to be everything to everybody, who are trying to please everyo…"

"For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we've all had to become disappears, when we're confronted with something as simple as…"

"Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have."

"Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has …"

"Good food and good eating are about risk. Every once in a while an oyster, for instance, will make you sick to your stomach. Does this mean you should stop eating oysters? No way. The more exotic the …"

"I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always …"