John McPhee, "Brigade de Cuisine"

“You may have grasped this, but I don’t know him very well. If you’re close to the screen you can’t see through it. He doesn’t know me, either. We’re just together. People are unknowable. They show you what they want you to see. He is a very honest person. Basically. In his bones. And that is what the food is all about. He is so good with flavor because he looks for arrows to point to the essence of the material. His tastes are very fresh and bouncy. He has honor, idealism, a lack of guile. I don’t know how he puts them together. I don’t know his likes and dislikes. I can’t even buy him a birthday present. He has intelligence. He has education. He has character. He has integrity. He applies all these to this manual task. His hands follow what he is.”