Jose Andres Quotes

Old cookbooks connect you to your past and explain the history of the world.

Don’t put too many chefs to work. Sometimes they get too involved in the ingredients and are of no help.

The time has come to recognize that food, how we produce it, process it, package it, sell it, cook it and eat it, is as important as any other issue.

I started culinary school at a very young age, and really I wanted to be out working, cooking, more than I wanted to be in a classroom. You could say I wasn’t a very good student – I wanted to be a student of life and experience.

Women’s cooking has always had a big influence on me personally.

When we are trying to come up with new health laws, you bring doctors, you bring experts in medicine. In urban planning, you bring the best architects. How it is possible that when we are talking about the way we are going to feed America, no chef shows up in the room?

Even today with the public’s growing interest in food and diet issues, politicians rarely include food as part of their political platforms.

Standing around the grill is fine, but I like to have my friends come in and out of the house. Movement makes the party more exciting.

I realized very early the power of food to evoke memory, to bring people together, to transport you to other places, and I wanted to be a part of that.

Italians allow anything in their cooking.

I’m a different immigrant. My life is so lucky compared to so many.

I work with companies like Audiostiles to put together mixes for my restaurants. I even created a soundtrack for my television show.

People ask me in Europe, when they do interviews… they ask me, ‘Well, how does it feel to be a cook in a country that doesn’t know how to eat?’ It always touches a nerve, because Europe and the world think that America is no more than bad hot dogs and bad burgers.

I have an amazing wife and three daughters that always keep me motivated.

Food and the way we grow it and produce it are a major cause of environmental degradation.

Dorado Beach’s rich history provided amazing inspiration to put forward a bold menu celebrating the legacy of the people and cuisine that shaped this unique destination and to push me to share some of my own stories.

Puerto Rico is the perfect meeting place between Spain, the country I come from, and America, the country where I now belong. The meeting point of two worlds where magic can happen.

The business of feeding people is the most amazing business in the world.

For me, summer hasn’t really started until tomatoes reappear in local farmers’ markets.

I guess that from the moment we are fed by our mothers, without even knowing it, we are caught in a net that brings us comfort, something we always feel when a special woman cooks for us. It is something unique and personal – it is something we want to keep for ourselves.

Simple ingredients prepared in a simple way – that’s the best way to take your everyday cooking to a higher level.

We should all be involved in the avant-garde as long as we look toward the past.

I’m always looking to the future and what will next be on the horizon.

I love cooking for the sake of understanding how people before me used to feed themselves, used to feed their families.

Behind Chipotle is not a corporation; behind Chipotle is a man that is one of the great cooks, that created a great concept.

I eventually settled in Washington, where my partners and I have been fortunate to build a restaurant business that now employs thousands of Americans across the country.

Chef Michel Richard is always at the top of his game.

I think when dishes have a certain amount of acidity, really they are very alive. And I love things that are alive.

If you have some potatoes, green beans and cauliflower, you have a heck of a dish that can feed an entire family.

Me, I’m an encyclopedia. I’m not a very smart guy, but I’m an encyclopedia. You can ask me about anything you want. Probably I have the book; probably I have a first edition.

Our brain, our body, craves fat. We cannot help it. That’s why a kid will eat a hot dog quicker than a piece of broccoli.

Listen to me: Leek is a vegetable. It can be the center of a dish.

Meat, to me, it’s slightly boring. Hold on, I love meat too, but only once in a while. You get a piece of meat, and you put it in your mouth, you chew, the first five seconds, all the juices flow around your mouth, they’re gone, and then you are 20 more seconds chewing something that is tasteless at this point.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite American ingredients is blue crabs, a true delicacy! And a great value, I think.

Cotton candy is the most amazing form of caramelization ever invented by man.

Education is everything. It’s for everyone. We all need to be educated.

If you want to keep your side dishes warmer than room temperature, consider buying a small steam table for the home, with the Sterno cans underneath.

The modernity of yesterday is the tradition of today, and the modernity of today will be tradition tomorrow.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never been shy about how important Ferran Adria has been in my life; he is a friend, a mentor, an inspiration.

In Hong Kong, ‘wonton’ means swallowing a cloud.

The Christmas market at the Barcelona Cathedral sells all kinds of things for your Nativity scene. It will also give you a good idea of Catalan culture.

The history of cooking is my passion, and cooking is my passion.

I prefer natural hardwood lump charcoal – the other stuff makes your food taste like Goodyear tires.

