Venezuela is another place I'd like very much to go, which is proving very difficult. I have not been there to make a show and I'd like to, very much.

You'd have a hard time finding anything better than Barcelona for food, as far as being a hub. Given a choice between Barcelona and San Sebastian to die in, I'd probably want to die in San Sebastian.

Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.

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.

The world they live in now is in no way the world the Michelin system was set up to evaluate back in France, which was all about motorists and seeing if it was worth driving an extra 50 miles for a restaurant. It's a silly thing. Why do you want to help a tire company? You don't owe them nothing.

Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.

I'm definitely looking forward to the day when I stop working - if I ever stop working. I like the idea of keeling over in my tomato vines in Sardinia or northern Italy.