Marcus Samuelsson QUOTES

21 " If you are having conversations with people about fried chicken, watch out. Their stories are steeped in lore and myth. Regular people fry their bird with a rabbit foot in their pockets, with their uncle's secret cooking hat perched on their heads. Not only do they have special pans - cast-iron skillets top the list - but they have the special pot. You know, the one their great, great, great grandmother forged from volcanic rock. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem

22 " Just fry the d**n bird,' gave me license to play. Michael Garrett, my sous chef at the time, and I turned chicken skin into cracklings and folded it into our deviled eggs. Our chicken and waffles came with a side of Chicken Liver Butter. We made Wild Wild Wings and our signature Bird Funk. At brunch we serve chicken liver omelets. Occasionally, we offer a dish called Just Fry the D**n Bird. Brioche and chicken liver, chicken gravy, every piece of the bird cooked in schmaltz. What I could do with chicken became the anchor of Red Rooster. The bird is our heartbeat, and it grounds our menu. We make use of every part of it. A ladle of chicken stock goes into just about everything. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem

23 " Today, in the dead of night when I should be sleeping, I sometimes imagine the breath of the woman who not only gave me life, but delivered me from death. I sometimes reach into that tin by my stove and take a handful of berbere, sift it through my fingers, and toss it into the pan. I watch my wife cook and I imagine that I can see my mother's hands. I have taught myself the receipts of my mother's people because those foods are for me, as a chef, the easiest connection to the mysteries of who my mother was. Her identity remains stubbornly shrouded in the past, so I feed myself and the people I love the food that she made. But I cannot see her face. "

― Marcus Samuelsson

24 " One of the reasons that people enjoy coming to a great restaurant is that when an extraordinary meal is placed in front of them, they feel honored, respected, and even a little bit loved. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

25 " I spent so much of my life on the outside that I began to doubt that I would ever truly be in with any one people, any one place, and one tribe. But Harlem is big enough, diverse enough, scrappy enough, old enough, and new enough to encompass all that I am and all that I hope to be. After all that traveling, I am, at last, home. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

26 " One thing I believe with all my soul: Don't try to guess somebody's ceiling. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

27 " The more ground I covered in New York and the more people I met, the more I came to see the difference between international and diverse. Interlaken was international, and I got off on the energy of being around so many different cultures and languages there. But in the end, they were all going back to where they came from. ... New York was different. There were divides along lines of race and class, but whereas the ethnic Swiss owned Switzerland and the ethnic Swedes owned Sweden, everybody in New York had a stake in where they were. Maybe you had to have a place this big to allow there to be a hundred different New Yorks living side by side, but almost everyone I saw seemed to move with a sense of belonging. This was their city whether you liked it or not. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

28 " I carried Torsten’s plate over to the table, placing "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

29 " made it my business to be tough in the ways that they were tough—on the inside, where it counted. The "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

30 " Mormor did. My father had brought our frying pan from home "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

31 " Just us two men," my father said, my father who had so longed for a son that he had flown paper plans--adoption forms in triplicate--all the way to Africa to make his dream come true. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

32 " Each one, teach one. I want to believe that I am here to teach one and, more, that there is one here who is meant to teach me. And if we each one teach one, we will make a difference. "

― Marcus Samuelsson , Yes, Chef

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