We still have to keep betting on markets like America that are full of opportunities to grow, even if we have to work our heads off to do it.

All my life, I’ve had restaurants that were affordable.

Chefs are at the end of a long chain of individuals who work hard to feed people. Farmers, beekeepers, bakers, scientists, fishermen, grocers, we are all part of that chain, all food people, all dedicated to feeding the world.

I think every chef should have a food truck. It’s a good way to test the markets, to invest in meeting the future restaurant goers.

To me, what I’m interested in, in the end, is the meaning of food in our lives.

Look at our farmers’ markets today, bursting with heritage breeds and heirloom varieties, foods that were once abundant when we were an agricultural nation, but that we have lost touch with. Bringing all these back helps us connect to our roots, our communities and helps us feed America the proper way.

The cheapest gadget – and you don’t even have to spend a dime – is chopsticks from a Chinese restaurant. I use them for everything: to toss salads, to turn a piece of meat in the pan, to flip croquettes in the Fryolator, to whisk eggs for omelets, to stir eggs into fried rice when I make that for my daughters.

Simple ingredients, treated with respect… put them together and you will always have a great dish.

Food is national security. Food is craft. Food is everything, when you think about it.

I believe in tradition and innovation, authenticity and passion.

One day, we’ll have 10, 20 or 50 Jaleos around America or around the world.

Vegas is a celebration.

As immigrants, we understand better than most that to be an American is a privilege that conveys not just rights but responsibilities.

As chefs, we cook to please people, to nourish people.

Good things, you can’t rush into them.

Eating has to be fun.

Steakhouses serve these big steaks. The first piece is hot, and the last piece is cold. The way I like to eat is to try three or four cuts of meat. People should actually be eating less meat, and the meat they eat should be special.

Who needs one more chef in one more building with four walls and a kitchen?

The right use of food can end hunger.

The culture of modern Spain is something many people are still discovering.

I love America!

In Spain, we mainly use red plum tomatoes, but it is always fun to experiment. Try using a mix of colors or substitute green tomatoes for plum next time you make a tomato dish.

My whole life, I have been trying to cook an egg in the right way.

Everyone should wake up and have a fresh-squeezed orange every day. By having a fresh glass of orange juice with American oranges, you are supporting the local economy, you have all the vitamin C you need in a day, and you support the environment because you don’t use any plastic from bottles or bags.

A lot of people prefer to be alone. They would rather be a palm tree on an island. I don’t get it.

As a chef and as a father, I am very upset by what’s on the menu at most schools: chicken nuggets and tater tots and ketchup and pizza.

People travel north from Barcelona, not south.

I am from Spain, but my family and I have made America our home. For the last 17 years, I have been cooking Spanish food in Washington, D.C.

I get very upset when people start adding weird things to romesco.

I don’t believe in traditional company structures because the best ideas do not always come from the top.

Everyting starts to happen at my home at 7 A. M., 7:20, when you hear the orange juicer. That means my daughters are already making the fresh Clementine juice.

American cooking is one of the unknown cuisines in America.

I don’t know any group of professionals that mobilize as fast and as often as chefs do when there are people who are in need.

I’m very happy with how Jaleo in Las Vegas came together.

In 2010, I created World Central Kitchen as a way to try and help find solutions to many of the food issues we face.

My family and I cook at home almost every day together. The kitchen is the central and most important room in the house; it’s a great way for us to connect. We love going to the farmer’s market on Sundays as a family and choosing the ingredients together.

IBM has research and development; so do Microsoft and Nike and even Jose Andres. But there hasn’t been enough R&D on feeding people in the Third World. This has to be part of the process; if not, we’ll keep throwing money at the problem instead of investing in true solutions.

Your parents would not be happy if you came home and said you wanted to grow up to be a chef or a rock star.

When you cook a sausage, the skin sometimes breaks and the ground meat comes apart.

In Spain, you can go into any tapas bar, and you’ll see anchovies all over the menu.

I remember being a young boy in Spain and watching my parents cook. We didn’t go to a lot of restaurants because we didn’t always have the money, so cooking at home was just what we did.

Music is always on. Not at work. But at home, everything always has to have a soundtrack.

I believe the future is vegetables and fruits. They are so much more sexier than a piece of chicken.

A plancha is just a hot flat surface. So if you think about it, anything is a plancha, like a saute pan or a griddle. A la plancha is the perfect way to cook for a crowd.

Don’t skimp on the ice. Bags from the grocery store melt so fast and water down your drinks. I prefer beautiful, big squares for my cocktails.