Great Cooking Favors The Prepared

Thirty, 40 Years Ago, More Than That Now, Even, The Cook Was Certainly At The Bottom Of The Social Scale. And Any Mother Would've Wanted Their Child To Marry A Doctor, A Lawyer, An Architect, Not A Cook. Now, We Are Genius, It's Different.

I Taped My First Series For Pbs In 1982 At Wjct-tv In Jacksonville, Florida. The Show, Called 'everyday Cooking With Jacques Pepin,' Was About Saving Time And Money In The Kitchen - And It Was A Celebration Of Simple And Unpretentious Food.

When I Left To Go Into Apprenticeship In 1949, It Was Only Four Years After The War, And People Don't Realize, We Still Had Tickets For Butter, Meat And So Forth In France Until 1947. It's Not Like The End Of The War, Everything Was Plentiful - It Wasn't.

The Menus That Remain, For Me, Are Really The Menus That You Have With Your Good Friends, With Your Wife, With Your Mother, With Your Kids. These Are What Stay In Your Mind.

Just Because I Am A Chef Doesn't Mean I Don't Rely On Fast Recipes. Indeed, We All Have Moments When, Pressed For Time, We'll Use A Can Of Tuna And A Tomato For A First Course. It's A Question Of Choosing The Right Recipes For The Rest Of The Menu.