I am a Buddhist, therefore I should not be collecting anything - however, I have a collection of Buddhas. I have a lot of them.

Today, because I want to be gentle on my back, I listen to jazz.

I don't like it when I go to a restaurant and I'm lectured from the menu.

California is lucky, the East Coast is lucky because we get great seafood and a lot of produce from Florida, locally in good weather, but in the winter we have to buy it.

I come from a family of farmers on both sides of my family.

A lot of foreign people say, when asking about eating habits, 'What is your guilty pleasure?' I have no guilt. Whatever I do, I enjoy and it's the point. I think if you start to feel guilty about it, that's a problem. So, no guilty pleasures. I have pleasure and no guilt at all.

Cooking is a holistic process of planning, preparing, dining and sharing food. I place food at the center of our humanity, as it nourishes not only our physical bodies but also our emotional and spiritual lives. Food is truly a cultural phenomenon that informs our traditions and our relationship with the earth. I genuinely believe that food connects us all.