I think the best shortcut is to choose really simple recipes. Because I think you can make simple recipes that are as delicious as complicated ones.

The most overrated tool: a pasta maker. Why make it when you can buy it? It's a lot of work!

I use other cookbooks for inspiration. I must say I tend to cook from my own cookbooks for parties.

People have more fun if they don't eat so much they have to be taken home in an ambulance.

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.

Instead of going out to dinner, buy good food. Cooking at home shows such affection. In a bad economy, it's more important to make yourself feel good.

Every once in a while, a cookbook comes along that simply knocks me out.