'Outlaw Cook' was a revelation. Folks like Jeff Smith and Marcella Hazan got me interested in cooking, but John Thorne pushed me into the path that I follow to this day. This is the only cookbook I've ever read that understands how men really eat: over the sink, in the dark, greasy to the elbows.

The problem is I am both a procrastinator and a power junkie, so I am very frustrating to work with.

Take ice. Ice is fascinating to me. Ice is the one thing in our world that went from an agricultural product to being manufactured.

I like television. I still believe that television is the most powerful form of communication on Earth - I just hate what is being done with it.

I feel like being on Broadway will convince my mother that my theater degree was worth it.

Stuffing is evil. Stuffing adds mass, so it slows the cooking. That's evil because the longer the bird cooks, the drier it will be.

The stubby French painter Toulouse-Lautrec supposedly invented chocolate mousse - I find that rather hard to believe, but there you have it.