Quotes by John Cooke

“When any worthwhile thing is done in the world, it's usually done by somebody weird.””

“Cookery means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness and inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your grandmothers and the science of the modern chemist; it means much testing and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art and Arabian hospitality; and, in fine, it means that you are to be perfectly and always ladies”

“My dad: “Emily, this risotto…” My mom: “It’s just delicious.” Gus’s mom: “Oh, thanks. I’d be happy to give you the recipe.” Gus, swallowing a bite: “You know, this primary taste I’m getting is not-Oranjee.” Me: “Good observation, Gus. This food, while delicious, does not taste like Oranjee.” My mom: “Hazel.” Gus: “It tastes like…” Me: “Food.” Gus: “Yes, precisely. It tastes like food, excellently prepared. But it does not taste, how do I put this delicately…?” Me: “It does not taste like God Himself cooked heaven into a series of five dishes which were then served to you accompanied by several luminous balls of fermented, bubbly plasma while actual and literal flower petals floated down all around your canal-side dinner table.” Gus: “Nicely phrased.” Gus’s father: “Our children are weird.” My dad: “Nicely phrased.””

“We have made mistakes. We haven’t always used our power wisely. We have abused it sometimes and we’ve been arrogant. But, as often as not, we recognized those wrongs, debated them openly, and tried to do better. And the good we have done for humanity surpasses the damage caused by our errors. We have sought to make the world more stable and secure, not just our own society. We have advanced norms and rules of international relations that have benefited all. We have stood up to tyrants for mistreating their people even when they didn’t threaten us, not always, but often. We don’t steal other people’s wealth. We don’t take their land. We don’t build walls to freedom and opportunity. We tear them down. To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is unpatriotic. American nationalism isn’t the same as in other countries. It isn’t nativist or imperial or xenophobic, or it shouldn’t be. Those attachments belong with other tired dogmas that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history. We live in a land made from ideals, not blood and soil. We are custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad.””

“How do you do that?” I asked. “What do witches eat?” “Witches loves pork meat,” she said. “They loves rice and potatoes. They loves black-eyed peas and cornbread. Lima beans, too, and collard greens and cabbage, all cooked in pork fat. Witches is old folks, most of them. They don’t care none for low-cal. You pile that food on a paper plate, stick a plastic fork in it, and set it down by the side of a tree. And that feeds the witches.” The””

“Anyone can cook a trout. The real art is in hooking the damned thing.””

“Me: "it does not taste like God Himself cooked heaven into a series of five dishes which were then served to you accompanied by several luminous balls of fermented, bubbly plasma while actual and literal flower petals floated down all around you canal-siide dinner table."Gus: "Nicely phrased"Gus's father: Our children are weird."My dad: "Nicely phrased””

“Mother doesn't cook, Ignatius said dogmatically, She burns.””

“Amy Martin (ladysky) and Daniel Baciagalupo had a month to spend on Charlotte Turner's island in Georgian Bay; it was their wilderness way of getting to know each other before their life together in Toronto began. We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly--as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth--the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives. Little Joe was gone, but not a day passed in Daniel Baciagalupo's life when Joe wasn't loved or remembered. The cook had been murdered in his bed, but Dominic Baciagalupo had had the last laugh on the cowboy. Ketchum's left hand would lvie forever in Twisted River, and Six-Pack had known what to do with the rest of her old friend””

“Every evening my wife makes us martinis and we talk about our days as I cook dinner and our children ignore us. It is a great pleasure in our lives: this rediscovering of each other as our children age. It is our indulgence.””

“Agnes Shay had the true spirit of a maid. Moistened with dishwater and mild eau de cologne, reared in narrow and sunless bedrooms, in back passages, back stairs, laundries, linen closets, and in those servants' halls that remind one of a prison, her soul had grown docile and bleak...Agnes loved the ceremonies of a big house. She drew the curtains in the living room at dark, lighted the candles on the table, and struck the dinner chimes like an eager altar boy. On fine evenings, when she sat on the back porch between the garbage pails and the woodbins, she liked to recall the faces of all the cooks she had known. It made her life seem rich.””