
“I am the emperor, and I want dumplings.” -Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, fiercely Catholic leader of much of Central & Eastern Europe during the late 1500′s

“Here, taste my tuna casserole and tell me if I put in too much hot fudge.” -Legendary American film-maker Woody Allen as Larry Lipton in his 1993 film Manhattan Murder Mystery

“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.” -Oscar Wilde, 19th century Irish trouble-maker, playwright, author, and style icon

“Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.” -Mufasa, father of Simba and graceful, noble king of the lions, in Disney’s timeless animated classic, The Lion King

“Well, it’s mostly lentils, but there’s some crockery mixed in.” -Nigel Planer as politically depressed neu-hippie Neil Pye in the early-80′s BBC Britcom comedy of manners The Young Ones

“Ribs? Great…..why don’t you just kick the dentures out of my mouth?” -Late American actress Estelle Getty as pint-sized Sicilian pistol Sophia Petrillo on the brilliant 80′s sitcom The Golden Girls

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it’s impossible to count them accurately.” -Oscar Wilde, 19th century Irish writer, sexually ambiguous lover of beauty, and total brat

“I may not know much, but I know chicken shit from chicken salad.” -Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th American president and consistent deliverer of badass one-liners

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” -John Steinbeck, American novelist and writer of one of my most all-time most favoritest books (I have a lot of those), East of Eden

“On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use….Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. “Is thems the thoughts of cows?” I’d ask the butcher, pointing to the calves’ brains displayed in the front window. “I want me some lamb chop with handles on ‘em.” -David Sedaris, American story-teller and frequent NPR contributor, in his year 2000 essay collection Me Talk Pretty One Day

“Mmmmm…..unexplained bacon.” -Homer Simpson, Renaissance (Every)Man, beer guzzler, patriarch of The Simpsons family, and die-hard bacon fanatic

“If things start happening, don’t worry, don’t stew, just go right along and you’ll start happening too.” -Dr. Seuss, pseudonym of American writer/illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel, writer of (hands, like, totally down) my most beloved and revered children’s books ever in the history of…..ever

The prospect of directly referencing a recipe that I’ve learned at The French Culinary Institute is a bit of a daunting one. I don’t want to anger the school I adore by violating copyright or anything like that, but at the same time, I want to document what I’m learning for my family, my friends, [...]