The family is the essential presence, the thing that never leaves you, even if you find you have to leave it.

- Bill Buford

A white truffle, which elsewhere might sell for hundreds of dollars, seemed easier to come by than something fresh and green. What could be got from …

- Bill Buford

Then he exploded. "No!" he said. That familiar injunction. I'd heard it so many times. "No. I cannot take this steel. It would not be correct." He op…

- Bill Buford

Food made by hand is an act of defiance and runs contrary to everything in our modernity. Find it; eat it; it will go. It has been around for millenn…

- Bill Buford

The most important knowledge is understanding what you can't do.

- Bill Buford

The crowd is not us. It never is.

- Bill Buford

You can't do traditional work at a modern pace. Traditional work has traditional rhythms. You need calm. You can be busy, but you must remain calm.

- Bill Buford

You don't learn knife skills at cooking school, because they give you only six onions and no matter how hard you focus on those six onions there are …

- Bill Buford

In normal life, 'simplicity' is synonymous with 'easy to do,' but when a chef uses the word, it means 'takes a lifetime to learn.'

- Bill Buford