Jacques Pepin Quotes

When I Left To Go Into Apprenticeship In 1949, It Was Only Four Years After The War, And People Don't Realize, We Still Had Tickets For Butter, Meat And So Forth In France Until 1947. It's Not Like The End Of The War, Everything Was Plentiful - It Wasn't.

You Know, My Parents Had A Restaurant. And I Left Home, Actually, In 1949, When I Was 13 Years Old, To Go Into Apprenticeship. And Actually When I Left Home, Home Was A Restaurant - Like I Said, My Mother Was A Chef. So I Can't Remember Any Time In My Life, From Age 5, 6, That I Wasn't In A Kitchen.

When I Wrote 'fast Food My Way' In 2004, I Hoped That My Friends Would Prepare My Recipes. Now, More People Cook From That Book Than Any Other I've Written In The Past 30 Years.

My Mother Likes What I Cook, But Doesn't Think It's French. My Wife Is Puerto Rican And Cuban, So I Eat Rice And Beans. We Have A Place In Mexico, But People Think I'm The Quintessential French Chef.

Food Can Be Utilized For Economic Reasons, Like The Grain Embargo Of Carter 40 Years Ago. You Have A Political Decision, You Are Going To Move The Flow Of Food In A Part Of The World And Not Another Part Of The World. And Certainly Now, With The Way The Country Is Polarized And All That, You Wouldn't Want To Have A French Menu, With A French Thing - You'd Be Crucified! Or Anything Like That. You Have To Be A Real American And Apple Pie And This And That.

When You'd Get A Note From Someone, The Government, It Meant Something Was Wrong. This Was The Way It Was. Just Goes To Show You The Way That Being A Chef Has Changed, You Know - Being On The Bottom Of The Social Scale And Now Being What We Are, It's Incredible, It's Terrific.

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.

This June, I'll Travel Once Again To The Food And Wine Magazine Classic In Aspen, Colorado. For Many Years, My Dear Friend Julia Child And I Have Teamed Up To Teach Classes Together At The Event; For The Past Seven Years, My Daughter, Claudine, Has Been My Cooking Partner On Stage.

Probably A Mistake, You Know, That People Make In America, To Think That All Great Chefs Are A Male... I'm Still The Only Male In The Family Who Went Into That Business.

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.

All The Great Chefs I Know - Thomas Keller, Jean-georges Vongerichten - They Are Technicians First.

The Menus That Remain, For Me, Are Really The Menus That You Have With Your Good Friends, With Your Wife, With Your Mother, With Your Kids. These Are What Stay In Your Mind.