A Quote by Michael Pollan

French cooking is really the result of peasants figuring out how to extract flavor from pedestrian ingredients. So most of the food that we think of as elite didn't start out that way.
I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.
Economic theorists, like French chefs in regard to food, have developed stylized models whose ingredients are limited by some unwritten rules. Just as traditional French cooking does not use seaweed or raw fish, so neoclassical models do not make assumptions derived from psychology, anthropology, or sociology. I disagree with any rules that limit the nature of the ingredients in economic models.
I think that most people will spend their whole life not figuring out what they're meant to do, or figuring out what they're meant to do on their way to do something else. So I just feel lucky that I know what I love to do. Everything else figures itself out.
Cooking brings me so much joy. I love everything, down to the execution of the plate to picking out fresh ingredients at the market. It makes me deeply grateful and aware of where our food comes from and how feeding people is another way of saying, "I love you."
In France cooking is a serious art form and a national sport. I think the French enjoy the complication of the art form and the cooking for cooking's sake. You can talk with a concierge or police officer about food in France as a general rule. It is not the general rule here. Classical cuisine, which I hope we are going back to, means certain ways of doing things and certain ways of not doing things. If you know classical French cooking you can do anything. If you don't know the basics, you turn out slop.
We're not best in the world at burritos and tacos. What we're best in the world at is building a people culture, sourcing really great ingredients, cooking according to classic cooking techniques, understanding the corresponding economic model and how to tweak that and drive that and provide this really great, new fast food experience.
If your version of pub food is microwaving a pie and some baked beans, then yeah, it's really complicated cooking. But if it's just about getting the best out of simple ingredients, then it's not.
I didn't start really playing the guitar till I was about seventeen, and I never really had those formative years are where like I was in my room, figuring all that stuff out before I hit the stage. I just did all that on the road all at once, so all those years of playing roadhouses in bars and clubs, I was really figuring it out.
Everyone needs some trial and error figuring out how it's gonna work for them. I could have gotten that out of the way a little sooner but I think you're totally right, the way I kind of think about things and the way I wanted to put myself out there doesn't fit the traditional side of things. I needed things like podcasts and YouTube and things that allow you to get it out there yourself and stand in the flames.
Mayonnaise, like hollandaise, was invented by the French to cover up the flavor of spoiled flesh, stale vegetables, rotten fish. Beware the sauce! Where food comes beslobbered with an elegant slime you may well suspect the integrity of the basic ingredients.
The kind of approach that inspires me is taking what you've built and figuring out how to turn it into a new experience by expanding it smartly. The challenge is figuring out what's the best way to do that without totally jumping off of a cliff.
We have friends in Italy who have these old stoves, and they turn out the most beautiful food. All you really need is time, the best ingredients, and love.
I do think they [French] view my writing itself as exotic - though that's probably not the best term for it - to a small extent, mainly because I say things that most French writers would probably hesitate to say for fear of offending someone or upsetting public sensibilities. I don't think that answers the question, but I'm not much good at figuring readers out or I would probably be writing bestsellers.
There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing.
The traditional fast food model is built on buying the cheapest ingredients - and that usually means poor-quality, heavily processed foods. But you can use quality ingredients, cook food using classic cooking techniques, and still serve something that's fast and inexpensive.
I think the most note-worthy part is that Stella [Mozgawa] had joined the band two weeks before we started recording, so that really influenced the way that the album was recorded. It was really important for Stella and Jen[ny Lee Lindberg] to lay down the drums and bass first for most songs, because they were determining how they needed to lock in together, and Stella was still kind of learning and figuring out her parts.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!