Thomas Keller
Thomas Keller
Thomas Kelleris an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook writer. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant is a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant Magazine list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth14 October 1955
CityPendleton, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Let's face it: if you and I have the same capabilities, the same energy, the same staff, if the only thing that's different between you and me is the products we can get, and I can get a better product than you, I'm going to be a better chef.
Respect for food is respect for life, for who we are and what we do.
It's not about perfection; it's about the joy of striving.
For me, thats one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.
You have to be driven. You have to be focused. You have to be aware.
A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.
And don't forget music - music in the kitchen is an essential ingredient!
They know what my standards are. They know what I need and how to get it to me, and they know how to communicate with me if for some reason they can't get it.
I think that's the important thing - being aware of that inspiration and being able to interpret it into something that's meaningful for you.
We rely on our purveyors to tell us what's available and what's good.
I have no formal culinary training, right.
We go through our careers and things happen to us. Those experiences made me what I am.
With passion, if you see the first asparagus of the springtime and you become passionate about it, so much the better, but three weeks later, when you’ve seen that asparagus every day now, passions have subsided. What’s going to make you treat the asparagus the same? It’s the desire.
Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore.