Books make great gifts because they expand your horizons and keep you cooking.

Whether it's books or TV, or whatever the case may be, the backbone of what I do is my restaurants.

I was on the board of Andre Agassi's foundation, and seeing the way it operated blew my mind. In 2002, I told my wife, I want to start a foundation to give back, I want it to be for kids in hard circumstances, and I want it to be culinary-driven, because that's who I am.

Soups are a great way to introduce a lot of vegetables to kids. Stir-fries, too, because they contain so many different shapes and colors.

The cool thing is that now that people have made this evolution where cooking is cool, people are doing it on weekends, they're doing their own challenges. It's back to cooking. And it's real cooking.

My philosophy from day one is that I can sleep better at night if I can improve an individual's knowledge about food and wine, and do it on a daily basis.

I ended up turning down a full scholarship of music at the conservatory to pay to go to cooking school.