'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 skin is forming because of proteins, just like if you cook milk or anything else that's got a coagulant protein in it.

I don't like to be polarizing. It's not who I am.

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

Slicing a warm slab of bacon is a lot like giving a ferret a shave. No matter how careful you are, somebody's going to get hurt.

A pie dough comes together exactly like a biscuit only there is very, very little liquid and no leavening involved. Other than that, the same rules apply. My best advice: handle the dough as little as possible.

Culinary tradition is not always based on fact. Sometimes it's based on history, on habits that come out of a time when kitchens were fueled by charcoal.