Don't make a big to-do about the turkey; brine it, put it in the oven, and don't think about it again.

The hardest part of cooking is shopping, and if you organize yourself and shop once a week, you're halfway there.

I've always hated Zagat. If I'm going to listen to someone else's opinions on restaurants, I don't care if I agree or not. I just want to know who they are.

What does happen in 'Gourmet,' we had eight test kitchens, and at any given time, there were, like, ten or twelve test cooks. And whenever anybody finished something, they would yell, 'Taste!' and everyone would go running towards it, and then taste, and then brutally deconstruct the dish.

For me, cooking is a way to try and please people and tell them I love them. When I fall in love with someone, I want to feed them as well.

I couldn't live without butter. Butter is probably my single favourite food.

I was in Berkeley when the food energy in America was in Berkeley. Then it moved to Los Angeles, and I went to Los Angeles. It moved to New York, and I went there.

My idea of management is that what your job is as the boss is to find really good people and empower them and leave them alone.

My mother started out by being a very good girl. She did everything that was expected of her, and it cost her dearly. Late in her life, she was furious that she had not followed her own heart; she thought that it had ruined her life, and I think she was right.

The critic has to do more of what the book critics and art critics have done in the past. Which is give you a context for understanding the restaurant, give you a better way to appreciate it, give you the tools to go in there and be a more informed diner who can get more pleasure out of the experience.

I don't have my own garden; we're on shale and in the woods. And if I did have a garden, the deer and chipmunks and squirrels and bears would eat everything anyway.

What often, too often, happens in magazines is that you end up with a great editorial product, and then you're selling things that you don't really approve of.

I have to say I know much more about football than I would like to, because my husband is a rabid football fan, and it's been so horrible.

You don't want to give people what they want. Give them something that they didn't know that they wanted.

I wanted to figure out a way of living where I didn't have to be in an office every day.

My mother's name was Miriam, but most people called her Mim.

If you start with a great peach, there's nothing you're ever going to do that's going to make it any better than when it comes off the tree. In 1970, that was a revolution.

What I always do in times of trouble or stress is to try and do something I don't know how to do.

I loved being at the 'Times,' and they were incredibly good to me. I think it's a wonderful paper, and I was really well edited.

I'm a home cook, and I'm constantly embarrassed by twentysomethings who really do know the mechanics of cooking. How to build a sauce.

I love breakfast, and I don't see any reason it has to be cereal and eggs and toast.

What I learned is that how we present ourselves to the world is really how we get treated. So if you want to be treated really well in a restaurant, you really have to dress up. You cannot just show up.

M. F. K. Fisher was a wonder and a huge influence, and someone I got to know pretty well at the end of her life.

'Comfort Me with Apples' is a love story, or better, two love stories. And since it deals with a later period in my life, most of the people who appear in it are living.