The summer before I went to culinary school, my family wanted me to take a job on a movie to make sure that I was making the right decision. I think they hoped I would change my mind about culinary school.

Opportunities present themselves and you have to enjoy the ride. All of us get so worried about the next step that we don't enjoy the moment we're in right now.

I'm comfortable in my own skin. I know I'm not going to ever be Cindy Crawford or Elle MacPherson.

I grew up in the kitchen, mostly with my grandfather, my mother and my aunt Raffy.

For a healthy alternative to buffalo wings, slide the bone of a human finger into a block of tofu and bake.

These days it's cool to be ethnic and to be different, but when I was a kid, it was not cool - at all. My friends would come over and my mom would make crepes with eggs, stuffed with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and spinach. And they'd be like, 'What is this?'

I'm most comfortable in T-shirts, but they have to have some style to them.