10 Badass Quotes from Famous Chefs

 
Image via Getty

April Bloomfield (Image via Getty)

When they’re not busy being stern but lovable, reliable but spontaneous, chefs pass the time saying fiesty, inspiring things. Sew one of these quotes on a pillow. Then chop five onions. No, not like that, Evelyn. Like this. Thank you, Evelyn.

 

“Fortunately, I knew the cardinal rule of getting on with one’s fellow cooks. It applies in any kitchen and can be summed up in two short words: bust ass.”

Jacques Pépin, The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen

 

“I’m not having babies any longer, so I don’t need to be nice or make sure everyone is okay. I just need to get shit done and see what I can make and contribute while I’m still here. I find that very exciting.”

– Gabrielle Hamilton, on The High Road with Mario Batali

 

Image via Getty

Image via Getty

“Every woman should have a blowtorch.”

Julia Child

 

“If you are not extreme, then people will take shortcuts because they don’t fear you.”

Marco Pierre White, The Devil in the Kitchen

 

“I don’t think of being a woman in an industry of men. I didn’t walk into the kitchen and go, ‘Ooh, I’m a girl!’ I didn’t get into my chosen profession. I wanted to be good at something.”

April Bloomfield, in the New Yorker

 

“Studying hard doesn’t guarantee you will become a respectable person.”

Jiro Ono, Jiro Dreams of Sushi

 

“I feel that good food should be a right and not a privilege, and it needs to be without pesticides and herbicides. And everybody deserves this food. And that’s not elitist.”

Alice Waters, in a 60 Minutes interview

 

Thomas Keller (Image via Getty)

Image via Getty

“Cooking is not about convenience, and it’s not about shortcuts. Our hunger for the twenty-minute gourmet meal, for one-pot ease and prewashed, precut ingredients has severed our lifeline to the satisfactions of cooking. Take your time. Take a long time. Move slowly and deliberately and with great attention.”

Thomas KellerThe French Laundry Cookbook

 

“Risk is to do something that 99 percent of the time would be a failure.”

Ferran Adrià, in Esquire

 

“Don’t touch my d*ck, don’t touch my knife.”

Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

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Lauren is a writer and editor living in Jersey City.