If you go to working class, and working poor areas of America, the food sources that are relegated to them are generally limited to unhealthy ones.

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.

We now have a generation of people who in many cases feel that if they become chefs, they'll get a TV show. They have a signature haircut, a year into the business, or a branding arrangement with a shoe company. I don't really relate to that. I guess this is the world we live in now.

Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.

I am a delightfully evangelical guy about things I love. I am that annoying guy who sits everyone down and forces them to read some book I like. I'm looking across the full spectrum of genres.

The Kobe craze really annoyed me. Most of the practitioners had no real understanding of the product and were abusing it and exploiting it in terrible and ridiculous ways. Kobe beef should not be used in a hamburger. It's completely pointless.

I think fine dining is dying out everywhere... but I think there will be - and there has to always be - room for at least a small number of really fine, old-school fine-dining restaurants.