I love faltering. I love, in a sense, coming up short. Because you learn nothing from success. You learn so much from failing.

My parents couldnt be looser. It was the ultimate laissez faire upbringing.

The art of cooking is among the most intimate things that we can do for another.

It's a challenge to demonstrate that you can prepare some really interesting food with humble ingredients.

I have always looked at it this way: If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all-out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a life plan.

I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.

You have to be critical of what you do every day, to analyze it and be willing to push it further.