A Quote by Michael Pollan

We're spending, on average, 27 minutes a day cooking and about four minutes cleaning up, so basically about a half hour. Any one of TV shows takes twice as long to watch as that, which I think is very interesting because the main excuse people give for not cooking is they don't have time to cook, but somehow they're finding time to watch other people cook or eat on TV.
I think that there's some brainwashing going on with this idea that we don't have time to cook anymore. We have made cooking seem much more complicated than it is, and part of that comes from watching cooking shows on television-we've turned cooking into a spectator sport. ...My wife and I both work, and we can get a very nice dinner on the table in a half hour. It would not take any less time for us to drive to a fast-food outlet and order, sit down, and bus our table.
Soha does not like cooking but I like to cook. And since we are in the same profession, we have the same tastes in entertainment we like to watch the same shows on TV. The only thing that Soha is finicky about is her eating habits, which keep on changing. But we do give enough space to each other.
I am a hardcore foodie, which means I love to eat. I was also born with cerebral palsy, which means I shake all the time - so cooking is not my thing, as I am banned from being around knives and fire. Those who cannot cook, watch, and I am obsessed with cooking shows.
I really take pride in doing my own make-up all the time, which takes me about 40 minutes, and my hair takes another 15 to 20 minutes. Putting on my gear is probably another 15 minutes, so all in all, I don't think an hour and a half is too bad!
The thing that people have said over and over again, especially people who don't cook, is, 'I watch your show, the food makes me hungry, and I think I can make that.' That's exciting because we've heard that a lot of people watch cooking shows but don't make the food.
People are on their computers more than watching TV, because you can only watch voyeur TV, which is basically what reality shows are, for so long.
People come up to me all the time and say, 'Oh, I love to watch Food Network,' and I ask them what they cook, and they say, 'I don't really cook.' They're afraid, they're intimidated, they know all about food from eating out and watching TV, but they don't know where to start in their own kitchen.
It's very meditative to watch Food Network shows. I mean, you might be taking notes, but you're probably not. It's meditative to watch someone cook, just like it is to watch your mother cook, or anyone cook.
If you watch cooking shows on cable, they have lots of British people. Because when you think good cooking, you immediately think Britain.
If you're a prostitute, this is your day: You party, you have customers until four or six in the morning, then you sleep. You wake at noon, watch soaps on TV, take two or three hours to fancy up yourself, and then you start waiting for customers. That's your life. And some days no customers come. There's no party. There's nothing. You sit there and wait. If you're educated you can read books, but in Bangladesh and most other places you watch TV or listen to music or cook.
Interruptions: The average worker gets interrupted five times each hour. It takes an average of 5 minutes to handle each interruption and 1 minute to get back to what you were doing. This adds up to 30 minutes each hour or 50% of your time!! You've got to think about "big things" while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
Most people just half-watch TV. They watch TV while they are doing many other things in the environment of their home. So, what they are doing goes through their ears as much as through their eyes. In television, the narrative and characters are in the foreground of everything, because you are watching TV as you do other stuff.
Cooking, to me, it's kind of therapeutic. It's completely different from music as well. I'm not amazing at it, but I can cook myself a good meal. And I'm not just saying this, but anytime I'm on the bus or at home, I'm watching Food Network or cooking on TV just 'cause it's interesting to me.
The secret is to cook the aubergines the day before and let them dry of all the oil they drank in cooking. When you cook aubergine, they eat a lot of oil. It can be very heavy.
Basically, I go to the local farmer's market and decide to what to cook then, depending on what I find. Either my wife or I cook, and we usually finish a bottle or two of wine by the time we are done cooking and eating.
I think it's terribly important to watch TV. I think there's a sort of minimum number of hours of TV a day you ought to watch, and unless you watch three or four hours of TV a day, you're just closing your eyes to some of the most important sort of stream of consciousness that's going on!
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