Recognise excellence. Celebrate weirdness and innovation. Oddballs should be cherished, if they can do something other people can't do.

I'm in no position to try to tell people how to live their family life.

If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.

For me, the cooking life has been a long love affair, with moments both sublime and ridiculous.

I, a product of the New Frontier and Great Society, honestly believed that the world pretty much owed me a living--all I had to do was wait around in order to live better than my parents.

I'm a control freak. If you're going to slap my name on something, I would like to control it.

Drugs didn't work out too well for me.