If Turkey's Could Vote

"A turkey never voted for an early Christmas" - Irish Proverb

My favorite holiday food quote...

We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup. -Buddy the Elf (2003 film)

Unbroken Rules of Thanksgiving

“There are four unbroken rules when it comes to Thanksgiving: there must be turkey and dressing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.” - John Hadamuscin 'John Hadamuscin's Down Home' (1993)

Turkey Coexistence

"Coexistence...what the farmer does with the turkey, until Thanksgiving." - Mike Connolly

Cranberry Sauce is Essential

"It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it." -Alistair Cooke

Why is it called Thanksgiving?

What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving? - Erma Bombeck, "No One Diets on Thanksgiving," November 26, 1981

Turkey is a Must

"You can't have Thanksgiving without turkey. That's like Fouth of July without apple pie, or Friday with no two pizzas." - Joey, Friends TV show

Have a Merry Feast!

"Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast." - William Shakespeare

Glorious Pumpkin Pie

"But see, in our open clearings, how golden the melons lie; Enrich them with sweets and spices, and give us the pumpkin-pie!" - Margaret Junkin Preston

Amen

"Thanksgiving is America's national chow-down feast, the one occasion each year when gluttony becomes a patriotic duty." - Michael Dresser

18 Hours to Prepare

"Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence." - Erma Bombeck

Jane Austen on Pie

“Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.” - Jane Austen

Better Than the Stars

“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.” - Jean-Antheleme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826)

Garlic = Peace?

“It is not really an exaggeration to say that peace and happiness begin, geographically, where garlic is used in cooking.” - X. Marcel Boulestin, chef, food writer (1878-1943)

Fruit Pie or Toaster Tarts?

“I prefer Hostess fruit pies to pop-up toaster tarts because they don't require as much cooking.” - Carrie Snow (comedienne, actress)

Successful Cooking

"Happy and successful cooking doesn't rely only on know-how; it comes from the heart" -Georges Blanc

Pot Pie

“There is nothing better on a cold wintry day than a properly made pot pie.” - Craig Claiborne

Jefferson on Pickles

"On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar." - Thomas Jefferson

Persimmons on Halloween

"This Halloween night, we cut and eat, Fuyu persimmons, firm and sweet." - Mike Garofalo

Slices

“There's a pizza place near where I live that sells only slices. In the back, you can see a guy tossing a triangle in the air.” - Steven Wright, comedian, actor

That's Amore!

“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore.” - Jack Brooks, song writer

Guess Who Likes Pizza?

"Believe it or not, American's eat 75 acres of pizza a day." - Boyd Matson, TV journalist

Jay Leno on Pizza

"For the first time ever, overweight people outnumber average people in America. Doesn't that make overweight the average then? Last month you were fat, now you're average - hey, let's get a pizza!" - Jay Leno

How Can You Disagree?

"There's no better feeling in the world than a warm pizza box on your lap." - Kevin James

Pizza First

"We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police." - Jeff Marder

Life Begins with Cooking

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate." - Julia Child

A Balanced Diet

"Food is an important part of a balanced diet." - Fran Lebowitz

Two Pennies to Spend

"When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other." - Chinese proverb

Bad Coffee

"Life is too short for bad coffee." - Unknown

Ham and Eggs

"Ham and Eggs: A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig." - Unknown

Garlic Makes It Good

"Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good." - Alice May Brock

Mind Over Matter

He who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else. - Samuel Johnson

On Hunger

"Hunger is not debatable." - Harry Hopkins

Homegrown Goodness

"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughtswhile eating a homegrown tomato." - Lewis Grizzard

Interacting with the Earth

"The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grownis perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth." - Frances Moore Lappé

You Are What You Eat

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are." - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Don't Dig Your Own Grave...

"Don't dig your grave with your own knife and fork". - English Proverb

Salt is Key

"Where would we be without salt?" - James A. Beard

The Four Seasons

"The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar." - Unknown

For the Love of Food

"There is no love sincerer than the love of food." - George Bernard Shaw

Food + Laughter

"Laughter is brightest, in the place where the food is." - Irish proverb

When was iced tea invented?

"Iced tea is too pure and natural a creation not to have been invented as soon as tea, ice, and hot weather crossed paths." - John Egerton

Ice Cream Cravings

"Ice cream cravings are not to be taken lightly." - Betsy Cañas Garmon

Norwegian Proverb

"Cookies are made of butter and love." - Norwegian Proverb

More to Life...

"There’s more to life than chocolate, but not right now." - Anonymous

Breakfast = Happiness

"All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast." - John Gunther

3 Stages of Chili

"Chili represents your three stages of matter: solid, liquid, and eventually gas." - Roseanne

Over-arranging?

"It's so beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it." - Julia Child

Large, naked raw carrots...

"Large, naked raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who lie in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter." - Fran Lebowitz

The Power of Comfort

"Food, like a loving touch or a glimpse of divine power, has that ability to comfort." - Norman Kolpas

On French Food

"Food: Part of the spiritual expression of the French, and I do not believe that they have ever heard of calories." - Beverley Baxter

Food = Medicine

"Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food." - Hippocrates

Wine is Art

"Making good wine is a skill. Fine wine is an art." - Robert Mondavi

Wine for Lunch

"What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?" - W.C. Fields

Hygenic?

"Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages." - Louis Pasteur

Poetry

"Wine is bottled poetry." - Robert Louis Stevenson

Ben Franklin on Wine

"Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy." - Benjamin Franklin

Man Made Wine

"God made only water, but man made wine." - Victor Hugo

Shakespeare on Wine

"Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used." - Shakespeare, Othello

Wine Quotes Week

"Wine is the drink of the gods, milk the drink of babies, tea the drink of women, and water the drink of beasts." - John Stuart Blackie

Pizza Feng Shui

"My idea of feng shui is to have them arrange the pepperoni in a circle on my pizza." - Unknown

Belushi - owe's what?

"I owe it all to little chocolate donuts." - John Belushi

Fear is Failure

"The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a 'What the hell?' attitude." - Julia Child

Eating: Tiresome or Pleasurable?

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. - Voltaire

Breakfast before Work

"Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first." - Josh Billings

Vegetables purpose are to accompany meat.

"Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat." - Fran Lebowitz

On Bagels' Relationship to Doughnuts

"A bagel is a doughnut with the sin removed." - George Rosenbaum

Spanish Ladies & Chocolate

"The Spanish ladies of the New World are madly addicted to chocolate, to such a point that, not content to drink it several times each day, they even have it served to them in church." - Jean-Antheleme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825)

Chocolate Therapy

"My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already." - Dave Barry

All Chocolates are Well-liked

"I never met a chocolate I didn't like." - Deanna Troi, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Chocolate Food Groups

"There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles." - Unknown

Thomas Jefferson on Chocolate

"The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain." - Thomas Jefferson

Mondays are Chocolate Days

"Chocolate is nature’s way of making up for Mondays." - Anonymous

Chocolate Quotes Week!

"What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate." - Katherine Hepburn

Red meat isn't bad...

"Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you!" - Tommy Smothers

Pavarotti on Eating

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating." - Luciano Pavarotti

Eat, drink....

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work." - Unknown

Julia on Wine

"When a sommelier asked Julia Child to name her favorite wine, she replied, 'Gin.' " - Told by a friend at a public memorial after her death

American Dressing

"I don't think America will have really made it until we have our own salad dressing. Until then we're stuck behind the French, Italians, Russians and Caesarians." - Pat McNelis

Eating Habits Hinder

"Great eaters and great sleepers are incapable of anything else that is great." - Henry IV of France

Need a Seat?

"A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat." - Old New York Proverb

Iranian Proverb

"Eat little, sleep sound." - Iranian Proverb

Try, Try, and Try Again

"The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile. I think of my strawberry souffle. I did that at least twenty-eight times before I finally conquered it." - Julia Child

Are your vegetables jet-lagged?

"Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet-lagged, just like people." - Elizabeth Berry

On Grapefruit

"There is a lot more juice in grapefruit than meets the eye." - Unknown

Worried? Have Soup.

"Worries go down better with soup." - Jewish Proverb

Mexican Sushi

"In Mexico we have a word for sushi: bait." - José Simons

Ain't that the Truth

"The belly rules the mind." - Spanish Proverb

Heartburn Anyone?

"I would like to find a stew that will give me heartburn immediately, instead of at three o'clock in the morning." - John Barrymore

Eat Your Vegetables

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie." - Jim Davis

Food for Comfort

“Food is the most primitive form of comfort." - Sheilah Graham

Food Defines Culture

“Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture.” - Mark Kurlansky

Ina Garten on Food

"Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable." - Ina Garten

Think, Love, Sleep

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." -Virginia Woolf

If only your mom believed this!

"A food is not necessarily essential just because your child hates it." - Katharine Whitehorn

Pie

"You can say this for ready-mixes - the next generation isn't going to have any trouble making pies exactly like mother used to make." - Earl Wilson

Sound Advice

"When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste." - Laiko Bahrs

Tonight's Menu

"As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it." - Buddy Hackett

Cooking with Wine

"I love cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food." - Unknown

Dietetic Sinners

"We are all dietetic sinners; only a small percent of what we eat nourishes us; the balance goes to waste and loss of energy." - William Osler

Twain on Watermelon

"When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat." - Mark Twain

If you have less slices, is the pizza smaller?

"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six." - Yogi Berra

Cooking and Friends

"Good cooks never lack friends."- Unknown

Julia on Fat

"Fat gives things flavor." - Julia Child

Cooking Time

"All cooking is a matter of time. In general, the more time the better." - John Erskine

Eat, drink...

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal." - Unknown

Miss Piggy?

"Never eat more than you can lift." - Miss Piggy

If at First...

"If at first you don't succeed...order pizza." - Unknown

Is Steak an Aminal?

"My favorite animal is steak." - Fran Lebowitz

Polish Proverb

"Fish, to taste right, must swim three times - in water, in butter and in wine." -Polish proverb

On Bagels

"The bagel, an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis." - Beatrice & Ira Freeman

Need a little comfort?

“Food is the most primitive form of comfort." - Sheilah Graham

Miss Piggy on Artichokes

"After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual "food" out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps." - Miss Piggy

Cook Simply

"You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients." - Julia Child

Inspiration for this Blog...

"Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?" - Unknown