Food, Wine and Travel ... With Recipes: TableConversation.com

What People Say About Food

   “Cooks are alchemists, searching for ways to turn food into memories, nourishment, and joy.“

  --Katharine Kagel in “Café Pasqual’s Cookbook," a book of recipes from a restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico (Chronicle Books; 1993).

What People Say About Food

“I think it tastes kind of like a big marshmallow.”

--Hana Chwe, 11, of Santa Monica, on tasting a chocolate soufflé for the first time.

What People Say About Food

“We’ll pay a lot of money not to cook.”
     --Zen priest and cooking teacher Edward Espe Brown  in the documentary “How to Cook Your Life.”

What People Say About Food

“Pasta is the blue jeans of food. After the pasta, you can dress it up with anything you want.”
      --Piero Selvaggio, Valentino restaurant, Santa Monica, California.

What People Say About Food

“Salted. Browned butter. Caramelized. Rice Krispie Treats. Surely, you can’t hold it against me. Who could resist? These are some of the most enchanting words in the dessert lexicon. I am weak within the earshot of them.”
         -- http://www.smittenkitchen.com

Words on Food: Juan Soler

"Eating is a ritual of love."

Actor Juan Soler as the chef Aldo Domenzain in the Mexican telenovela "La Fea Mas Bella."

Words on Wine: Donald Hess

"If every day you drink a glass of wine, you will enjoy life better."

Donald Hess of the Hess Collection, interviewed on Argentine television at Colome, his high altutide vineyard near Cafayete in northern Argentina.

Words on Food: I.M. Altamirano

"Food was limited to corn tortillas, beans, meat and cheese, enough so as not to die from hunger, and even to stay healthy."

I.M. Altamirano, writing of an isolated mountain village in Mexico in Navidad en Las Montanas (Christmas in the Mountains), first published in 1870.

Words on Wine: Andrea Immer Robinson

"Pinot Noir is my favorite red grape. The reason is very simple. It has red wine flavor with white wine texture. It's soft and not heavy . . . it feels like silk in your mouth."

Andrea Immer Robinson in "Great Wine Made Simple" (Broadway Books, 2005)

Words on Food: Idwal Jones

"To drink only the superlative is a powerful regimen, tending to jade the palate, as if one were to read only Milton."
--Idwal Jones in "Vines in the Sun: A Journey through the California Vineyards,"  William Morrow, 1949.