When it ceases to be fun, I'll stop and just stay in my restaurants.

It's okay to play with your food.

I started cooking when I was about 10. I have memories like when I was 6 or 7 with my mom, and when I was 12 I started getting real serious about cooking.

I had a fierce curiosity about this food thing.

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.

The world has changed, and it's almost been 11 years. I have 975 employees. I have six restaurants. We haven't opened any new ones in almost three years.

My Food Network shows, 'Emeril Live' and 'Essence of Emeril,' are not in production right now, but I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily leaving Food Network. I have a lot of television still in me. I enjoy teaching people, so it's just a matter of time before I do something new.