I'd love to play bass with Parliament Funkadelic, but I can't play bass, so I don't think that's going to happen.

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.

You have to love a town where you can both smoke and gamble in a pharmacy.

I travel 250 days a year. There are chef friends who I only see every couple of years. By conventional standards I'm a bad friend. I'm not there to remember your birthday or to offer you words of support through Twitter. I'm not up on what you're doing in New York because I'm not in New York. I'm not what people call in parenting circles "present."

When you have a child you're no longer the star of the movie.

There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.