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
Restaurants like the French Laundry can be very intimidating for a lot of people.
I hope I'm retired by 2012. If force-feeding a duck is cruel, then packing chickens in a cage is cruel, and then the veal and the beef. We are all going to be vegetarians soon if they have their way. We should probably start converting now.
The final menu is printed at four o'clock. Up until that point, we can make changes.
This has suddenly become the thing that everybody wants.
Its not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it's about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then u'll be a great cook.
This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep gratification from the mundane.
For me, thats one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.
A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.
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.
Larousse is an invaluable tool for any cook. I've used this great resource all throughout my cooking career, and of course I look forward to the new edition. New information and knowledge are always welcome.
Anyone can make a good roast chicken.