Laurie Colwin

“Unlike some people who love to go out, I love to stay home.”

“Provision as much pure and organic food as you can, and let the rest go by.”

“My idea of a good time abroad is to visit someone's house and hang out, poking into their cupboards if they will let me.”

“At a certain point, memory begins to be a burden.”

“The sharing of food is the basis of social life.”

“The thing about homebodies is that they can usually be found at home. I usually am, and I like to feed people.”

“There is nothing like roast chicken. It is helpful and agreeable, the perfect dish no matter what the circumstances. Elegant or homey, a dish for a dinner party or a family supper, it will not let you down.”

“I myself am not particularly interested in restaurant cooking. I don't really want to learn how to make a napoleon. I'd much rather learn how to make a very good lemon cake, which you can make in your own home. I like plain, old-fashioned home food.”

“It is not just the Great Works of mankind that make a culture. It is the daily things, like what people eat and how they serve it.”

“When I was alone, I lived on eggplant, the stove top cook's strongest ally. I fried it and stewed it, and ate it crisp and sludgy, hot and cold. It was cheap and filling and was delicious in all manner of strange combinations. If any was left over, I ate it cold the next day on bread.”

“As everyone knows, there is only one way to fry chicken correctly. Unfortunately, most people think their method is best, but most people are wrong. Mine is the only right way, and on this subject I feel almost evangelical.”

“One of the delights of life is eating with friends; second to that is talking about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.”

“She said that my good qualities were my bad qualities -- this I have come to realize is true of everyone. On the one hand, I was game, eager and perfectly ready to see what was in front of me. On the other hand, I had no sense of direction or destiny.”

“Certainly, cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest.”

“We know that without food we would die. Without fellowship, life is not worth living.”

“I am not a fancy cook or an ambitious cook. I am a plain old cook.”

“I come from a coffee-loving family, and you can always tell when my sister and I have been around, because both of us collect all the dead coffee from everyone's morning cup, pour it over ice, and drink it. This is a disgusting habit.”

“Cooking is like love. You don't have to be particularly beautiful or very glamorous, or even very exciting to fall in love. You just have to be interested in it. It's the same thing with food.”

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers.”

“Somehow or other, I always end up in a kitchen feeding a crowd.”