Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Your best creative assets do not occur unless you do a mental shift. You have to be in a positive frame of mind because inspiration is fleeting. I walk to work for inspiration and to clear my mind.
Over the years, quite a few TV producers proposed that I do a program, but I refused. I didn't want to work on a set that looked like a theater; I wanted a kitchen of the sort every chef dreams about.
I understand Christmas, and I understand Easter. But Halloween is one of those things where, if you don't grow with it? The French, they tried Halloween for a few years, and I think they're dropping it.
People do need to stay healthy and eat right to keep the body fit and functioning. But, our sweet tooth is a part of this wonderful machine, so we have to honor it and spoil it from time to time... to time.
I have spent more time in my life working and being in restaurants than being at home. I immediately feel comfortable entering a restaurant, and I feel even more comfortable in the back with the chef and cooks.
For years, I survived as an artist on grants and touring as a dancer with dance companies, and I was living underground like so many artists, hand-to-mouth and so forth. And I never had the power to make decisions.
We used to be referred to as bakers and then we became known as cake decorators and now we are known as cake designers. I teach at the French Culinary Institute in New York and cake design is a legitimate profession.
More and more research shows that chocolate is good for you. It's a mood elevator. It contains a lot of antioxidants and will keep us younger. It's good for your heart and acts like aspirin. It keeps your cholesterol low.
We eat raw dough. We eat raw cookie. We eat massive buttercream in cakes that are still warm. We eat salt. We have to taste things that you will not put in your mouth. But you know what? That's television. You have to do it.
I find that my Israeli background actually helps me to break some boundaries because we don't have such long traditions. We took traditions from Europe, from the Middle East, and we were encouraged to explore and adapt things.
You really have to be a good entertainer, or the show won't work. For me, it was all about having fun with the audience, which meant that I could usually forget that the camera was there. It was kind of like being in the classroom.
If all I hired were cake decorators, our cakes would just look like cakes that people decorate. We do astounding work at Charm City Cakes and to do that you need people who think in astounding ways. Artists just think in different ways.
You can easily compare chocolate to wine. What makes a good wine is usually a good terroir, a good grape, and the weather has something to do with it. Chocolate is the same, from where the cacao bean grows to what type of tree it grows on.
Sometimes I have a tough time getting along with myself. When I was a child, I needed a lot of attention... and I don't have a small ego. For me, appearing on a stage or presenting a cake is the same thing. You need a crowd around you to do it.
I'm very much Israeli and American; I never was tempted to change my name. Some people suggested I should have a different name, and I said absolutely not. That's the name I inherited, and it's meaningful: Israel is on every cake that I present.
I used to like Lady Gaga. I still love her. But what I like about LMFAO is that they're completely outside of the box; they're completely different. They're not ridiculous, but they are not afraid of it. And also, it's a certain type of artistry.
Martha Stewart convinced me to have a business. She sometimes takes a very personal interest, and she kept saying, 'You have to open your own business,' and gave me chances. She took my cakes on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show.' I met a lot of people through her.
I come from a family of craftsmen. We like to make things with our hands. Better than the pleasure of making money is the pleasure of making the product and saying, 'Wow. I did that.' I couldn't see myself doing anything other than making good things to eat.
It take me one year to lose all that weight. Look, it takes a long time to put it in; it takes a long time to take it off. It's a struggle in the beginning, and then you get used to it. I work also with a nutritionist, and she helped me. She became a friend.
My life just got taken over by my cooking. If you don't have any discipline, which I don't, you can make 10 gallons of chocolate mousse, take a spoonful and another and another, and you won't realize you've eaten like five servings of it. It's just what you do.
Pastry is different from cooking because you have to consider the chemistry, beauty and flavor. It's not just sugar and eggs thrown together. I tell my pastry chefs to be in tune for all of this. You have to be challenged by using secret or unusual ingredients.
Sweet Genius'' viewers will be on the edge of their seats as we continue to push the limits with inspirations and ingredients, while showcasing the talents of some of the best pastry chefs around. As a result, the desserts that the chefs create are truly outrageous.
