All the great chefs I know - Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten - they are technicians first.

Food can be utilized for economic reasons, like the grain embargo of Carter 40 years ago. You have a political decision, you are going to move the flow of food in a part of the world and not another part of the world. And certainly now, with the way the country is polarized and all that, you wouldn't want to have a French menu, with a French thing - you'd be crucified! Or anything like that. You have to be a real American and apple pie and this and that.

When you are at home, even if the chicken is a little burnt, what's the big deal? Relax.

I am a glutton. I'll eat whatever is there. Pizza. I love hot dogs anywhere. I've got nothing against any of that. If I feel like eating, I eat. I don't feel guilty about it at all.

The menus that remain, for me, are really the menus that you have with your good friends, with your wife, with your mother, with your kids. These are what stay in your mind.

I say: If you don't know how to cook, I'm sure you have at least one friend who knows how to cook. Well, call that friend and say, 'Can I come next time and can I bring some food and can I come an hour or two hours ahead and watch you and help you?'

You can't escape the taste of the food you had as a child. In times of stress, what do you dream about? Your mother's clam chowder. It's security, comfort. It brings you home.