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

Theres no hope, none, of ever talking about it without pissing somebody, if not everybody, off...By the end of this hour I will be seen by many as a terrorist sympathizer, a Zionist tool. A self-hating Jew, an apologist for American imperialism, an orientalist, socialist, fascist, CIA agent, and worse.

One of the things is challenging yourself to do a Rome show when everybody's done a Rome show. To find some aspect of food culture or chef culture that people can look at in a new way.

It's not normal, what I do. Just being on television isn't.

It's that show Friends. Ruined coffee forever.

I think it's a universal truth that most chefs I know are happiest eating simple, unadorned good things.

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.