Good Bread Is The Most Fundamentally Satisfying

What Comforted Me? That Is Easy. It Was A Strong Cold Chicken Jelly So Very, Very Thick. My Mother's Chinese Cook Would Fix It. He Would Cook It Down, Condense It-this Broth With All Sorts Of Feet In It, Then It Would Gell Into Sheer Bliss. It Kept Me Alive Once For Three Weeks When I Was Ill As A Child. And I've Always Craved It Since.

The Kitchen, Reasonably Enough, Was The Scene Of My First Gastronomic Adventure. I Was On All Fours. I Crawled Into The Vegetable Bin, Settled On A Giant Onion And Ate It, Skin And All. It Must Have Marked Me For Life, For I Have Never Ceased To Love The Hearty Flavor Of Raw Onions.

I Have Had, In My Time, Memorable Meals Of Scrambled Eggs With Fresh Truffles, Scrambled Eggs With Caviar And Other Glamorous Things, But To Me, There Are Few Things As Magnificent As Scrambled Eggs, Pure And Simple, Perfectly Cooked And Perfectly Seasoned.

In A House Without A Genuine Kitchen, One Of The Delights Of Growing Up Is Lost.

I’m Going To Break One Of The Rules Of The Trade Here. I’m Going To Tell You Some Of The Secrets Of Improvisation. Just Remember—it’s Always A Good Idea To Follow The Directions Exactly The First Time You Try A Recipe. But From Then On, You’re On Your Own.