'Sweet Genius' viewers will be on the edge of their seats as we continue to push the limits with inspirations and ingredients, while showcasing the talents of some of the best pastry chefs around. As a result, the desserts that the chefs create are truly outrageous.
I kind of feel like I've been eating professionally for a long time. I've tasted everything. If there's a sausage, you know what? I know exactly what it tastes like. I love them all. But right now it's more important for me to not have all that grease and fat in my body.
I personally like different chocolates. I like milk chocolate during the day and, during the evening, I like something a little bit stronger with more personality, so maybe a 70-percent or 75-percent bar that's hopefully made with good beans so it's not acidic or bitter.
I imagine I appear very outgoing, and I do enjoy people and parties and being involved in life. I am also a very private person, and I value my quiet time. I think people assume I am just a party animal, and in truth, I need to recharge my battery just like everyone else.
When I celebrated my bar mitzvah, there was no cake. Today, there is no such thing as a bar mitzvah in the United States without a special cake. It can be even more complicated and expensive than a wedding cake, because bar-mitzvah cakes are often based on a particular theme.
I grew up going to bakeries in Tel Aviv; that's where we got our birthday cakes, they were always European baking and butter creams. We have such good baking in Israel, and we have the Diaspora of Jews from all over, and we learned early on to adapt and absorb flavors from all over.
I have a showroom where we experiment with twelve cakes. We develop sketches and ideas for cakes for the next season. We work with the top fashion designers to see what type of lace they are using or work with the top florist for us to be able to make various sugar roses or flowers.
In 2004, we opened our first store in Manhattan. I installed a big window so people could see me making the chocolates. That store cost $1.8 million. It has a 45-foot-long chocolate counter and a hot chocolate bar made in Louis XVI style because that's when chocolate arrived in Europe.
I decided on a chocolate business. I love the history of chocolate and making it and the fact that people of any gender, age, and race enjoy it. I found a space in Brooklyn that had not been used in 30 years. Then I talked to an investor who wanted more than 50 percent of the business.
In the past few years, we've been doing amazing stuff with desserts. Pastry chefs have been using herbs and spices in their desserts. So vanilla cake doesn't have to be just vanilla, it can have a little thyme. Or you could have a custard with a little lavender in it, which is just amazing.
If you're going to figure something out, study ethics. You can ask What's the answer? What's Right and Wrong? What I learned is that nobody knows the answer and there is no Right and Wrong. So I'm incapable of becoming a fundamentalist because there are no absolutes, there's always a what if.
I did a cake for the 60th birthday of Elton John, for Britney Spears' 27th birthday and for the 'Circus' album she put out - the cake had circus themes. I prepared a cake for a surprise 82nd birthday event for the architect Frank Gehry; the cake was comprised of mini-replicas of his buildings.
When I got a deposit on my very first cake, I took that deposit and I bought some cake mix with it. I've never taken a loan - ever. And we're doing this expansion just like everything we've done in this bakery as we've grown. If we weren't able to afford paying for something cash, we didn't buy it.
There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. There are specializations within the pastry chef field. Some pastry chefs specialize in baking breads, while others are master cake designers. Each field requires an exceptional level of creativity and attention to detail.
My chocolate is special because it's real. My pistachios are from Italy, and the almonds are from Spain. We make our own marzipan. If I sell a product that says 'raspberry,' it's real raspberry. My plan was to make the best product possible and be the least expensive of the best chocolate makers. That's still our position.
You need chocolate with enough cocoa butter. If your chocolate is high-quality, with a good content of cocoa butter, the chocolate will melt inside and create layering. That's very important. Those chocolate morsels don't melt. So, for the best chocolate chip cookies, I use the chocolate we sell, which is a 60 percent cocoa.
Chocolate cornflakes are a hit. Mixing chocolate with cornflakes to make dollops of candy with that crunch and saltiness just has a magic to it. People watch you do it and think, 'Oh it's so easy,' and then they taste it and say, 'I want to do this.' It's recipes like this that are very successful on TV, because they're so simple.
If you're from Philly and you're listening to this, please know that the rest of the world looks at Philly and they're jealous of your food. I promise. And if you're not from Philly, and you've never been here and you're thinking about coming somewhere to the East Coast, come to Philly and eat the food because the food. Is. Amazing.