Today, when I hire, I look for people who want to be trained and molded.

I can't be on the cheeseburger diet all the time.

I don't have a long family history of good cooks in my family.

My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I'm also very proud of being a very American chef.

I live in New York and I'm in New York basically all the time. I spend a lot of my time in my restaurants, and I feel like that's why they're successful.

In the end, your creativity -- perhaps even your outrageousness -- will determine the final result.

A molcajete is a stone mortar and pestle from Mexico. They're great for grinding spices and making salsa and guacamole because they give everything a nice coarse and rustic feel. I've never collected anything, but I think I might start collecting these because each one is decorated differently.