I have always loved food. I began cooking for my family as a young girl, and to this day, it's one of my greatest pleasures in life.
Drinking good wine with good food in good company is one of life's most civilized pleasures.
Good food, good sex, good digestion, good sleep: to these basic animal pleasures, man has added nothing but the good cigarette.
I love everything about food; if you took it away you would be depriving me of one of my greatest pleasures. I love the whole process of it - buying it, cooking it, eating it, talking about it, talking over it.
Now, everyone is excited about food - cooking, growing, learning - watching it on TV, buying books, trying things at home. It's the greatest time ever to be in food - which is why it's so hard to see so many people still relying on processed food. I am hoping that we had a generational blip - and that these young people will continue on and pass on their love of food and creativity to the next generation of kids.
I would say, probably 7 or 8 years into my cooking career, it stopped being about just food for me. Food's really fun, but I've always been about people, and I realized that food is just a really convenient tool for me to connect people and bring them together.
I'm very good at compartmentalising my life. I did motor-racing for a while, stopped, didn't miss it. I did power-boat racing for a while, stopped, didn't miss it. I had such a good run at the BBC. I had a hell of a CV with arguably the greatest broadcasting organisation in the world. But I've never missed it since.
You do not need to be an expert, or even particularly interested in wine, in order to enjoy drinking it. But tasting is not the same as drinking. Drinking pleases, mellows, loosens the tongue and inhibitions; drinking wine with food is healthy and natural; drinking good wine with good food in good company is one of life's most civilized pleasures.
Cooking, I mean, food, cooking foods is just everything that I do from morning to night. It's how I choose to live my life: through cooking, people that are in food culture. And I love it.
Eating good food is, to me, one of life's greatest joys, and I will never punish myself for it.
In Spain we have a saying about the essentials of life: good food, good wine, good sex, good sleep.
The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen.
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 been an adventure
I'm as surprised as anybody. I never would have thought I'd be here talking about having a cooking show on the Food Network. It wasn't on my list of things, but it's fun, and I'm having a good time.
[My ideal of a good dinner] is to discuss good food, and, after this good food has been discussed, to discuss a good topic - with myself the chief conversationalist.
I'm the joke of the family with cooking because I've never done it - primarily because I've been surrounded by people who are so good at it. Mum's brilliant. Boyfriends have always been good at it. I'm waiting for my inner chef to be released.