I am very much enjoying the fatherhood phase of my life.

You know, it's not the world I would have wanted, for sure.

I think there's a great storytelling tradition in the restaurant business that tends to attract people with an oral tradition of bulls - ting and bollocking. Creative people, people for whom the 9-to-5 world is not attractive or impossible. It seems that way. There are a lot of stories in the business, and a lot of characters - and it seems to attract its share of artists and writers and people who hope to do something creative in their lives.

I'd like to play bass like Bootsy Collins. I'm serious. That would be my dream.

Very few restaurant workers could even dream of eating in the restaurants they work in. Many do not make a living wage.

Turning your nose up at a genuine and sincere gesture of hospitality is no way to travel or to make friends around the world.

That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.