Quotes from Marcus Samuelsson

It's one of the many reasons that I go to sleep and wake up with thoughts of authorship. Who writes our stories? Who chronicles our tales of cooking it, playing it, writing it? Baldwin, Gordon, the Apollo, Jacob Lawrence, Paul Mooney, James Brown, Malcolm - that's my neighborhood. Why wouldn't I want to cook for the people who lived there?

I love Thanksgiving because it's a holiday that is centered around food and family, two things that are of utmost importance to me.

Whatever goes down, whatever turns up—make food and music and dance and story out of it.

If you are having conversations with people about fried chicken, watch out. Their stories are steeped in lore and myth. Regular people fry their bird with a rabbit foot in their pockets, with their uncle's secret cooking hat perched on their heads. Not only do they have special pans - cast-iron skillets top the list - but they have the special pot. You know, the one their great, great, great grandmother forged from volcanic rock.

One of the reasons that people enjoy coming to a great restaurant is that when an extraordinary meal is placed in front of them, they feel honored, respected, and even a little bit loved.

I spent so much of my life on the outside that I began to doubt that I would ever truly be in with any one people, any one place, and one tribe. But Harlem is big enough, diverse enough, scrappy enough, old enough, and new enough to encompass all that I am and all that I hope to be. After all that traveling, I am, at last, home.

One thing I believe with all my soul: Don't try to guess somebody's ceiling.

I carried Torsten's plate over to the table, placing

made it my business to be tough in the ways that they were tough—on the inside, where it counted. The

Mormor did. My father had brought our frying pan from home

Just us two men," my father said, my father who had so longed for a son that he had flown paper plans--adoption forms in triplicate--all the way to Africa to make his dream come true.

Each one, teach one. I want to believe that I am here to teach one and, more, that there is one here who is meant to teach me. And if we each one teach one, we will make a difference.

I feel very fortunate that I was raised in a multicultural family, and it came through food.