I wanted it to look like real cooking in someone's real home or just so out-of-there bizarre that it would be fun.

Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be.

If you have a good experience in a restaurant, you tell 2 people. If you have a bad experience, you tell 10 people.

If people are eating mostly pickles after many generations, where did that come from? It's reflective of history, often a painful history. It's central to a culture, to a history, to a personal story. It's communication at its most fundamental.

Having been a chef for some many years, I understand what it's like to work really, really hard to get good at something, only to have someone piss all over it.

It's very rarely a good career move to have a conscience.

I don't like to see animals in pain. That was very uncomfortable to me. I don't like factory farming. I'm not an advocate for the meat industry.