The cookbooks I value the most in my collection are the ones where you hear the author's voice and point-of-view in every recipe.

Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

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.

Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you've got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it's a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.

If I were trapped in one city and had to eat one nation's cuisine for the rest of my life, I would not mind eating Japanese. I adore Japanese food. I love it.

There's always this assumption that you're going to get everything right immediately. And any professional understands that that's just not so.