I was a bit of an accident really - I certainly didn't set out to write a cookbook or three. I didn't have a plan. I was unemployed, writing a blog about local politics and a few recipes, and it was more successful than I could ever have imagined it to be.

Jack Monroe

So my brain started ticking and I bought all my books from a cookbook shop, Libraire Gourmand in Paris. I bought them over the Internet and they sent them from France. I got the 'Larousse' in a box with 20 other books. I was pretty excited. It was like Christmas for 20 years.

Adriano Zumbo

Christmas Art Years

Every cookbook can be a bit patronising.

Ainsley Harriott

Very T Sing

For me, whether it's in a book or on T.V., a recipe has to be simple. I have a short attention span, so to open a cookbook and see a recipe that goes on for three to four pages, well, I've lost interest.

Al Roker

Age Whether Well

I love 'The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook' by Dione Lucas. A huge source of information and inspiration. The book is organized by menu, and the recipes are unusual and exciting.

Alex Guarnaschelli

Men Love Usual

I didn't want to write a cheffy cookbook with dehydrated ham chips.

Alex Guarnaschelli

Write Wit Want

Don't be so hard on yourself. Make something simple a few times until you 'master' it and move on to the next thing. Take a cooking class! Buy a cookbook that specializes in foods or a cuisine you enjoy.

Alex Guarnaschelli

Time Food Yourself

I've always been a great collector and lover of cookbooks.

Alex Guarnaschelli

Love Great Ways

Once you make a cookbook, you live with it as your own for the rest of your life, like a yearbook.

Alex Guarnaschelli

Life Your You

One of the things that often frustrates me with cookbooks is that there are one or two recipes that are really good and the rest of them are not so great.

Alicia Silverstone

Great Good Wit

'Outlaw Cook' was a revelation. Folks like Jeff Smith and Marcella Hazan got me interested in cooking, but John Thorne pushed me into the path that I follow to this day. This is the only cookbook I've ever read that understands how men really eat: over the sink, in the dark, greasy to the elbows.

Alton Brown

Men Us Understand

If you want to be a home cook, just have fun with it. Pick up a couple cookbooks. You're gonna make some mistakes; just go in and try it.

Anne Burrell

Home You Wit

My mom had Julia Child and 'The Fannie Farmer Cookbook' on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes.

Anthony Bourdain

Mom Top T

When I grew up, my house contained only two books: the Bible and the 'Edmonds' cookbook. We were a working-class household. Books were a poor second to the television, which was always on, usually with me in front of it.

Anthony McCarten

Work Working-Class Working

I appreciate recipes that tell you what can be changed and what must remain fixed. 'The Zuni Cafe Cookbook' by the late Judy Rodgers is superb at this.

Bee Wilson

Change You Us

Growing up, I loved looking at the photos in my mother's old Betty Crocker cookbook: the chocolate cakes, the cookie house, even the cheese balls and fondues.

Celeste Ng

Love Wing Win

I myself love getting cookbooks and novels that some congenial person has already tried and liked.

Cheryl Mendelson

Love Tried Tin

I loved editing, and being a cookbook editor is a really a great job.

Chris Pavone

Love Great Tin

When I wake up, I'm like, 'I gotta go to Whole Foods.' I'm constantly reading cookbooks; I bring hardcover cookbooks with me on the plane and tag pages. I just have this crazy food obsession.

Chrissy Teigen

Food Age Wit

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.

Christina Tosi

Men Love Home

I'm a fan of the hand-me-down recipes - friends, family, bake sales, community cookbooks - those are the recipes that have withstood the test of time and fed many hungry fans.

Christina Tosi

Time Family Wit

The 'Momofuku Milk Bar' cookbook is rather technical. I wanted it to feel like you were walking into the doors of our kitchen, it was your first day at work, and we were going to teach you everything.

Christina Tosi

I'm not sure I'd write a good cookbook, but I might make a good cooking show.

Christopher Walken

Lemon curd is one of the first things I remember cooking when I was old enough to use the stove without supervision. I looked up a recipe in my one of my mom's Martha Stewart cookbooks and went to work, stirring anxiously and monitoring closely for signs that the mixture was thickening so as not to curdle the eggs.

