There are chefs who are spectacular technicians, and often their food is worth eating once or twice, but if there's no heart in it, if there's no personality in it, it's not something you want to go back for. But heart without any skill at all? All the heart in the world ain't gonna help you if you can't peel an onion, or if you don't understand how to apply heat properly. A well-done steak is a well-done steak.

As incisively pointed out in the documentary Food Inc.," an overwhelmingly large percentage of "new," healthy," and "organic" alternative food products are actually owned by the same parent companies that scared us into the organic aisle in the first place. "They got you comin' and goin'" has never been truer.

There's something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar - even in this fake-ass Irish pub.

Most of the time, I'm fighting guys who are 22 years old, former college wrestlers, athletes, kids who are in much better shape than me. Often people who are much bigger and wider than me. It can be dispiriting at first.

I guess my whole life, as much as I might have wanted a child for the reason that everybody wants one, I always recognized that at no point until I was 50 was I old enough or up to the job. I thought, you know what, I not only really want a child, but at this point, finally in my life, I think I'm up to the job and I'm the type of person who could do the job well and I'm financially prepared to look after a child.

'Kitchen Confidential' wasn't a cautionary or an expose. I wrote it as an entertainment for New York tri-state area line cooks and restaurant lifers, basically; I had no expectation that it would move as far west as Philadelphia.

I think we should increase the minimum wage and I think $15 is a good beginning.