I'm away 250 days a year. It's a tough situation.

Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.

The roots of creativity of cooking are hungry people trying to figure out how to take something that's not particularly fresh or tender and transform it into it something delicious that everyone will love.

You'd have a hard time finding anything better than Barcelona for food, as far as being a hub. Given a choice between Barcelona and San Sebastian to die in, I'd probably want to die in San Sebastian.

I have the best job in the world.

I urge you to travel - as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to.

It's as if Japanese men, all to aware that deep inside they'd like to stomp Tokyo flat, breathe fire, and do truly terrible and disgusting things to women, have built themselves the most beautiful of prisons for their rampaging ids. Instead of indulging their fantasies, they focus on food, or landscaping, or the perfect cup of tea -- or a single slab of o-toro tuna -- letting themselves go only at baseball games and office parties.