A well-cooked meal can feel like a quiet blessing at the end of a long day. In the steam from the pot and the clink of a spoon against a bowl, there is comfort, care, and a little magic. As one Japanese proverb wonders: “Who could ever weary of moonlit nights and well-cooked rice?” Cooking, at its heart, is an everyday way of saying, “I am glad you are here.”

One finds great comfort in good dinners. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

You don’t get over hating to cook, any more than you get over having big feet. ~ Peg Bracken

What is more refreshing than salads when your appetite seems to have deserted you. ~ Alexis Soyer

Today’s restaurant is theater on a grand scale. ~ Marian Burros

To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or to cook for yourself; it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

Kissing don’t last; cookery do! ~ George Meredith

For me, a kitchen is like science fiction. I only go there to open the refrigerator and take something out. ~ Ann-Margret

Don’t think, cook! ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

I love to cook; that’s my passion. ~ Emeril Lagasse

A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness. ~ Elsa Schiaparelli

Noncooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes’ enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet. ~ Julia Child

We may live without friends; we may live without books; but civilized man cannot live without cooks. ~ Owen Meredith Lucile

In general, mankind, since the improvement in cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires. ~ Benjamin Franklin