Samin Nosrat Quotes

Samin Nosrat

Profession : Chef

Birth : November 7, 1979

Growing up, I was aware of the kids-don't-like-vegetables trope, but it didn't make much sense to me. I never had any choice; all the traditional Iranian dishes my mom cooked teemed with herbs and vegetables.

Samin Nosrat

The classic French blanch-and-cool technique I learned at Chez Panisse yields the kind of brilliant, picturesque vegetables we all want to see on restaurant plates. Long-cooked foods, on the other hand, fall firmly into the 'ugly but good' camp of the Tuscan cucina povera, where flavor far outshines looks.

Samin Nosrat

The delicate sweetness of just-picked vegetables is always worth savoring.

Samin Nosrat

Grilling used to make me nervous, but then I learned to view the fire as just another source of heat, no different from a stove or an oven.

Samin Nosrat

For the timid or uninitiated, leaf-wrapped foods offer an ideal and gentle introduction to fire cooking. Liberated from the need to worry about whether the fish is sticking to the grill or burning, pay attention instead to the rate of browning on the surface of the leaf, which you'll get to discard whether it chars or remains pale.

Samin Nosrat

My students regularly spend 20 hours or more in the kitchen with me. I try to teach them that even the most well-written recipe for, say, gazpacho can never take into account the ways in which a tomato that's lapped each morning and evening by coastal fog will taste completely different from one grown in a hot, inland valley.

Samin Nosrat

I could probably go on for a long time about the differences between Northern California and Southern California Mexican food.

Samin Nosrat

I grew up in San Diego with immigrant parents, before the food blogs, before this kind of celebrity chef culture we know now.

Samin Nosrat

I really love the beach.

Samin Nosrat

The beach has always been a constant in my life.

Samin Nosrat

There's never been anyone like Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, and there never will be. She is such an important source of inspiration for me, reluctant recipe writer and follower that I am.

Samin Nosrat

I always turn to Wendell Berry for inspiration on food, community, agriculture, and, well, just being a human.

Samin Nosrat

I wake up naturally and begrudgingly around 6:10 A.M. That's wired in so deeply that I wake up at that time no matter where I am, in any time zone. I wish I could sleep later.

Samin Nosrat

I take, like, 9,000 supplements every morning. I don't know if it's completely placebo or not, but I'm super committed to these supplements: like, I can't face the day without them.

Samin Nosrat

I live by myself, so I derive a lot of joy from being with my friends and their families.

Samin Nosrat

I've had an untraditional trajectory with food: I was in my mom's home, then I was a college kid making mac and cheese and quesadillas, and then I was a professional cook. I never had that time where you figure out how to cook for yourself at home.

Samin Nosrat

I grew up eating and loving Persian food, going to school, and everyone making fun of me.

Samin Nosrat

People never used to look at me twice. That was my superpower: When I met someone, I could decide whether to care about them based on whether they cared about me.

Samin Nosrat

No one's born a good cook. You have to learn and practice.

Samin Nosrat

Chex mix is this wonderful crunch that you just can't get enough of.

Samin Nosrat