If it's a cocktail party, I generally make five or six different things, and I try to choose recipes that feel like a meal: a chicken thing, a fish or shrimp thing, maybe two vegetable things, and I think it's fun to end the cocktail party with a sweet thing.

If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it's really like making a large chicken.

All my life I dreamed of an apartment in Paris where I could cook, and now I have one, on the Left Bank.

The dirty little secret is that I grew up in a household where there were no carbohydrates allowed, ever. No cookies, no bread, no potatoes, no rice. My mother was very extreme in terms of what she served. Since I left home more than 40 years ago, I've been making it right for myself.

I've lived in the Hamptons since 1978, when I first bought my store Barefoot Contessa.

You don't have to do everything from scratch. Nobody wants to make puff pastry!

Creme Brulee is the ultimate 'guy' dessert. Make it and he'll follow you anywhere.