Samin Nosrat

“I've had an untraditional trajectory with food: I was in my mom's home, then I was a college kid making mac and cheese and quesadillas, and then I was a professional cook. I never had that time where you figure out how to cook for yourself at home.”

“The only good things I've seen emerge from a steamer are tamales, couscous, and dumplings - maybe the occasional artichoke or delicate fish fillet. But baby turnips with their tender greens still attached should be boiled in water as salty as the sea until their flesh is silky and soft.”

“I wake up naturally and begrudgingly around 6:10 A.M. That's wired in so deeply that I wake up at that time no matter where I am, in any time zone. I wish I could sleep later.”

“Most canele recipes begin with an instruction to brush $30 copper molds with melted beeswax. Unsurprisingly, I've never made it past the Internet search for 'used canele molds' before giving up.”

“When I left restaurants, I had to learn to be a home cook.”

“I grew up in San Diego with immigrant parents, before the food blogs, before this kind of celebrity chef culture we know now.”

“I went straight from college into restaurants, so, from the beginning, my idea of what a kitchen should be was the highfalutin' restaurant type - and what I had at home never measured up to that.”

“I've always believed that pastry chefs are born, not made. They're patient, methodical, tidy, and organized. It's why I stick to the savory side of the kitchen - I'm far too messy and impulsive to do all the measuring, timing, and rule-following that pastry demands.”

“I can only be me!”

“Apricots are the most private fruit, loath to reveal their secrets.”

“Ours was a pork-free household. The rules were arbitrary but strict: No pork in the house, ever. Except for the occasional pepperoni pizza. Or maybe Hawaiian.”

“A burger is a black dress; a kebab is a Met Gala gown.”

“The people-pleasing and performing is 100% ingrained in me, partly because I was a little brown girl growing up in a very white, homogeneous community in San Diego - where, in second grade, I was called a terrorist.”

“Tart and sweet, tinged with the faint scent of almonds and flowers, the Blenheim is the ideal apricot for both eating and preserving.”

“At home, Mom served us turkey breakfast links that she got at the health-food store. But whenever we went out for breakfast, she let my brothers and me order pork sausages (though, inexplicably, not bacon).”

“I really love the beach.”

“I'll eat anything, even foods I've always shunned, when a friend cooks it.”

“Like all Iranian kids, I grew up feeling strongly that the best part of dinner was tahdig, the crisp, golden crust that forms at the bottom of every pot of Persian rice - and sometimes other dishes, too.”

“Chez Panisse is a sensory temple - you might have to be made of stone not to fall for it.”

“My inability to follow recipes as written - without obeying the devil on my shoulder telling me to replace ingredients or change the temperature - is well documented.”