I've taught myself how to use good, fresh ingredients and to prepare them as simply as possible by cooking only to enhance their intrinsic flavors.
I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon.
The cooking standards for Italian food are less demanding than for French. All you need are some fried mozzarella and five pastas, and you're in business.
In order to have good fried chicken, you should wash and season the bird the morning you're preparing it for dinner. Don't wait and do it right before you start cooking. Throw it in the refrigerator, seasoned, that morning, and give it a chance to soak up all the salt and pepper and goodness.
I love cooking Japanese food at home. It's so easy to make an easy fry, a saute, or a quick braise and serve it over a bowl of rice with pickles and a side salad.
I recall my mum tried to teach me how to fry chicken once, and I almost burned down half the kitchen... I don't think I have the patience for cooking.
There are people who claim to be instinctive cooks, who never follow recipes or weigh anything at all. All I can say is they're not very fussy about what they eat. For me, cooking is an exact art and not some casual game.
After spending so much time in America, I started travelling with 'In Defence of English Cooking' by George Orwell. It's archaic and old-fashioned in its Englishness and reminds me of home.
Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together. No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people get together to eat.
The process was remarkably cathartic. I'd sit and listen to my father's voice - having not heard some of these tapes for 30 years and hearing his voice laying me down for a nap, our giggles and cooking dinner - and I remembered all those wonderful days. Normal days.
Everyone has something that they desperately need that makes them feel good, that they don't want anything to get in the way of. Whether it's a man's golf game, whether it's a woman's cooking. I have a friend who has to clean. She's addicted to cleaning.
I'm not a particularly good cook. Part of it is that it is the kind of cooking anybody could do if they bothered. It's improvisational. I cook with whatever I have laying around.
My mom is a really good cook. I didn't get the cooking gene, but she cooks this really amazing dinner every Christmas, and that's always really fun.
I'm not sure I'm a good cook. But I like cooking, and it's a real family thing - an expression of love being together.
My cooking style is really simple. Not a lot of ingredients, but all good quality, so you don't have to do that much to them.
I'm a bit of a gourmet chef. I love cooking - mostly Thai food.
I don't like gourmet cooking or 'this' cooking or 'that' cooking. I like good cooking.
I cooked at the White House for Easter, last year, with Michelle Obama. But it more had to do with cooking from the organic garden, and her message. I took my daughter and granddaughter there, and they were really charming, it was great.
'Grandmother' doesn't mean that you have gray hair and you retire and stay home cooking cakes for your grandchildren.
One-pot meals make a lot of sense... because so much of what people hate about cooking is really the cleanup, the mess, the grease.
