You can't go into the chef's office of any serious kitchen and not see a copy of Larousse. A must-have for professional and home cooks alike.

Cooking and gardening involve so many disciplines: math, chemistry, reading, history.

I look forward to the spring vegetables because the season is so short. Mushrooms, edible foraged herbs, wild leeks, early season asparagus.

I constantly think I'm a fraud, that this success is not warranted or justified.

Fine dining teaches you how to cook many different things, and it gives you the basic fundamentals, but these specialty restaurants, theyre not teaching you the broad foundation you need to become a well-rounded cook.

We're hoping to succeed; we're okay with failure. We just don't want to land in between.

Contemporary ramen is totally different than what most Americans think ramen should be. Ramen is not one thing; there are many, many different types.