1. The best cuts of meat are the ones that scare you. Buy them anyway.
2. No milk in scrambled eggs. Creme friache, if you can, and if not then just butter.
3. Restaurant cookbooks dumb down recipes for you.
4. At fine restaurants, everything goes through a mesh sieve after leaving the pot or pan.
5. No matter how good the restaurant, in-season veggies will always taste better.
6. Don’t crowd your pots and pans! Put too much food in a single pan and it will decrease the heat more than you want.
7. Never let a sommelier push you into overpriced wine. He’s there to serve you, not be impressed by you.
8. Being a cook in a restaurant has little to do with creativity and much more to do with consistency, speed and efficiency.
9. One great knife is better than a whole block of mediocre knives.
10. Always keep lemons, onions, garlic, vinegar, oil, and butter in your kitchen. Especially butter.
11. We blanche green veggies to get them to stay green. It’s really the only way that they wont look grey and lifeless after they’re cooked.
12. Fat and salt are your friends. They can be healthy in moderation, and our palates are designed to love them.
Bonus: Keep some extra recipe cards around. Somehow scribbling a note on some scrap paper or emailing a recipe just doesn’t have that personal feel of a real, printed card. Writing it out by hand on a pretty card tells the recipient how much you value the recipe (and them!)
