A Literary Culinary Journal
The three-Martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?–Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States of America (1913-2006), was then incumbent Presidential candidate running against Jimmy Carter. who condemned the practice of having luxurious mid-day meals that could be written off as tax expenses.
Click here to listen to the 3-martini lunch song.
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Never hesitate to take the last piece of bread or the last cake; there are probably more.–Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms: Etiquette of the Table (1880)
The entire book is scanned for reading online. Click here to read it.
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It isn’t only fictional heroes to whom toast means home and comfort. It is related of the Duke of Wellington – I believe by Lord Ellesmere – that when he landed at Dover in 1814, after six years’ absence from England, the first order he gave at the Ship Inn was for an unlimited supply of buttered toast.–Elizabeth David, English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977)
Elizabeth David was British food writer and author of eight cookbooks published during her lifetime, and five more published posthumously. She won the prestigious Glenfiddich award for her book English Bread and Yeast Cookery. In the 1960s she was hailed as the person who transformed the eating habits of middle- class England.
Click here to listen to interview with Jill Norman, her publisher.
Click here to watch a scene from a documentary about her life.
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When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.–Ava Gardner
Hollywood leading actress of from the 1950s through the 1970s. Married three times to actor Mickey Rooney; to jazz musician Artie Shaw; and lastly to singer and actor Frank Sinatra. She was also romantically involved with Howard Hughes and Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín.
At the end of her life she suffered from emphysema brought on by a lifetime of smoking. She died at the age of 67 from pneumonia after having had two strokes which left her bedridden.
Click here to listen to Ava Gardner in the movie Show Boat singing Can’t Help Lovin´dat Man, which clearly she did.
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I don’t like to say that my kitchen is a religious place, but I would say that if I were a voodoo priestess, I would conduct my rituals there.–Pearl Bailey, Pearl’s Kitchen
Pearl Bailey was an American Tony-award winning actress for her role in Hello Dolly! (1968). President Richard Nixon appointed her America’s “Ambassador of Love” in 1970, three years before she published Pearl’s Kitchen.
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A man who loves good food has a way of making it gravitate toward his kitchen.–Angelo Pellegrini, The Unprejudiced Palate (1948)
Ruth Reichl describes The Unprejudiced Palate as a “manifesto for living the good life.” Angelo Pellegrini was a writer, English professor, gardener, and lover of food and cooking. He believed in the seasonality of cooking and eating and practiced Slow Food philosophy before it became popular.
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Somehow we have fallen for a myth, the notion that food that isn’t fast prepared and fast cooked is inherently more difficult, more time consuming, more of a sweat, almost not worth the effort, or, at least, only worth the effort of the time.–Tamasin Day-Lewis, Good Tempered Food
Tamasin Day-Lewis is an English television chef, daughter of the poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis and actress Jill Balcon, and sister of the actor Daniel Day-Lewis. For those who live in the UK , her cooking show can be watched on TV.
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The world’s very first restaurant was probably some pre-historic boîte, settled in an intimate cave, we assume, which featured specialtiés de la maison that no cave lady could master.–Matty Simmons, Vice President Diners’ Club, Inc. The Diners’ Club Cookbook, Great Recipes from Great Restaurants, 1959
Matty Simmons was a newspaper reporter at The New York World-Telegram and the New York Sun, and then Executive Vice President for Diner’s Club, the first credit card.
Click here to read about his perspective on the early days of credit cards.
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Cooking is a test without paper, the questions, or the answers, in the sense that you, the cook, are constantly trying to please a disparate bunch of people, who most often, being family, will not hold back on the criticism.–Tamasin Day-Lewis, Good Tempered Food
Tamasin Day-Lewis is an English television chef, daughter of the poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis and actress Jill Balcon, and sister of the actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
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“…there is a difficulty in bringing to life in one’s own kitchen the memories of gastronomic travels. Most of us do not wish to eat at home as we do in restaurants, nor would we want to cook like expert chefs every day even if we knew how.”–Narcisse Chamberlain and Narcissa G. Chamberlain, The Flavor of France in Recipes & Pictures
Narcisse Chamberlain was the daughter of cookbook writers Samuel and Narcissa G. Chamberlain. Her father, Samuel, was one of the founders of Gourmet Magazine, and along with his wife and daughter, teamed up to help make French food accessible to American homes in the 1950s and 60s. Narcisse Chamberlain’s books and papers can be found at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
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