“Wild fermentation is the opposite of homogenization and uniformity, a small antidote you can undertake in your home, using the extremely localized populations of microbial cultures present there to produce your own unique fermented foods. What you ferment with the organisms around you is a manifestation of your specific environment, and it will always be a little different.” – Wild Fermentation, Sandor Ellix Katz

“‘Ingredients are the new chefs on some level,’ Steve Sando, the founder of Rancho Gordo, summarized with a naughty chuckle as he bounced around Napa in his messy pickup truck recently.” – “Bean Counterculture” in The New York Times

“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. Sure, it’s a ‘play you pay’ sort of an adventure, but you knew that already, every time you ordered a taco or a dirty-water hot dog.” – Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

Even those willing to work for free are having a hard time. “Everybody’s on the edge, and I don’t need people hanging around my kitchen messing with the morale of the paid guys,” said Michael White, the chef and an owner of Alto and Convivio and, soon, Marea. “Let them go to Italy, learn to make pasta, and wash their clothes in a bucket like I did for seven years.” – Michael White for Julia Moskin’s “With Fewer Pots to Stir, Competition Rises Among Cooks” in The New York Times

“Recognizing that meat consumption/production has a large environmental footprint and negative human health effects (in terms of carbon emissions, water footprint, pollution of habitats) we’ve decided to serve a vegetarian entrée with a sustainable duck option.” – Global Environment rep for Grub Street

“A perfect bunch of radishes is almost too pretty to eat. A freshly cured head of garlic is a world apart from a dry Chinese clove. A leek split in half along its length. I believe that this moment, recognizing beauty and curiosity of what is before you ready to be cooked is an essential part of the cooking process. It’s also why it becomes harder and harder to eat conventionally grown food. In addition to being questionably grown and nutritionally inferior, it is positively unremarkable.”
- Caroline Fidanza, “Ribollita” for Diner Journal No. 10

“But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has praised Los Angeles for its practice, defended the system. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘If you can’t pass [a health] inspection one time, you can’t pass an inspection every time.’”

- Glenn Collins’ article “A Stir Over the Plan to Grade New York City’s Restaurants” in The New York Times

“Look, we can live in San Francisco forever, and we’re never going to change anyone’s mind because we’re going to be in our insular community. If we ever want to make any change, we’ve got to be the monkey wrench from the inside.”

- Camille Eklof, co-owner of Justus Drugstore: A Restaurant (from The New York Times article “Farm to Table“)

“Whenever a pleasurable feeling is present, for as long as it is present, there is neither a feeling of pain nor a feeling of distress, nor one together.” – Epicurus, The Principle Doctrines

“There is no high-ranking food safety official in the U.S. government. There is no one accountable.” – “Looking to Obama to Bring Logic to Food Safety,” Andrew Martin, The New York Times