When I get up early, I appreciate the quiet time to enjoy a coffee or water my plants.
Christina Tosi
As a chef, I got into this because I love the creative energy and I love the science, but I also love to feed people and make them happy.
I think a lot of people think being in the kitchen is being really serious, and especially that baking is very serious, very straitlaced. For me, it's about figuring out your voice, finding your personality, and getting in the kitchen to explore.
Being a great baker and pastry chef requires the upmost open mind. I try every dessert that comes my way!
No matter how bad your day is, when you start talking about cookies or cakes or pies, or you bring someone cookies, there's just not bad news. The worst news is, 'Hey, there's sugar in that.'
The secret to having an epically beloved bakery is consistency.
There is no right or wrong way to pair or prepare a dessert. Follow your instincts, edit, and taste-tweak-taste until you get it just right!
As a boss, as a CEO, as a creative director, as a chef, I've learned that failure will always come. I've learned to give it a big squeeze, smile at it, humble myself to it and then use it as a springboard to send me on my way to strength, success, and fulfillment.
Baking's meant to be done at home. It's meant to be a good time. It's not about, like, hoarding secrets. It's about sharing them.
Know who you are and stay true to it. Have a point of view, keep your head down when noise tries to drown out your inner voice, and whatever you do, keep pushing.
Good food is good food. It doesn't have to come with pretense.
I was an infamously picky eater as a child but also had an infamous sweet tooth. All I wanted was dessert for every meal of the day.
I feel like a lot of the pastry chefs and chefs I worked for and worked under were always really, really big on the philosophy of 'everyone's in it together in the food world.'
I think sharing recipes is such an important part of baking and the baking world.
A bright lipstick is a quick way to glam up my look.
The hardest thing to do is dig deep and be patient about the things you're going to learn month to month and quarter to quarter.
I could never really decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, and for a while, I thought that maybe I wanted to be a writer... I've always loved to write, that form of expression.
I need healthy options around, or else if I get hungry, I'll go straight for a cookie.
Out of culinary school, I worked as a pastry cook in amazing restaurants for years. I ended up leaving the pastry cook scene because, though I loved the industry, the restaurants and the chefs I worked for so much, I had to be honest with myself. I was never going to be them.
I was raised by a gaggle of women who all loved to bake. Dessert always existed after any savory meal. I was raised with cookies on the plate, brownies in a Tupperware container, and so on.
The thing I love about Vegas is there's something for any type of mood you're in and something for any kind of adventure you seek out.
It's that strength of the human spirit, the strength of what's deep down in you, that's really going to get you anywhere and everywhere.
When I opened Milk Bar in November 2008, I was quite adamant about making sure the bakery was an honest reflection of life and food through my eyes. I had no intention beyond that.
When you open any kind of food service establishment, you do all this planning, but it's not until you've opened the door and people are inside that you learn what people want you to be to them.
You can't do a good deal with bad people, and you can't do a bad deal with good people. I often use that as my compass.
Every time I baked cookies for people as a kid, it made me so happy. But when I was in culinary school and working in fine-dining restaurants, that was not a thing.
I like to be in over my head always, at all times.
I never saw the light of day at Bouley. I remember I would bring home a roll of toilet paper a week because we got paid so little, if at all.
I really didn't have a big relationship with Vegas until I was in my 20s, and now I probably come out four or five times a year. I love it.
The matriarchs of my family loved to bake, and the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Baking became something I did every day; it became a time where my creative and nurturing side took stage.
I originally went to school for engineering because I loved math and thought I liked science.
I make a huge batch of cinnamon buns on Christmas Eve and bake them off early Christmas morning.
People underestimate the power of the root vegetable.
Both of my parents worked incredibly hard, and eating out was a treat.
I love feeling exhausted after a good, hard, honest day's work.
I didn't want a desk job; I knew I'd get bored.
There are so many messages out there about what you should be eating and drinking and what you should be putting in your body at the beginning of the day. It's confusing, and people get very overwhelmed. Really, one of the greatest options is just a bowl of cereal and milk.
I love checking out aspiring bakers' offerings at local farmers' markets when the weather is nice.
Nothing could be lovelier than running across the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of the fog.
I love the warmth of apple pie.
I love roasted pecans. I'll make a sort of granola with the roasted pecans, turn that into a super nutty pie crust, and top that with apple-syrup pudding and top that with cooked custard and maple syrup.
At first, learning to bake was purely selfish, but I quickly learned I can't eat every batch of cookies myself, so I would bake and eat what I wanted and give the rest away. I fell in love with feeding others as much as I loved eating sweets myself.
There's nothing worse than not being excited about a trip.
Nothing feels better then to sit down on a six-hour flight with tired muscles from a workout.
Baking without gluten is an awesome challenge in terms of the opportunity to learn so much more about what you can create.
Nike Air Zooms are what I usually run in. In the kitchen, I wear a beaten-up pair of Converse All-Stars in winter and Keds in summer.
I love cookbooks. I certainly have my fair share at home, but I'm a really funny cookbook person: I don't really ever cook out of cookbooks. I like cookbooks for the commentary or the pictures or the history.
I guess technically I am a female chef, but I don't really think of myself as such.
My family, as you can probably guess, was more into Christmas cookies and not so much the fruitcake.
I went to college, and I didn't want to be in a sorority, so I started working in restaurants. In my mind, that was my social outlet.
