Creative risks will always outweigh technical mistakes.

My father always said, 'If you love what you do, you won't mind slogging through it for several hours a day.

I bent my head over a stove in my early 20s and picked it up in my 30s.

The hardest thing about being a full time chef is leaving my work behind when I go home at night. I'll toss and turn about a menu item or forget to order produce and wake up at 4 A.M. in a cold sweat over some artichokes.

The better the ingredients, the more farmers I can buy from, the closer I feel to the food I want to make that represents what I care about as a chef.

It's amazing the relationships you forge in a kitchen. When you cooperate in an environment that's hot. Where there's a lot of knives. You're trusting your well-being with someone you've never before met or known.

I find myself hoping I can get on a TV show, and then people from Oklahoma will come to my restaurant. Then I'll be able to make enough money to open my own place.