Claire Saffitz

I've been thinking about a cookbook. I've been making notes and promising myself I'll do it some day. I have an idea for a cookbook and music together.

Clarence Clemons

I've read hundreds of cookbooks. For my money, they are the bird.

Colonel Sanders

I've read hundreds of cookbooks. Most of those cookbooks don't even tell you how to get a steak ready, how to bake biscuits or an apple pie.

Colonel Sanders

I like to erase lines between categories. Why separate cookbook writing from writing, healthy from good tasting? I want to be open to possibilities.

Crescent Dragonwagon

The problem is that there is many great chefs and many great cookbooks, but none of them work at home.

Daniel Boulud

There was no Internet, not even many cookbooks except the old reference books. So we would sit down at night, a group of six chefs, and we'd exchange recipes and each talk about how we were doing things. It was the only way to learn new ideas.

Daniel Boulud

I do believe there will always be a place for beautiful cookbooks that are real books.

Daniel Humm

A cookbook is a moment in time because, otherwise, you look back at the end of the day, and all the meals have been eaten, and the experience is gone.

Daniel Humm

My husband wrote me love letters while I was on location in Canada and pregnant. They turned into being about food, and it turned it into a cookbook. He called it 'The Tuscan Cookbook for the Pregnant Male.' It was kind of genius. When I took it a book agent, he was like, 'Men don't buy cookbooks.'

Debi Mazar

I'm a great cook. People have asked me to do a cookbook.

Dianne Reeves

I looooove cookbooks. I cook a lot when I'm pregnant.

Drew Barrymore

There's a lionfish cookbook put out by the Reef Environmental Educational Foundation, and it tells you how to catch them, how to clean them.

Edith Widder

My office in New York is overflowing with all kinds of cookbooks, and in New Orleans we have a huge culinary library. So yeah, I guess I'm a little bit obsessed.

Emeril Lagasse

I think you have to be careful with spices. Kids' palates can be very delicate, and they might not like things overspiced. In my cookbooks for kids, I do a milder version of my signature spice blend, Emeril's Essence, called Baby Bam, which has no cayenne pepper.

Emeril Lagasse

Nowadays, everyone writes a cookbook. Models, singers, whatever, everybody thinks that they can do it and cook on TV. What they don't understand is that if you want to do it well, you need to put in the hours.

Gino D'Acampo

I have two bookcases that used to be filled with cookbooks, but now it's mostly books about politics and government. I might just give this all up and run for office.

Graham Elliot

If I had one piece of advice for people - if they are cooking from the Alinea cookbook, the Betty Crocker cookbook or the back of the box - read through the entire recipe first before reaching for any ingredients, and then read again and execute the directions.

Grant Achatz

A cookbook is not like being an author. It's writing down recipes; it's not writing.

Grant Achatz

I love getting cookbooks - people will give them to me, and I read them like novels and file everything away.

Gwyneth Paltrow

I'm a huge cook! I'm actually trying to write my first cookbook. I make an Indian-spice Bolognese and serve it over pasta. It's a combination of flavors that people aren't used to.

Hannah Simone

I love cookbooks. I collect them.

Haylie Duff

I've got around 400 cookbooks.

Heston Blumenthal

I use other cookbooks for inspiration. I must say I tend to cook from my own cookbooks for parties.

Ina Garten

Reading cookbooks will help with just about anything in your life, including heartbreak.

Isabel Gillies

Historically, almost every cookbook and chef have taught that when you're cooking a piece of meat, the first step should be searing.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

I was a bit of an accident really - I certainly didn't set out to write a cookbook or three. I didn't have a plan. I was unemployed, writing a blog about local politics and a few recipes, and it was more successful than I could ever have imagined it to be.

Jack Monroe

I have been cooking vegan recipes for a long time, long before the release of my first cookbook, because in the rubbish old days of scraping by on mismanaged, delayed and suspended benefits, meat and dairy products were often just too expensive, in contrast to their kinder counterparts.

Jack Monroe