cooking

To cook your hare you must first catch it.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

The time comes to every dog when it ceases to care for people merely for biscuits or bones, or even for caresses, and walks out of doors. When a dog really loves, it prefers the person who gives it nothing, and perhaps is too ill ever to take it out for exercise, to all the liberal cooks and active dog-boys in the world.

A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.

We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks. . . . He may live without books,-what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope,-what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love,-what is passion but pining? But where is the man that can live without dining?

The qualities of an exceptional cook are akin to those of a successful tightrope walker: an abiding passion for the task, courage to go out on a limb and an impeccable sense of balance.

Are these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us? Is this the great poet whose works so content us? This Goldsmith's fine feast, who has written fine books? Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks?

In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is the sign of perfection.

Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.

Prince Wen Hui's cook was cutting up an ox. . . . The ox fell apart with a whisper. The bright cleaver murmured like a gentle wind. Rhythm! Timing! Like a sacred dance. . . . Prince Wen Hui: Good work! Your method is faultless! The cook: Method? What I follow is Tao beyond all methods! When I first began to cut up oxen I would see before me the whole ox all in one mass. After three years I no longer saw this mass. I saw the distinctions. But now I see nothing with the eye. My whole being apprehends. My senses are idle. The spirit free to work without plan follows its own instinct guided by natural line, by the secret opening, the hidden space, my cleaver finds its own way... Then I withdraw the blade, I stand still and let the joy of the work sink in. I clean the blade and put it away. Prince Wan Hui: This is it! My cook has shown me how I ought to live my own life!